NtS: Include text from pages linking to triangles page. ~~~~~~~~ The site development has been abandoned but I've continued to add to this file. The pages of this site that cover V2.79 are of some use if you can't update to v2.80 because you can't update your graphics card. It will also give you an idea of what the software is/does. Above, it was stated that there are different versions of Blender. Many of the earlier versions had incremental updates but at the point of v2.80, there were radical changes. Before 2.80, Blender would work on virtually any computer. When they moved to 2.80, it would no longer work on computers with older graphics cards. Trying to open 2.80 on a computer with an incompatible graphics card would result in an error message or (in my case) it would simply crash. If there is no way that you will be able to upgrade your computer (in some locations, it's not possible due to the cost of an upgrade), you can learn to use Blender by using V2.79. The functionality is much the same and the older version is powerful. If you eventually move to 2.80, the differences won't take long to learn (about a week for me and the way I use it). More on graphics cards will come later when rendering is covered. ~~~~~~~~ Remember that you can set up the interface (tabs, settings, configurations as the startup file and each time you open Blender, everything will be as you like it. ~~~~~~~~ Blender is designed more for the artistic than the technical. I wanted a cheap (free was good) 3D application that was not cloud based. Blender, although not perfect, was the best I could find. I think the those responsible for Blender specifically stated that they didn't want it to be a technical CAD package so some features are lacking, regarding that field, but you can find work-arounds for most issues. It takes a bit of time to learn to use this software but the features are not the biggest problem. MUCH of the problem is learning why it's not functioning as expected. Many times, it's due to a setting that you changed but don't remember changing. Other problems are sometimes just soft crashes that don't stop the software from functioning but cause some feature to stop working. Sometimes the ESC key helps, Sometimes cancelling and then re-selecting something (like a modifier) will return normal operation. Sometimes, you have to save and restart Blender. There have been a few instances where the computer had to be restarted. I'm not putting full blame on Blender but it's the only software that's ever caused me so many problems. When I get frustrated, I ask myself if I want a refund for what I paid for it. ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Don't Move Objects Willy-Nilly: Get used to entering movement and rotation commands via the keyboard instead of moving them with the mouse. When you start working with objects, you may tend to want to move objects by grabbing them and dropping them where you want them. The problem is that you're viewing a 3D space on a 2D monitor (unless you're from the future) and it's difficult to tell precisely what you're doing. This can waste a LOT of time. For manipulating object position or rotation, it's better, initially, if you avoid grabbing and moving objects unless you're in one of the preset views like top, front or right-side. In those views, the object will only move along the two axes that are visible. When you are in other modes (user, perspective/orthographic) moving an object can move it in every axis and when you think you're moving it only left/right/up/down, you're actually moving it front/back as well. You can also move the object by enabling a widget and dragging the colored handles. For widgets, you have several options The most obvious is the TRANSFORM widget in the toolbar menu on the left side of the viewport. That allows any type of transform (move, rotate, scale). There is another group of gizmos in the VIEWPORT GIZMOS menu (near the shading buttons). They are individually dedicated to move, rotate or scale and can be left activated (until they become distracting or annoying). To move an object precisely along the y-axis (for example), you can use the input keystroke G-[any value]. A positive value moves it one way. A negative value moves it the other way. You can use the y-input field to enter a specific value or use the slider function to change the value (albeit, less precisely). Moving (G)/rotating (R)/scaling (S) objects this way will prevent you from having to realign objects that you wanted in exact positions. Don't try to move one object to another one unless they're already generally aligned. Move the origin of the objects and/or the 3D cursor and use those to move the objects. Use the right-click COPY ALL TO SELECTED (accessible when the mouse cursor is over the location of the second object selected). to move the objects. The SNAP TO feature can also be used but takes a bit of trial and error, initially, to learn to use it. There will be MANY times where you need to move the 3D cursor to one or a group of objects. If you use the SHIFT-S option to snap the CURSOR to SELECTED, the cursor will move to the origin of a single object or to the average position of a group of objects. ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Collections: In Blender prior to v2.80, you had 'layers'. This allowed you to organize items and keep them isolated from other scenes. In v2.80, you have 'COLLECTIONs'. These are very similar but have more options. One thing you should know is that many times, when you move items to another collection (as a copy or because it's no longer needed in another collection) is that the newly formed collection (M-key >> MOVE TO COLLECTION >> + NEW COLLECTION), the object may remain visible (leading you to think it hasn't been moved). You have to go and un-tick the box leading the newly made collection to make it invisible. When selecting objects, you will sometimes inadvertently select a light-source or even the camera. You can make all of these un-selectable but it's easier to move them to their own collection (named 'equipment' ?). There you can make them hidden or un-selectable as an entire group, or individually. Options in Collections: When you first open a file, the OUTLINER (top right corner in LAYOUT workspace - options along top of viewport), you will only see an EYE icon on the far right. This lets you hide various objects from the 3D viewport. There are several other useful options. By clicking the FILTER button above the eye icon, you will be able to choose the other options. Select them all until you see which you prefer. These let you hide items, not only from the 3D view but also from the render view. ~~~~~~~~ Protecting Your Files: Like other software, if you save a file that's corrupt or has some sort of problem in the the project you're working on, that file will overwrite the previous version. If you think that there is a problem with the file you're saving, add a '01, 02, 02...' or a letter in front of the .blend extension. EXPECT this program to crash. Sometimes it works well for weeks. Other times it will crash when performing operations that worked well many times before. The crashing of the same operation may happen repeatedly then begin working properly again. The computer I use this on is decent (modern Radeon GPU, 16G of memory) and the computer is rock-solid stable. Another note, the files don't always update the time/date stamp for the files when saved. This means that sorting by date to find the latest files doesn't always work as expected. Save often and even go into the file manager of your operating system and copy and paste a copy of the file. For Windows, the file 'filename.blend' will become 'filename - Copy.blend'. Blender sometimes does some weird things that are difficult to recover from. If you accidentally save when something odd has happened, you can recover from one of the saved files. Un-doing can sometimes help but if you saved and closed the file, the file will lose its undo history (EDIT >> UNDO HISTORY). Many people think files fill their drives but these files are generally small and hard drive space isn't an issue. If it still bothers you, save them when working with the files and then, after you have the project finished, delete the files that you feel are taking up space on your storage drive and are slowing down your computer (files VERY rarely slow down a computer). Before you perform any significant operation (boolean, beveling...) on some object that you have significant time in making, copy and paste that object into a different collection so you can easily recover if you can't undo the operation for some reason. One time, I accidentally went to open a file and saved a junk file as the one I wanted to open. I don't know how I did it but I was happy to have a recently saved backup file. Automatic backups: Blender can be set up to automatically save any number of .blend[number] files. These are backups of files that you have saved. Blender also has an autosave function that's set to save an auto-save file every 2 minutes. If you have a crash, you can recover from that file. he file will look something like this. The 990fx is my computer (yours will be different). The '_3116_autosave' was added to the original file name by blender. C:\Users\990fx\AppData\Local\Temp\hex key allen wrench 02 handle_3116_autosave.blend In some instances, you may be doing something that you don't intend to save and just close Blender without saving... and then remember something about it that you wish you would have saved. Blender produces QUIT files that will allow you to recover those files. ~~~~~~~~ Adding Objects: When adding objects, be aware of the add menu's appearance in edit and object modes. In some instances, you may want to add an object but might be in edit mode. You will quickly find that adding an object in edit mode is a very different thing than adding in object mode. Fortunately, if you're adding an object and accidentally do it in edit mode, you can undo that and when you add in object mode, the settings will still be there when you add again. ~~~~~~~~ When Starting: Set preferred dimensions (CM - centimeter - works well). Everything is relative so you can change the dimensions later. Bring in the reference/guide image in one of the orthagonal views and scale it by dropping in a circle of the dimensions of one of the larger objects in the image. Set the image to 'back'. Set the image to the center (ALT-G) and then use the X-handle or the fields in the empty-image dialog box to properly place the reference. >>> Use reference images. They can prevent stupid, time-consuming mistakes. After getting the reference image positioned and scaled, make it un-selectable so you won't inadvertently select it when selecting something else. Save the file with the desired file name. Make it a name that will be descriptive so you can find it later. I save the files with the reference name as the root. For example, if the reference image is xyz.jpg, the Blender file will be saved as xyz.jpg.blend. Then, when I render a finished image, the finished file follows suit and will be xyz.jpg.blend.png. This makes files saved in various folders easy to find, especially if using 'Find Everything'. An actual file name of the final image 'mechanical-engineering-drawing-33.jpg.blend.png'. ~~~~~~~~ Curves: A Bezier curve is a volume-less component that starts with two 'handled' vertices. You can adjust the handles or the position of either main vertex and the shape of the curve will change. The Bezier curve can be converted to a tubular structure. You can use it to make things like wires and pipes. It can also be used to influence the shape of other objects. This is another object that it's often better not to move the handles in free space. It can lead to unexpected changes. View the curve from one of the fixed views (TOP, FRONT, RIGHT-SIDE). From those views the movement will only be in the two visible axes. The Bezier curves, for me, are still somewhat of a problem as they relate to other objects. Using Bezier curves on their own is relatively straight-forward. You can easily adjust their diameter, shape (of the tube) and shape along its length (like a snake). When using curves to shape other objects, you have to do it precisely right or... expect pain. Blender can convert meshes/lines to curves so if you need to make a curved tubular object, you can make it from the bits and pieces of planes and circles, then convert it to a curve. A good way to get a bevel in a moderately difficult location. Make the desired bevel shape (circle in a square is a good start). Go to the shape that you want to bevel and duplicate (SHIFT-D in EDIT MODE) a line of vertices then 'P' it to break it out. Convert both the bevel shape and the line of vertices Make the bevel shape the 'bevel' for the curve that's the line of vertices. You will have to adjust the vertical position of the shape receiving the bevel shape. You will also likely have to (in EDIT MODE) adjust the scale, position (vs the origin) and Z-rotation of the bevel shape. Start with a simple example to make the learning curve a bit less steep. You can use this method to make a profile for a tire or pulley and avoid the issue of a notchy round object. These are essentially perfect. You can then use an array to make a quick industrial/military tread. ~~~~~~~~ Scaling and Rotation: Scaling is changing the size of an object (one or more axes). Rotation is turning an object around one or more axes. Modified scaling or rotation can cause problems when you are performing virtually any operation. After scaling or rotating an object, use CTRL-A and reset them to a scale of 1 and rotation of 0°. Rotation will also reset the axes to what you'd expect by looking at the object in the 3D viewport. ~~~~~~~~ Arrays: Arrays are used to produce a pattern of objects. They can be around a center point (think wheel nut pattern on a car rim or holes around a pipe flange), in a line (row of bricks) or many other types by applying multiple arrays to an object (brick wall). The biggest problem with arrays can be solved by resetting the scale and rotation with CTRL-A. If you do not, the objects in the array will do very unexpected things. This caused me more problems than anything else regarding arrays. You will use an EMPTY for many arrays. The empty will be rotated to influence the arrayed objects. If the empty is scaled, the same thing will happen as when the arrayed object is modified (without resetting the rotation and scale). When you're using an empty to rotate objects around that empty, you must rotate the empty on the axis that you want the objects to be laid out on. When rotating around an empty, you will generally move the object from the center of the circle and move the origin of that object from the mass of the object to the center of the circle that the object will be distributed around. Rotational Arrays. In some instances, you may want to have an array of objects arrayed for a number of degrees (i.e. 270°) and will want that array centered at a point that doesn't correspond to the starting point of the array. To get the array positioned, you have to adjust the rotation of both the objects being arrayed AND the empty that's you're rotating around. The easiest way to do this may be to rotate the object and the array together. You don't need to get the angle perfect. Get it close and look at the angles for the two and enter the numbers in the rotation fields. For example, if you have 27.3... and 71.6... Enter 27 and 72 to get the rotation perfect. If you want to rotate incrementally, use the CTRL or the CTRL-SHIFT keys to snap to 5° or 1° increments. ~~~~~~~~ Boolean Operations: Boolean operations are those where you tell Blender to add or subtract the volume of one object from another intersecting object or to leave only the volume where they intersect. This is very useful but has issues. The biggest problems with boolean can be solved with the YT video. https://youtu.be/JJg2uYefVIw 1. Non-manifold, sometimes easy to repair. Sometimes not. 2. Loose geometry, solved with search for loose geometry (from mesh menu) and deleting. 3. Sometimes (last resort) limited dissolve. Since they removed CARVE option, the boolean modification doesn't work as often. Sometimes reordering the various operations on a component can make it more likely to work. If you're going to perform multiple operations, do them in a specific order. For the example of a split-pin, bevel first so you don't have to bevel across other lines. Cut with thin cube, next. Lastly bore with a smaller cylinder. In any other order, expect pain. In virtually every case, you will want to bore last. Punching any significant number of holes in an object can fragment the face and make it difficult to finish. Don't try to cut an object where there is a group of vertices in the 'cutting edge' of the object you're using to cut into the object. ~~~~~~~~ Beveling: Beveling (as well as boolean operations) are weak in Blender. For example, if you want to bevel a surface and the bevel will run into an edge (plenty around the body of a cy,inder, as one example), the bevel won't cross the bevel. One solution is to generate a new surface that's separate from the difficult surface and overlay the new surface. This is easiest where two flat surfaces meet but won't bevel normally, where they meet. To do this, select a face (or two if you want to bevel 4-ways (both sides of a cube, vertically AND both sides on the bottom). After selecting, use the E-key to start extrusion operation and hit escape to cancel This will leave new material. Then you scale it in the direction you want to have the bevels. Then select the edges in the square corners you want to bevel. OK. That was simple. This is also simple but requires a few more steps. Let's say that you want to do this where a cube meets a cylinder. Place the beveled surface close to the cylinder (within about 10% of the diameter of the cylinder). Place the cursor on the surface that was scaled and beveled. Add a lattice. Make the lattice 2 dimensional so that it's a plane in parallel with the scaled surface. Subdivide the planar lattice. Apply the lattice to the scaled object using the lattice modifier. Then select the lattice and apply the shrinkwrap modifier to it with the cylinder as the target. way to get bevels on round objects with lots of edges 01.blend <<< an example. ~~~~~~~~ Vertices, Edges and Faces: When working with objects in EDIT mode (at the most basic level), you will work with three types of components. Understand that with Blender, all objects are hollow. You're essentially looking at a series of faces that make a shape. Let's take a cube as an example. The cube has 6 faces. In OBJECT mode, this is all you see. In EDIT mode, each face has a border made of EDGES. The edges show up as straight lines. For the cube, there are 12 edges. At each corner, there is a VERTEX, 8 total for a cube. If you move any of these individual components, it will stretch the other components to conform to the new shape. ~~~~~~~~ Making faces on a loop of vertices: When you make a shape from other shapes and only keep the outline, you will have to put a face on it to extrude it to make it 3-dimensional. When it fights you by making oddly formed faces that aren't just one smooth face, the fixes above will generally help. ~~~~~~~~ Face Issues: Many times, you have a problem with NORMALS (shown here: http://www.asos1.com/blender/blender01-extrude01.htm) where faces are reversed. Under the mesh menu, you will find the 'normal' tools that can fix their orientation. To make a quick check of the status of the faces, you can use the VIEWPORT OVERLAYS >> FACE ORIENTATION feature. If you turn that on and orbit all around your object/scene and all is blue, the face normals are correct. If you see any red, that object needs to have it's OUTSIDE NORMALS RECALCULATED in EDIT MODE (keyboard shortcut SHIFT-N). When making a profile shape from others, work from hollow 2D objects (circles and planes with faces removed) instead of working with 3D objects. It cuts WAY down on time and complexity. When done, you face it and extrude to make it 3D. When trying to merge vertices to make one continuous string of vertices, you can use the GG keystroke to move a vertices along an edge (not in free space) towards the vertices on the next object. Move the vertex that would have been deleted if it wasn't moved 'into play'. When you have two faces in precisely the same place, you will get a strange wobbly looking area. Moving the inner one in just about 0.01 will eliminate it. If you have this problem with a boolean cut, make the cutting object slightly larger when cutting the inner object. Then reduce to the proper size to cut the outer (outwardly visible) object surface. ~~~~~~~~ Merging Vertices: This sort of ties in with the face issues topic. Sometimes, you'll end up with two (or more) vertices that are not visible as individual vertices. This can cause all sorts of issues. You'll be in edit mode (if you're dealing with vertices) but you also need to be in X-RAY mode so that you can select multiple vertices that are on top of one-another. You can check for anomalies by grabbing a vertex and moving it (use undo to put it back where it was or use ESC to stop the move). Use one of the select options like BOX, LASSO or CIRCLE and select the vertices (you can see how many vertices you have selected in the information line at the bottom of the viewport). ~~~~~~~~ Smoothing: To make reflective surfaces smoother without using subdivision surface mods, you can use SHADE SMOOTH and go to the VERTEX DIALOG BOX. Under the NORMALS tab, tick the AUTO SMOOTH box to fix the mess that the SHADE SMOOTH option makes. While using a higher resolution (when making cylinders and such) will make objects smoother but if you go too far, it will make the object difficult/slow to manipulate and if you use something like subdivision subsurface, it could crash the software. ~~~~~~~~ Rendering: With most graphics software, what you see is what you get. There is no processing of the image except for choosing the saved files properties (resolution, file type...). What you see in the 3D viewport of Blender isn't what's going to be in the final RENDERED image. In the viewport, you will see cameras, lights, EMPTIES and various other objects that you won't see in the rendered version. In fact, the viewport is often unrecognizable from the final image. Render in new window (RENDER, DISPLAY MODE, NEW WINDOW) for easier closing of rendering image. In some instances, you will attempt to save a rendered image from the RENDER RESULT WINDOW but the toolbar won't be visible. If this happens, you can make it visible by maximizing the render result window. One thing you should know is that the rendering will be from the CAMERA VIEW and not from the angle that's currently being displayed (out of camera view). To toggle camera view, use the ZERO on the number pad. Shading: There are various types of SHADING in the viewport. Understand that this type of software is very powerful and when doing the most complex tasks, it uses a LOT of computer power. The simplest shading types are either SOLID or WIREFRAME. The most processor intensive shading modes are MATERIAL or RENDER (LOOK DEV and RENDERED in v2.80). If you don't need to see the colors and textures, you will likely use one of the simpler render modes. If you use a background image, it will only show up in MATERIAL or RENDER and may only show up correctly in perspective mode (toggles orthographic with 5 on the number pad). If you need to render an image like a PNG, JPG..., you can make it texture on a plane. You may need to add the color modifier to the material in SHADING, RGB CURVES and BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST. Set all roughness and specularity to 0. ~~~~~~~~ Render Engines: In Blender, there are multiple render engines (EEVEE, WORKBENCH, CYCLES included and RPR available as an addon). Using one for everything may be less confusing but you may find that each one has its pros and cons. Eevee is fast but limited in render capability (simple lighting, little to no reflections or complex materials). CYCLES is very capable but I have a terrible problem with noise (fireflies). I had the best results with RPR (next section, below). RPR has an included materials library which can make getting good results easier on complex objects (especially for a newbie). Both Cycles and RPR are much slower than Eevee and generally only used in render mode in final checking of the project. If speed in orbiting around objects and such are the most important, use simple colors for the materials. That will allow you to use any render engine and see the colors applied. If you make special colors in RPR (for example) and switch back to Eevee, the entire object may be all black or at the very least, incorrectly colored. It was stated above that you can use simple colors (colors and materials are essentially the same but colors with textures become materials and those materials can become incompatible with sone render engines) to use a faster render engine. In Blender, materials/colors that are no longer used are removed from the materials list after you save, close and reopen a file. You can tell which files have no objects using them because they will have a leading 0 in the list of materials. If you want use the faster Eevee but want to experiment with more complex materials (possibly not compatible with the faster Eevee) and don't want to lose them because they were time-consuming to perfect, you don't have to lose them. Remember, the materials will only be removed from the list if you have no more objects using that material. With the materials you want to save, copy and paste the object (with the incompatible materials) to another collection (collection named to indicate it's purpose). Then you can modify the materials on the object in the main scene. To change a material select that material and click the X just below the list of the object's materials, the material won't be lost. It will simply be removed from that object. Note: If you change the materials on a linked object, all linked objects will be modified. Quick material: Reflective: Metallic > 1 Specular > 1 Roughness > 0 Alpha: 0 makes 100% transparent. 1 makes it 0% transparent. IOR: Index of Refraction tells you how much the light will 'bend' as it reflects off of or passes through an object. For a GLASS SPHERE (right-click SHADE SMOOTH used) in RPR, near 1.00 IOR magnifies. Below 1 there is no inversion (right-side up for images passing through an object). Above 1.00, there will be an inversion. 1.5 is about normal glass. ~~~~~~~~ Materials in RadeonProRender (RPR): In some instances, using highly reflective finishes can lead to a lot of strange reflections, many black). Using a paint that's very nearly the same may be a good option. For example, using chrome was awful where using Metallic Paint Silver produced very good results (looked chrome) without all of the headaches. The materials from one project/file are isolated from other files. If you have a specific material that you like but it was time consuming to get just right, you can apply it to a simple object and copy that object. Then paste it into your current project. Opening Multiple Files: Although you can close one file and open another to copy and paste objects (the object will be retained in the buffer after closing Blender), you can open more than one and have them both open at the same time but you have to open the file from the file manager. Double-click the file and it will open normally. If you open another instance of Blender, it will force you to close the first instance before it will open another instance. Opening from the file manager doesn't require that you close anything. ~~~~~~~~ Subdivision Subsurface: Useful but slows down everything. Always save your file before clicking on this modifier. ~~~~~~~~ Rendering Animations: Use png output to produce individual frames in case you get a crash. Use the Video Sequencer to assemble a strip. After you assemble (render animation CTRL-F12) the strip of images, if you move them from the folder they were in when you selected them, you also have to delete the strip in the sequencer. If you don't, Blender won't render images (F12). ~~~~~~~~ Combining Objects: If you're drawing technical objects (vs artistic/organic objects), you may need to combine objects/shapes to make the final object. To do this well, you may need to be precisely place objects so that vertices are in the right location (one circle to another or a circle to a straight line). Even if you've moved the origin from the center of the geometry so you could sweep it along the perimeter of another circle, you can rotate the object locally by going into edit mode. Selecting all and rotating along the Z axis (if viewed from the top) will allow you to place pixels more precisely. LOCAL and GLOBAL were mentioned. This can be a bit confusing. Let's take the X, Y and Z axes orientation for an example. The global axes are always aligned with the axes of the viewport. The local axes follow the rotation of the object. The initial local axes of an object are aligned with the viewport when the object was created. When you rotate the object. the LOCAL axes rotate with it. You can see the local/global axes orientation by turning on the rotation GIZMO and selecting global or local from the drop-down list from the center top/bottom of the viewport. Since you may need to align pixels to two points, you can rotate for one and for the other, you can subdivide two adjacent pixels for the other, if needed. Set smoothing in the subdivision dialog box to 1 so the pixels are placed along a curve instead of a straight line between the subdivided pixels. Subdivision: There is SUBDIVISION SURFACE and the much simple right-click (in edit mode) SUBDIVIDE. Subdivision surface can produce a huge amount of geometry that can make the object difficult to manipulate. The simple subdivide just adds the number of vertices (generally, what's added) that you specify. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Not Problems, more like features ~~~~~~~~ Tracking: For cameras and directional lights, this is the best thing since sliced bread. <<< Seriously. It allows you to move the camera/light to any position and it will always face whatever it's tracked to. It's best to track to an EMPTY (use a SPHERE type as the tracking handle if you don't generally use them elsewhere) so you can move it independently of the object of interest. You can try to adjust the angle of cameras and light manually but after you use tracking once, you will likely never do either manually (for single objects) ever again. It takes bout 8 mouse clicks that are so simple and intuitive that they will become second nature. ~~~~~~~~ RadeonProRender: When you set up a scene (even for a single object that you've drawn), you will have to RENDER the image. For simple renders, the Eevee render engine may suffice. Eevee is fast but not as accurate as other render engines. For better renders, you'll either use cycles or something like RadeonProRender. I've never been able to get cycles to work well. RPR is MUCH easier. The main advantage is that it has pre-made materials (basic colors and textures to wrap object in. RPR is optimized to be used with Radeon graphics cards. Graphics cards are typically better suited for the computations needed to render graphics. RPR takes advantage of this. You can select either CPU (computer CPU) or GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to perform the calculations to see which is faster for your computer. Like with gaming, faster cards will produce faster rendering. The quality of the final render will be no different. Render Quality: Rendering quality is determined by the number of samples per pixel. More samples means more accuracy in the final image but requires more computations and therefore more time to render the image. For single images, the render time for the final image isn't generally a significant issue. For Animations where there will be many frames to render, render times can be hours, days, even weeks. While this isn't likely to be a problem that someone new to Blender will have to deal with, it could be later. For people who have large projects to render, the work is often sent to 'render farms' where many dedicated computers are used to get the work done more quickly. What could take a week on a moderately fast personal computer could take just hours at a render farm. Settings for RPR: For what I do, a minimum and maximum sample setting of 256 works well. The noise setting of 0.25 works well. Those are starting points. The settings for the 3D viewport, the samples are set far lower. 64 samples is the default and works well. Open GL 3.3 or Higher: The graphics card that you use with RPR must be fairly new. It's stated that it will work with any 3.3 or later card but it would not work with my 3.3 card. If you buy a new card, it will almost certainly have a open GL4+ firmware and won't have any problems. Bitmining Cards: You should know that many graphics cards have been used for bitmining (mining BitCoin or other cryptocurrency). For those seriously into bitmining, the BIOS on the graphics card is replaced with one that's better suited for mining. If the BIOS isn't restored, it won't work as a graphics card. If you're not capable of flashing the BIOS on the card (not always possible), buy new or get a guarantee from the seller that the card hasn't been tampered with. One more thing on used cards... When a card has been used, especially for gaming, the heatsink compound between the heatsink and the GPU may dry out. Also, the heatsink is typically mounted on springs. This means that a bump to the heatsink can separate the sink from the GPU. When this happens, the compound around the perimeter of the GPU can flip up and between the GPU and sink. When this happens. the GPU will overheat VERY quickly. If you buy a used card, expect to have to remove the old compound and replace it. ~~~~~~~~ Backgrounds: When you draw an object. you can use the sky type background, a colored background or an image. Using an image is likely most interesting. It doesn't need to be in perfect focus (think depth of field, far away from the object). The best type of background is one that covers 360° so you can put your camera anywhere and you will have background. The backgrounds will vary as you pan around. If you have your camera positioned where you want it but the part of the background behind the object isn't positioned where you want it, you can rotate it (generally in the Z-axis). In RPR, you do this under WORLD >> GIZMO and adjust the axes to whatever best suits you. This can be slow if you try dragging the value (in the input slider) unless you have a really fast CPU/GPU so inputting values like 40, 90, 180... may get you close. Then you can fine-tune the position of the background. Violet Backgrounds (and other objects): When you see a violet background, it generally means that the background is not in the same location as it was (with reference to the location of the file you're working with). The same thing happens when you're working with something like shading (node mode) where you need to select an image to act as a surface texture. Finding Backgrounds: The backgrounds you want are typically referred to as HDRI (High Dynamic Range Images, not the same as images without the trailing I). The best source I've found is below. The backgrounds on this site are spherical images and are visible, no matter the camera angle. These images aren't just to make an image more interesting (although that's a real benefit) but they also give images much more depth due to the varying light sources and reflections (even on non-reflective surfaces). https://hdrihaven.com/hdris/ When downloading backgrounds, you will often have several file size options. If you're simply looking to have something other than a plain, boring background or you want something to provide more complex reflections and lighting (some lighting comes from the background image), you can use a small file, low resolution image. If you want the background to interact in a meaningful way (reflections on mirror objects, a surface and surroundings for something like a 3D model of a vehicle...), you may want to use larger files that will give higher resolution. When using large files, expect it to take much longer each time Blender has to load or render the background image. From the site above, I rarely use anything larger than 4k files. The larger 8k and 16k files (300MB+) are too much for anything other than, possibly, the final rendered image. Again, the background is only displayed in MATERIAL or RENDER shading modes. ~~~~~~~~ Keyboard Shortcuts: The keyboard shortcuts are shown on the web page but there are two that are especially useful. The first is the dot on the number pad. It zooms to the selected object. Sometimes zooming is slow or limited. The dot rarely ever has a problem being slow. You should also know that orthographic or perspective (5 on the number pad) affects zooming. Orthographic has far fewer problems than perspective. The other is the slash on the number pad. This key will toggle the LOCAL VIEW. In local view, all you will see is the object (or objects) that's selected. When used, all other objects will be hidden and the object will be zoomed-in on. This is useful when you are editing one object that's amongst other objects (that can block your view when editing). In Blender V2.79, the A-key would select all and de-select all. In v2.80, 'A' still selects all but a quick AA or ALT-A will de-select all. If in EDIT mode with multiple vertices, edges, faces selected, CTRL-[number pad ±] increases/decreases the selected items. ~~~~~~~~ Add-ons: Add-ons are features that sometimes need to be loaded. They're available but likely optional to reduce load times. The ones I like are the BoltFactory and MeasureIt. I tried making threaded bolts and did a fair job but I like using th bolts to cut threads into objects (using the Boolean modifier) and the threaded bolts I made myself were a total failure there, especially since they removed the CARVE option from the Boolean modifier. The second is MeasureIt. Keeping dimensions accurate are difficult (for me, at least) in edit mode. You can do what you believe is correct then check it with the MeasureIt add-on. If it's off, the dimensions are dynamically updated as you move a point. This is best done in vertex-select (my preference) or edge-select mode (in edit mode). If you select a face and tell it to produce a segment (measurement), it will give you 4 dimensions. To include dimensions on render add dimenstions to drawing_2620_autosave.blend ~~~~~~~~ Reference Images: For many items, producing a copy of an object (will be done regularly when learning to use Blender) it is much easier if you have a reference to work from. These reference images can be dragged and dropped into the viewport. When they're inserted in this way, they will be listed as an EMPTY which means that they will not be rendered. It's strongly recommended that you do this from the top, front or right orthographic view (1, 3 or 7 on the keypad - 5 toggles orthographic/perspective). When you drop them in those views, the image will lay parallel to those viewpoints. You can adjust the ALPHA of the image to make it fade. You can scale the empty image to make its size correspond to the dimensions you're drawing to. When the empty image is used, you can choose whether it's visible in orthographic, perspective or both views. If, for example, you select only the orthographic display, it will show up in the top, front and right views but if you orbit from those views, the empty image will disappear. Put the reference image outside of the individual collections if you want to see it in all of them. Many reference images will be distorted and possibly not perfectly square (rotation). Use the dimensions and not the lines on the image. They should correspond but may not align perfectly. ~~~~~~~~ Practice for Learning 3D CAD: You can learn all of the features of Blender (or any software) but until you use the software for various projects, you won't really have a working knowledge of it. I prefer DuckDuckGo to Google but for images, Google is better. If you use the following search term, you can find many images to practice with. Many are the images I posted at the top of the Blender page (orange text reading, Sample Images). 3d cad practice images mechanical drawings -pinterest ~~~~~~~~ Orbit Action - Lock to: If in USER PREFERENCES, you have the option to orbit around the selected/active object and you're having trouble positioning your viewpoint, select an object near where you want to look so the orbit motion can lock-in on something. That's generally the best way to view an object but if you want to override that, go to NUMBER PANEL >> VIEW and select another object or one of the boxes that you can tick. Don't forget that you've chosen this option if you can't determine why the orbit (or zoom) action isn't working as expected. ~~~~~~~~ Q-Keyboard Shortcut: The Quick Favorites menu is wonderful. It allows you to access the most used features. You add them by right-clicking a feature or menu and select add to quick favorites. As an example, I currently have the following in my menu. Origin to 3D cursor Toggle quad view Selection to cursor Cursor to selected Cursor to active Origin to center of mass Rotation and scale Track to ~~~~~~~~ Blender's Native File Manager: While you can load .blend files from your computer's operating system file manager, using the one in Blender has some advantages. In Win7 (I don't know about other operating systems), there are not always relative photo icons for the .blend files displayed. All you might get is the Blender logo when in icon/thumbnail mode. In Blender, if you click the file manager icon that looks like 4 square panes, you get icons that show a thumbnail image of the file that will include all 'collections' that are marked visible when the file was saved. To sort by date (to choose one of the last files you worked on), click the hourglass icon in the Blender file manager. As a bonus, Blender can even show thumbnails for the .hdr files that you use as backgrounds. The thumbnails will likely be in grayscale format if you use RPR. If you want colored thumbnails, go into EEVEE and choose not to use nodes for materials. Then choose whatever colors you want used in the thumbnails. These colors have no effect on the RPR render engine, although the non-node colors may show up in solid mode. ~~~~~~~~ Lattice: The Lattice modifier (ADD MODIFIERS >> DEFORM >> LATTICE) allows you to deform an object without modifying the shape of the object. When you do this, it works a bit better if you add additional geometry to make the surfaces a bit more 'flexible' to the lattice modifier. The lattice has only the minimum number of handles (vertices) when created. You can create more to allow more adjustability/control of the deformation. You apply the modifier to the object to be deformed then select the lattice that's formed around that object as the OBJECT in the lattice modifier. I don't know why they use the word 'object' to select the lattice, but they do. ~~~~~~~~ Additional Geometry: Some modifiers work more effectively when you break up the surfaces of an object with the right-click SUBDIVIDE feature. You typically want to strike a happy medium between added geometry and deformability. ~~~~~~~~ Subdivision Surface and MultiResolution: ** Before selecting either of these, save your file ** SS is active as soon as it's selected and at that point can cause a system crash. MR is only activated when you press it's subdivide button. It can also cause a crash at that point. If you didn't save your file and it takes forever (not responding), walk away (get a nice cup of DEcaf) and come back in several minutes if you get tired of waiting. These are two resource hogs (especially above '1' or '2')s until you apply them. Even then, they can slow things down and alternatives may be better options. If you have a scene where you need to apply high values with either of these, I'd suggest that you copy and paste them into another blank blender file and go from solid to render modes to see what level is acceptable. You should probably wait until you're essentially finished with the scene to apply high values. Alternatives: Subdivide (right-click SUBDIVIDE) only the face you need to deform and only as much as needed. Use PROPORTIONAL EDITING to deform. Use SHADE SMOOTH (remember to tick VERTEX PANEL >> NORMALS >> AUTO SMOOTH) and if you need more smoothing either try manually subdividing a few more times or use low values in SS or MR. When you go to re-subdivide, use undo to go back to just before you initially subdivided. Add near top of page If Blender is acting strangely, you can forget that you've turned on one of the following: Snapping Pivot point Transformation Orientation (global, local...) Proportional Editing (^^^ top center of 3D viewport) Local view NUMBERPAD-/ Parenting Copy all to selected ALT-R, ALT-G etc sets values to 0 When entering the same numerical value into two or more adjacent fields, you can drag across the values to make more than one active. Then entering one value will go to all highlighted. If you drag starting on the desired value, all will take that value. There are keystroke combinations (keyboard shortcuts) that duplicate features that are in the various menus. There have been times where the keyboard access/activation of various features don't work and you have to use the menu to use them. ~~~~~~~~ After deleting a face that has holes in it, you can't use the F (face) command to recreate the face with the hole as part of it. The face will simply ignore the vertices for the hole. You have to use ALT-F (fill or fancy-face-fill?). ALT-F will incorporate the hole if the hole vertices are selected. ~~~~~~~~ Packing Files: Blender has an annoying default habit of leaving texture files out of the saved files as the default. If you ever plan on moving either the .blend file, any of the supporting texture/image files or renaming any directorsies involved, pack your files by default. If you do not, expect pain if you need the working files. You can enable packing by doing this: FILE >> EXTERNAL DATA >> AUTOMATICALLY PACK INTO .BLEND. One problem I had was that when this was chosen, the rendered file lost most of it's contrast. This may have been due to a weak implementation of the IBL file. Where I could see reflections directly, they were weak (barely visible). Where the IBL provided strong lighting with the associated shadows, both were weak. Unpacking the files UNPACK ALL INTO FILES >> WRITE FILES INTO CURRENT DIRECTORY (OVERWRITE EXISTING FILES) returned the rendered image to what it was (good lighting/contrast) and the saved file returned to it's pre-packed file size. Be aware that Blender unpacks the textures to a TEXTURES folder and the files from other .blend files may be unpacked to the same texture folder. When packing files with blend files, move the .blend file to it's own dedicated folder, with the same name as the .blend file and unpack there. ~~~~~~~~ Joining Problems: In some instances, an object will have a 0.000000000 thickness and scale. If you try joining those objects, they will disappear. Resetting the rotation and ssale (and likely just scale) will resolve the issue. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copied and pasted from the constraints.txt file. Copied and pasted from the constraints.txt file. Constraints The constraints are mostly common sense but their naming can be confusing. Starting point: It's important to note that even though the constraints can determine the various properties of an object, in some instances, the scaling, location and rotation can make the object act in unexpected ways. As an example, if the 3D cursor is not at the center point on the grid (x, y, z, 0, 0, 0) and you create a Bezier circle (to track to) and a camera (that is to follow that circle) and they are both created at the same point, the camera, instead of snapping to the circle as expected the camera will fly off, often well out of the visible workspace. When just getting started, use shift-c to center the cursor on the grid and create the various objects there. Remember that the Transform properties are referenced to the object that you're following. If you have not started zero out the Transform properties to see if that helps. Properties of Constrained Object: When you use a constraint on an object, it's location values will often remain what they were before the constraint was applied. This means that, in the case of a camera following a track (Bezier), if the camera was produced at 0, 0, 0 and the Track To pullis it 10 units from the center, the location will remain at 0, 0, 0. What are Constraints: Constraints determine/lock some property of an object. This can be scale, position, distance from an object, or the most important, the tracking constraint. The most commonly used (by me) constraint is the track-to constraint. This is generally used to make lights and the camera remain pointed at the target object no matter their position. This makes aiming these SO much easier than trying to do it manually. I am terrible trying to get the camera aimed. This makes it a breeze and requires just a few clicks to get it done perfectly. Constraints allow you to select an object like the camera or light and then choose the track-to constraint. When the dialog box comes up, the title will have a red background, meaning that it needs you to do something. The 'something' is often to select the target option (either eye-dropper or drop-down menu). To and Up: In addition to choosing a target, there are two more things that you need to do and this is where you can get confused. The 'To:' and the Up: must be selected. For most constraints and most objects, this is straightforward. The camera is the biggest oddball. Global vs Local axes Realize that there are different sets of axes. For this, the two main ones, Global and Local. Global is the one most commonly used/seen. The local is the axes assigned to the object (camera, light...). The constraints use the local axis and the camera's local axis isn't the same as the global. Switching to local by selecting it at the top of the workspace may make it easier to understand why you get various unexpected results (when you had global axes displayed). When no contraint is applied, you can twist the object and the local axis of the object will remain locked to it. No matter how you twist it, it's axes will remain locked to the workspace. In the constraints dialog box, you have to choose the axis that you want to point up as much as possible. The object will twist to keep that axis up (vertical). Typically, you will have the Z-axis as the UP. Oddball: It was stated that the camera is an oddball. You might expect that the Z axis would be the axis that you'd want in the Up option. It's not. If you set it to Z, the camera will be positioned 90°to the workspace. You have to select Y as the Up axis. The To: option may seem like it should be the X or Y axis. That's not the case. When you add a camera, turn on its gizmo and you'll see that the camera is facing down and Z axis is facing up. You will need to select the Z axis for the To: option but that puts the camera facing away from the target. You have to select -Z. Lights: Lights are similar to the camera in some ways but the Up axis isn't as critical. Lights like the spot or Difficult objects. In some instances, an object won't cooperate easily. It's sometimes easier to get an EMPTY to cooperate and then make the object the child of the empty. Then place the object with relationship to the empty's position to make it cooperate. See 100-cad-exercises-24-638.jpg.blend. The googly eyes didn't want to cooperate. The empty made it a breeze. Notes: Choosing the same axis for To: and Up: will not do anything. Re-read 'Starting Point' that you saw at the beginning of this page. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Test more If you disable nodes in EEVEE and make simple colors, then switch to RPR, the colors will still be displayed in solid mode. Solid mode had always been monochrome before in RPR.