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Dec
28
2014

Agonisingly simple shaders

Learning how to texture in Blender.  Here we have agonisingly basic skin, lip, eye and teeth shaders (the teeth were so basic that if I'd been using Lightwave I wouldn't have bothered with nodes but Blender seems to use nodes for anything more complicated than a colour it seems, which is cool).  Should hopefully be able to build on them on a per character basis.

Nov
11
2014

Blender Adventures Part 5a - quickie expression test

Base modedl frowning

At 8yo's request: "Make him frown!" (all the bases are gender neutral)

Base looking slightly puzzled

Seeing something mildly disturbing

Base surprised

Shock horror! I could have opened its mouth more but I was too lazy to go back to object mode to show the rig layer to be able to grab the jaw controller

Nov
09
2014

Blender notes - resetting shape key value to basis

To get a point that was moved incorrectly for whatever reason in a shape key and needs to be reset to the "Basis" position, from Adhi on StackExchange:

Use Blend From Shape:

  1. Select all vertices whose positions you want to reset,
  2. Execute Blend From Shape, accessible from W, Ctrl-V or Mesh > Vertices menu,
  3. Set "Basis" as shape key to blend from (by default),
  4. Set blend factor to the maximum value 1.0 (by default),
  5. Uncheck Add, so only values from "Basis" will be blended in, effectively reverting all selected vertices' position.

Kind of wish there was a slightly less arseabout way to do it but a way is better than no way.

Nov
09
2014

Blender Adventures Part 5

Still shape keying.  Base is partially amused.

Rubberlips can almost smile!

So far I've got all of a left eye wink and a half smile.  Once I got the left half smile right and figure out where the eyelashes go I'll mirror those shape keys and then do some really basic expression parts around happy, sad, angry and surprise which generally use the entire face.  Then make some phonemes with help from this useful phoneme shape guide someone had thoughtfully thrown at the internet.

Sculpt mode is awesome for shape keying.

Oct
13
2014

Blender Adventures Part 4

bek can rig, though I'm sure I'm probably doing it horribly wrong.  It's a combination of rigging techniques learned in Lightwave and playing with the Armature modifier, with one tangent into using bendy bones (single bones with multiple segments) for the spine from the head down and then two bendy bones for neck and spine.

Scorpion handstand rig test

Had to put one more controller in to flex the spine in the right direction.  The neck flexes one way (looking downward) fine but will not flex the other way (it's jaggy in this pose, effects can be seen if you look carefully at the neck), adding another shape to control the flex like I did with the spine didn't help and neither did my aforementioned tangent into bendy bones.

Sep
20
2014

Yet more retopo

Head and torso retopology in Blender 2.71

Head and torso retopologising in Blender 2.71

Aug
25
2014

Head retopo

Alternate title: my Blender muscles are atrophying -_-

I had a lot of work on the last three weeks and have now slowed down as I put out a call for help a couple of days ago and now waiting on a response.  In the meantime I'm slowing down back to normal and getting back into the 3d (no 3d for three weeks make bek something something).  So three weeks ago after stuffing around with the rig I eventually came to the conclusion that the topology around the hips was wrong.  After trying and failing to fix it by spinning edges, I decided to just retopo the whole thing because I wasn't sure about the loops around the face either.

Base head retopo

Feb
02
2014

Retopo

It's moving at a frightening pace for me as I'm used to doing everything with excruciating slowness.  I love bsurfaces.  It is quite literally the thing that had me giving Blender a go again at that point (previously my Blender attempts were for a couple of weeks once or twice a year, end of last year was a last ditch "this thing is cool so why not let's try it again" and that's when I got it).

Crosshatch retopo with bsurfaces in Blender

Cross-hatching mesh onto the face which I don't do anymore as I eventually found it quicker to just highlight edges and keep extending it rather than constantly merging points (mainly as I don't know how to merge a strip of points)

Dec
17
2013

Blender Adventures Part 3

More Lightwave and Blender comparison

I was having a bad day yesterday and irritated because I couldn't figure out Blender stuff quickly (on the bright side, thanks to Lightwave I at least have an idea of what I'm looking up) and told Josh that Blender was frustrating me and it was tempting to jump back into Lightwave but I didn't want to give up yet because Blender had some stuff that Lightwave didn't have like lattice deformation.

He got that deer caught in headlights look, smiled and nodded in an exaggerated "I have exactly no idea what you're on about dear" fashion and said that was nice.

The manual showed me where the edge editing tools were, I will have a look at them later when I need them.  Still need a point resymmetrising tool.

Retopology

I used to just wreak havoc on the mesh in Lightwave whenever I needed to retopo sections, because I could.  I've never wrung something through Sculptris before.

Dec
01
2013

Blender Adventures Part 2

I finally got basic modelling in Blender.

All I needed was to find where the subdivision tool was hidden.

Early days Blender and Lightwave comparison:

Layout

I prefer having a menu on my right as I use a Cintiq and find it quicker to access stuff I don't know keyboard shortcuts for (or that don't have keyboard shortcuts) if the menu is over to the right.  I can move it in preferences in Lightwave.