Tutorials on BlenderCookie.com
Sculpting a Male Human Bust in Blender
In this Blender tutorial by Kent Trammell you’ll be introduced to a basic sculpting workflow for creating a human bust. The final result of the tutorial is shown below.
What you’ll learn:
Starting with a simple base mesh, you’ll learn to shape form and anatomy with an artistic perspective in Blender’s Sculpt Mode with brushes like Grab, Draw, Inflate, Pinch, and Crease. The majority of the sculpting is done symmetrically. Towards the end of the sculpt we’ll pose the torso easily in Edit Mode with the proportional editing tool, while maintaining the sculpted detail in the Multiresolution modifier.
If you’re not familiar with Blender’s sculpting system then I recommend you check out our Introduction Blender’s Sculpting System video. It is slightly out of date now, but most of the content is still relavant.
Creating an Island Environment in Blender 2.6 – part 03
In this three-part tutorial series by David Ward you will be taken through the complete process of creating a tropical, island environment in Blender 2.6. With David’s guidance you will go from a barren landscape to the lush, final result that you see below in just about three hours.
What you’ll learn:
Through this tutorial you will learn how to use the ANT Landscape Generator add-on to create the landscape, how to use the OceanSim modifier, how to make easy trees and vegetation with alpha-mapped textures, how to populate your vegetation with particle systems, and you will learn how to create easy procedural rocks with a displacement texture and modifier. You will also be taken through the steps needed to composite the final render together, including add depth to the horizon, adding the clouds background and much more.
Creating an Island Environment in Blender 2.6 – part 02
In this three-part tutorial series by David Ward you will be taken through the complete process of creating a tropical, island environment in Blender 2.6. With David’s guidance you will go from a barren landscape to the lush, final result that you see below in just about three hours.
What you’ll learn:Through this tutorial you will learn how to use the ANT Landscape Generator add-on to create the landscape, how to use the OceanSim modifier, how to make easy trees and vegetation with alpha-mapped textures, how to populate your vegetation with particle systems, and you will learn how to create easy procedural rocks with a displacement texture and modifier. You will also be taken through the steps needed to composite the final render together, including add depth to the horizon, adding the clouds background and much more.
Creating an Island Environment in Blender 2.6 – part 01
In this three-part tutorial series by David Ward you will be taken through the complete process of creating a tropical, island environment in Blender 2.6. With David’s guidance you will go from a barren landscape to the lush, final result that you see below in just about three hours.
What you’ll learn:Through this tutorial you will learn how to use the ANT Landscape Generator add-on to create the landscape, how to use the OceanSim modifier, how to make easy trees and vegetation with alpha-mapped textures, how to populate your vegetation with particle systems, and you will learn how to create easy procedural rocks with a displacement texture and modifier. You will also be taken through the steps needed to composite the final render together, including add depth to the horizon, adding the clouds background and much more.
Creating a Tornado in Blender with Particles and the Smoke Simulator – part 02
This Blender tutorial will take you through the complete process needed to create a destructive tornado with Blender’s smoke simulator and particles, complete with flying debris.
What you’ll learn:
While watching this tutorial you will learn how to setup a smoke simulation that is controlled by particle movement, how to influence the particles/smoke with multiple force fields, how to make an object break apart in the strong wind of the tornado, and finally you’ll learn how to render the tornado with a Volumetric material.
Part 01 of this tutorial covers how to create the simulation, particles and setting up the force fields to define the shape of the tornado. Part 02 will finalize the simulation and cover rendering.
AuthorYou can see more of Thomas’s work here: http://tomwalks.deviantart.com/
Creating a Tornado in Blender with Particles and the Smoke Simulator – part 01
This Blender tutorial will take you through the complete process needed to create a destructive tornado with Blender’s smoke simulator and particles, complete with flying debris.
What you’ll learn:
While watching this tutorial you will learn how to setup a smoke simulation that is controlled by particle movement, how to influence the particles/smoke with multiple force fields, how to make an object break apart in the strong wind of the tornado, and finally you’ll learn how to render the tornado with a Volumetric material.
Part 01 of this tutorial covers how to create the simulation, particles and setting up the force fields to define the shape of the tornado. Part 02 will finalize the simulation and cover rendering.
AuthorYou can see more of Thomas’s work here: http://tomwalks.deviantart.com/
Shoe Modeling in Blender – Part 02
In this video tutorial series from Claas Kuhnen you will be shown how to perform accurate shoe modeling in Blender 2.6.
What you’ll learn:
Through this tutorial you will learn many things, including how to use transparent background images for easy shoe modeling, how to use surface snapping for easy detailing and overall how to model a very accurate, pleasing show shape based on the provided designs.
Part 01 of this shoe modeling tutorial series through most of the modeling and detailing. Part 02 will finish the modeling.
Overview of Blender 2.63
As of today, Blender 2.63 is now released and available to everyone! This is a monumental release that includes an enormous number of improvements, fixes and additions. Among other things, the mesh modeling system has been completely revamped, there are many improvements and additions to the Cycles render engine and there are over 150 bug fixes!
A big thanks goes out to all the developers and contributors that help to make Blender possible. Blender wouldn’t be here without them!
Download Blender 2.63BMesh modeling system
This is the long-awaited modeling system overhaul that has been in development for many years. Bmesh brings a much less destructive, streamlined modeling workflow that will let you model faster than ever before in Blender. Along with a better modeling surface under the surface; Bmesh also brings about many new modeling tools:
- Full NGon support for faces with more than four vertices
- Bevel tool for creating rounded corners
- Inset tool for easy detailing
- Bridge tool for connecting two edgeloops
- Dissolve for removing geometry without altering the surface
- Knife topology tool for easily cutting in new geometry
- Vertex Connect tool for connecting vertices with edges without needing to remove the faces first
Blender 2.63 brings along many improvements to the Cycles render engine that help to make it a true, production-ready render engine. Cycles continues to get better and better and is maturing at an alarming rate. This release includes:
- Ambient occlusion support and render layer pass
- Shadow pass for render layers
- Integrator clamp option for noise and firefly reduction
Beside the major BMesh and Cycles improvements, Blender 2.63 also includes numerous small improvements and over 150 bug fixes! Some of these improvements include:
- Modifiers: Strength slider for the Lattice modifier, coded by our very own Patrick Boelens!
- Sculpting: mesh hiding support, allowing you to hide/unhide parts of your mesh while sculpting
- Sculpting: Clay strips brush for easy surface sketching
- Compositing: detach operator to disconnect a node from all others while maintaining original links. Use with ALT + D
- Compositing: improved File Output node with multiple input/output support
- Interface: various improvements, including icons for Vertex/Face normals display and a menu for delete in the toolbar
Note: images from this post come from the Release Logs
Shoe Modeling in Blender – Part 01
In this video tutorial series from Claas Kuhnen you will be shown how to perform accurate shoe modeling in Blender 2.6.
What you’ll learn:
Through this tutorial you will learn many things, including how to use transparent background images for easy shoe modeling, how to use surface snapping for easy detailing and overall how to model a very accurate, pleasing show shape based on the provided designs.
Part 01 of this shoe modeling tutorial series through most of the modeling and detailing. Part 02 will finish the modeling.
Round of Blender VFX Inspiration
Blender is becoming more predominate in the VFX world and videos around the net are beginning to prove this very well. We spent a while scouring the channels and picked out a few videos that really stand out. Check out the videos below that showcase great innovation and inspiration to the Blender Community. Inspiration is a great motivator to keep pushing ourselves forward. Take a break from e-mails, grab a drink and enjoy some of the Blender Eye Candy.
If you have others please feel free to link them below in the comments.
Blender VFX Camera Tracking Rocket Accident
By: RichaRdvdOost
Blender 2.55 Effects Compilation #2
By: NionsChannel
Voronoi Fracture and Shatter Lab Tests – Blender & Bullet Physics
By: Phymec
Blender 3D Tornadoes (Smoke simulator)
By: TomWalks
Blender test: Fireball
By: KaiKostack
There are many more so link them below and happy Blending!
Comment Contest – Round 7
With Spring in full swing and our minds starting to drift towards the outdoors, we are offering up a juicy comment contest to wet your Blender taste buds. This time around we’ve got a good batch of prizes to choose from, including complete training series, Citizen memberships or even donations to the Blender Foundation!
Congrats to Warblood for the picked comment! How does it work?All you have to do scroll down and leave a “single” comment on this post. You must use your “real” e-mail address so we may contact you if you win. But as usual you may keep your super secret elite ninja hacker name if you would like on the comment.
Then on Monday April 23rd (-6GMT) at an indiscriminate time we will close the comments and randomly pick a lucky blender head and post the winners name here (once they have accepted).
You (If you are the winner) then get to choose between one of these prizes below! That’s right you get to choose ONE of these options.
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Animation Fundamentals (Digital Download)This training series covers all the fundamentals of Character Animation in Blender. During this series, you will learn many of the fundamental skills that are essential for all character animators. This series makes use of both simple ball rigs and a complete character to allow you to really focus on what really matters, the animation.
OR… Vehicle Modeling Series (Digital Download)This training series is jammed with 15hrs of Blender Training from our very own Jonathan Williamson. But there is too much to write in a small comment post, so head over there yourself if you wanted to see what it is all about.
OR… One year Citizen Membership at Cg CookieWith your membership you gain access to periodic exclusive training from Blender Cookie, access to our source files which includes HD versions of the tutorials and .blend files when available. We are always adding new tutorials, so the membership is constantly gaining value from week to week. Members already have access to this list of exclusive training: Baker Series, M4, Female Head, Mechanic , Foliage and more to come… Learn more about it here.
OR… Donate to Blender FoundationIf you have all three of the above, or simply do not want them, you may choose to send a $50 USD donation to the Blender Foundation on us. This donation would help fund further Blender development. Details on donations can be found here on the Blender.org Donation Page
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Wait you are just trying to collect e-mail addresses! I am on to your game.
No conspiracy theory flick here, your e-mail will not be published, or auto signed up on some newsletter selling lost coins, wow gold, or invisibility cloaks. Though we do have a regular newsletter that DOES e-mail you awesome blender stuff. Sign up here.
How many times can I comment?
Please only comment once. In the case of multiple comments we will only count your first comment in order to give everyone a fair shot.
Enjoy!
Female Body Character Modeling Series – Part 12 – Hands base
This character modeling tutorial series for Blender 2.6, Jonathan Williamson takes you through the entire process of modeling a detailed, female body with clean topology that will deform and animate well. This tutorial puts a strong emphasis on topology and anatomy, making use of photo references from 3d.sk
What you’ll learnThroughout this tutorial series Jonathan will walk you through all the steps necessary to construct the entire model, piece by piece with clean topology using the Edge by Edge modeling method. This method gives you very good control over your topology by laying down the topology first and then filling in the surfaces.
Part 12 of this character modeling series takes you through the initial stages of modeling the hand by setting up all the topology and creating the basic shapes.
Once the modeling is complete in this series we will move onto texturing the final model.
Reference Images were purchased and licensed from 3D.sk. To learn more about 3D.Sk please visit them today.
Announcing a New Training Course: Character Concept Art – Natalia
We realize this is not specifically Blender related, but Tim Von Rueden has just released his full training course on creating stunning character concept art! Character concept art is the starting process for today’s standard in gathering and defining an idea for games, movies, and television. In this series, Tim takes you through the complete concept process for the character Natalia. He will walk you through each step in this in-depth look at the Natalia character concept art creation.
To check out the course visit Concept Cookie now!http://cgcookie.com/concept/cgc-series/training-course-character-concept-art-natalia/
To gain access to this course you can signup as a Citizen member of the CG Cookie network for just $10 USD per month. This is an incredible deal, the course contains over seven hours of training; covering silhouette, anatomy, lighting, color, drawing the head, each of the facial features, hair, cloth, leather, metal, and posting it off. You can sign up for a Citizen account from our membership page HERE.
As a Citizen member you get access to the complete streaming course, including all project files, brushes and color swatches, a set of excellent anatomy and skin references, and the ability to download each individual video. To make this series more accessible you can now choose to either stream or download any of the videos. To stream the videos, simply click on the thumbnail for that portion and it will automatically load at the top of the page.
In the duration of this course you will be taken through the entirety of a character creation process. This includes all the pre-production work that often goes overlooked such as gathering references, setting your layout, and a look at picking out your colors to compliment each other and lighting your scene. When it comes to drawing this series covers the human aspects such as the silhouette process, refining the anatomy, rendering skin using the pre-packed brushes, shaping out the head from any angle, taking an in-depth look and focus on the facial features from the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the hair. Then we go through the materials included with a leather jacket, jeans, boots, metal, jewelry, tattoos, gloves. Then to polish it off I add a rim light and bring it all together with a background. I hope you enjoy and learn how to use this to create your own character concept art!
Note: the first three videos, and the introduction and freely available for anyone to view to help give you a better preview of the course Enjoy!
To check out the course visit Concept Cookie now!
http://cgcookie.com/concept/cgc-series/training-course-character-concept-art-natalia/
Rendering a Sports Car in Blender Cycles – part 02
This tutorial by Jonathan Williamson will take you through the complete process needed to render the sleek sports car you see below. Using a provided, fully modeled sports car you will learn many tips and tricks for rendering in Blender Cycles and for creating Cycles material shaders. This is an advanced tutorial but even intermediate users ought to be able to follow along if you pay close attention.
If you’re not already familiar with working in Cycles then we encourage you to check out our Introduction to the Cycles Render Engine
You may also want to follow our Introduction to Texturing with Cycles
What you’ll learn:
In this tutorial Jonathan will take you through how to set up the lighting using multiple mesh lights for full control, how to create each of the many shaders, including car paint, and finally how to composite the full together using the node compositor. Part 01 of this tutorial covers the initial lighting and many of the shaders. Part 02 will create the remaining shaders, finalize the lighting and perform all of the compositing.
Rendering a Sports Car in Blender Cycles – part 01
This tutorial by Jonathan Williamson will take you through the complete process needed to render the sleek sports car you see below. Using a provided, fully modeled sports car you will learn many tips and tricks for rendering in Blender Cycles and for creating Cycles material shaders. This is an advanced tutorial but even intermediate users ought to be able to follow along if you pay close attention.
If you’re not already familiar with working in Cycles then we encourage you to check out our Introduction to the Cycles Render Engine
You may also want to follow our Introduction to Texturing with Cycles
What you’ll learn:
In this tutorial Jonathan will take you through how to set up the lighting using multiple mesh lights for full control, how to create each of the many shaders, including car paint, and finally how to composite the full together using the node compositor. Part 01 of this tutorial covers the initial lighting and many of the shaders. Part 02 will create the remaining shaders, finalize the lighting and perform all of the compositing.
Learning Mesh Topology Collection
Mesh topology is arguably the single most important aspect to a high-quality model in many different areas. No matter whether you’re preparing a model for animation, modeling clean hard surfaces, making an organic model with smooth curves, or simply modeling something that is easy for other artists to work with, topology is key to each of these.
What is topology?Topology refers to the structure of your mesh and the way the mesh flows around the surface and details of your model. Due to the complex nature of topology, truly understanding it and grasping how to create clean, effective topology for your models, of all subjects, can not only be daunting but also very challenging. Historically there have been only a few tutorials scattered across the web that really delve into understanding topology. We wish to change that.
Starting a while ago, Jonathan Williamson began producing Topology Overview videos here on Blender Cookie that attempted to demystify topology for everyone. Each of the videos have been very well received and so we have gathered each of those videos, along with our other various topology videos here on a single page; giving you a one-stop place to learn topology.
Jonathan is a self-professed topology snob and has made topology a strong focus for everything he does. He has given many lectures on topology and constantly works to help make topology easier to understand and learn.
Additional ReadingFor further topology resources be sure to check out the Polycount Wiki: http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTopology
Introduction to Shape Keys in Blender 2.6
Through this video Jonathan Williamson will give you a quick introduction to shape keys in Blender 2.6 and how to use them.
Shape keys are also known as morph targets and can be used for anything from mesh animation to facial expressions to fixing bad deformations from rigs.
Rendering Realistic Headphones in Blender Cycles
In this tutorial you will be shown how to take a plain, grey model and turn it into a complete, stylish and realistic render using Blender 2.6 and the Cycles render engine.
What you’ll learn:
Jonathan Williamson will take your through the lighting, rendering and compositing for the final result, including: how to set up all of the material shaders for metal, plastic, rubber and the soft ear cushions, how to use node groups to make easily re-usable shaders, and how to use several different lights to get excellent illumination and tone in your image. Also, you will learn how to separate the objects into two different render layers for extra control and then combine them back together in the node Compositor; while making some color adjustments as well.
Training Course: Interior 3D Architectural Visualization in Blender 2.6
Interior architectural visualization is an ideal use of 3D rendering; it can help portray exactly what an interior could look like after being built without ever setting foot in the space or picking up a tool. Through this course, Jonathan Williamson will give you a complete run-through on how to create an interior architectural visualization completely within Blender 2.6.
This course makes use of the Cycles render engine to achieve an excellent sense of realism and mood. To gain access to this course you can signup as a Citizen member of the CG Cookie network for just $10 USD per month. This is an incredible deal, the course contains just over five hours of training; covering modeling, shading, lighting, rendering, compositing, and post processing. Normally a course like this would go for no less than $45 USD. You can sign up for a Citizen account from our membership page HERE.
Training Course: Interior 3D Architectural Visualization in Blender 2.6
Interior architectural visualization is an ideal use of 3D rendering; it can help portray exactly what an interior could look like after being built without ever setting foot in the space or picking up a tool. Through this course, Jonathan Williamson will give you a complete run-through on how to create an interior architectural visualization completely within Blender 2.6. This course makes use of the Cycles render engine to achieve an excellent sense of realism and mood. To gain access to this course you can signup as a Citizen member of the CG Cookie network for just $10 USD per month. This is an incredible deal, the course contains just over five hours of training; covering modeling, shading, lighting, rendering, compositing, and post processing. Normally a course like this would go for no less than $45 USD. You can sign up for a Citizen account from our membership page HERE.
As a Citizen member you get access to the complete streaming course, including all project files and the ability to download each individual video.
To make this series more accessible you now choose to either stream or download any of the videos. To stream the videos, simply click on the thumbnail for that portion and it will automatically load at the top of the page.
What you’ll learn in this Course
In the duration of this course you will be taken through many aspects of the modeling process, including an introduction to BMesh, how to model things to real-world scale and how to make easy use of a model repository to populate your scene. You will learn how to quickly UV unwrap models for texturing, how to setup a material library of Cycles shaders and you will learn how to make complex shader node networks for realistic materials. Beyond that, you will also learn how to create good environment lighting to achieve a realistic sense of interior light, how to optimize your scene for faster rendering, how to make use of multiple scenes and render layers and composite them together, and you you will be taught how to perform advanced color adjustments and other post processing techniques on your image to produce a stunning final render.
Do be aware, this training course makes use the Blender 2.63 beta in order to use BMesh and other features that are currently in development. Very, very few things are subject to change in this series, but for a couple videos you will need the latest development version if you wish to follow along exactly. You can download daily, official builds from HERE.
Note: the first two videos, and the introduction and freely available for anyone to view to help give you a better preview of the course Enjoy!