3D Modeling: Learn Blender in 30 Minutes

1. 1. Class Introduction: Hi, I'm Shane, and in this course, I'll get you up and running in Blender in under 30 minutes. This quick overview of blender, you will learn everything you need to know to go from this to this, including the interface, navigation important tools, modelling, creating materials, lighting, and rendering. Blender is very high in 3D creation software used in the movies, severe effects in game development sectors. And if you're serious about learning 3D content creation, but I've never used Blender or any other 3D package for that matter. Then this is the class for you. I have been teaching 3D out using a range of software to students for almost 15 years. I'm a qualified teacher at an apple. All of my experience with students into the design of all of my courses. The first time something new is introduced, our hold your hand through the whole process. And that's the same skills of reinforced further through the exercise, I'll take some of that support a way to allow you to move independently, put your learning into practice. I also believe that educational content doesn't have to be boring and dry. So hopefully you'll have a little fun too. You don't need any resources to follow along with this course, although you will need access to Blender, are linked to blend during the course description if you haven't got it downloaded yet. Thanks for checking out my course and I look forward to seeing you in the next step. 2. 2. Blender Interface: Okay, So this is what blender looks like when you first open it up and you can just click anywhere to get rid of the welcome splash screen. What you need to know right away is that the interface is split into three main parts. Will appear at the top, you have the top bar, which includes your standard menus, as well as allowing you to choose and switch between workspaces. Here's the next part of the interface, and this whole section is made up of rectangles known as areas, and include the 3D Viewport here, the outliner over here, and the properties area down below that. We also have the timeline along the bottom, just here. The final part of the interface is down here at the bottom and is called the status bar. This is really useful as it gives contextual information such as keyboard shortcuts and warnings. Also worth noting that there are a couple of other important interface elements within the viewport area. Here's the toolbar, which contains all of the basic tools you'll need to manipulate your 3D shapes. And just above that we have the header, which contains loads of important menus, operations, and settings. We'll be using this quite a lot as we go along. 3. 3. Creating your first shape: All right, To then, now that you know your way around the blender, Let's get cracking on creating your first 3D shape. Before we can do that though, every new scene in Blender comes with a cube, a light, and a camera. We don't want these, so let's delete them. We'll start by going to select in the viewports header and then clicking on all. Now that everything is selected, you can simply press Delete on your keyboard. And as if by magic, we have a nice clean scene. Now we need a new cube, which will get by going into the Add menu and then mesh, and then click on Cuba. Wow, would you look at that? We now have a cube. This new cube is going to be the base VOC, and it's not really the right shape for that. So we will resize it by finding scales at in the properties area and then changing it from one to 0.1, like so. Whilst we're in the properties area, you should also change the name of the cube to base by simply clicking here and then typing base. When you press Enter, you'll also notice that the name in the outliner has also changed. And you have now created your first 3D shape in Blender. You're doing great. Let's keep it going. 4. 4. Navigating 3D space in Blender: Now I want to reposition the base in the viewport. So we'll take a look at how you control the camera to navigate your scene in blender, to get you a camera to tumble or albeit the base, you can click and drag on the gizmo in the top right to the viewport like this. Or you can also click and drag with your middle mouse button to do the same thing. You can click on the Hand icon to track the camera side-to-side and up and down like this, all you can also hold the Shift key and middle mouse button to zoom the camera is simply click and drag on the magnifying glass icon like this. Or you can use the scroll wheel on your mouse. Now using a combination of these three camera controls, I will just position the base like this. 5. 5. Create Floorboards using modifiers: Still with me. Good, because now it's time to kick it up a notch. Now we'll learn about modifiers by creating some flaw bonds will create end of the cube, but this time we'll use the Shift and a keyboard shortcut and then go to Mesh and click on Cuba. It needs to be moved up a little. So you need to select your move tool from the toolbar like this, and then click and drag on the blue arrow to move it up on the z-axis. I'll just move it up about this far. Next we need to resize it and instead of typing the size of this time, we will use the scale tool and just kind of eyeball it. So I'll first scale on these axis. And you'll see I need to click and drag a couple of times to achieve this. About this thickness looks good. Next I'll click on the green manipulated to scale on the y-axis until it's about the shape. Now I can change to the Move tool and move it down. So it's, it's just on top of the base. Then I'll move it over on the y-axis like this. Perfect. Now I'll just rename this to flow about because naming everything properly is just the right thing to do. Now we need to apply the change we have made to the scale so that the next steps work properly. And we will do that by clicking on object to appear and then going to apply and then scale. Nice. Now we can hit this with a modifier. To do that, we need to change from the object properties tab, which we are currently on to the modifier properties tab by clicking on the spanner icon just here. Try to modify it. Click on the Add Modifier, drop down like this, and I'm going to add a bevel modifier. You should be able to save that the edges of the Flow bot of now being beveled. You can then change the properties of the bevel like the amount which I'll just take down a little, and the number of segments which I'll increase to two. And actually want to take the amount right down to 0.1 like this. Yeah, that's pretty good. Now we want to cover the whole base with floorboards, which we can do with another modifier. So I'll just click here to minimize the bevel properties and then click on Add Modifier again. This time I'm going to choose the array modifier. It creates another floor board, but for me it's going in the wrong direction. So I will change factor X in the properties to 0 and then increase factor y to one. That's better. Now, I'll just increase the account until the Flow bots cover the whole base. It looks like six. We'll do it last, the flow of Boston then, but now we've learned about the bevel modifier. We can go back and add one to the base. Let's select it will set the scale this time by pressing control and a to bring up the menu and then choosing scale, we can now add a bevel modifier, set the amount to 0.01 and the number of segments to two. Beautiful. 6. 6. Create the calls using extrusion: Next up we need to create our walls. For this, we'll create a new cube and move it up a little. Then what we size it by clicking on the little blue squat on the scale tool, manipulate it so that it looks something like this. Skeletal down a little, move it up so it sits on the floor and then move it over to the far corner of the room. And I'm actually going to just move it down. And let's also that it's a bit below the floor. Then we can rename this mesh two walls. Now, we need to edit this mesh properly. And to do this, we can change from object mode up here in the Viewport header to edit mode. Now you see we have a load more tools in the toolbar on the walls, mesh changes color. The mesh is currently in vertex select mode. But for this step we need to change to face select mode, which can do by clicking this icon up here. Now I'll just click in some blank space in the viewport to de-select everything. And now with my left mouse button to click on this face to select it, then I will hold Shift on my keyboard and left-click on this other face to add it to my selection. Now we can turn this into our walls by extruding these faces. To do this, click and hold on this icon here and choose Extrude individual. Now click on this big yellow handle and drag up until the walls roughly match the size of the floor. Awesome. Now we'll make the walls more interesting by adding a little more detail, the top and bottom. For this, we will need to turn on the loop cut tool by clicking here, and then click on the walls to add the edge loop just here. Now click on this icon for the Bevel tool and click and drag on the handle to bevel the edge loop like this. Now use the move tool to move a new faces up to just about here. Now we need to select the faces at the top and bottom of the walls. So first moved to face select mode, and now you Shift and left-click to select all of the faces like I'm doing here. You'll need to rotate your camera as you go. Once you've got them all selected, clicking hold on the extrude tool and this time choose extrude along normals. Now just click on the handle to extrude the faces out like this. One thing to look out for if we just looked at the top of the mesh, is that the spacing of the new faces isn't consistent all the way around. We can fix that by clicking down here and then clicking offset even much better. Okay, We're nearly done with this step. We just need to add a bevel first, we need to put the mesh back into object mode, then bring up the apply menu with controlling a and apply the scale. Now open the modifier properties, click Add Modifier and choose Bevel. Now just the amount down to 0.01 and set the segments to to Maxwell. Now you might want to just adjust the position of the walls to take into account the new detail at the bottom. Once you're happy with it, it's time to move on. 7. 7. Create window with inset, deleting faces and bridging edges: Now let's add a window to allow some light into the room. Will start by putting the walls into edit mode, making sure face selected is enabled. And then select this face on the inside and this corresponding face on the outside. Using the inset tool by clicking over here, we can then insert the face says that we'll use to construct the window from. Then I'll move to the Scale tool and scale on the x-axis to make the shape a little more square. And I'll just make it a little bigger to then using the Move tool, I'll move the phases across like this. And then finally, remove these faces by hitting the delete key and choosing faces from the menu that appears. Next, we can get a little closer to the window opening and then change to edge selection mode. To bridge the gap, we need to select the two edge loops around the window opening to get the first one, hold Alt on the keyboard and left-click on one of the edges on the outside of the opening like this, you'll notice all four of the edges are selected, will do the same for all the edges on the inside of the room. But this time, as well as holding Alt, we will also have to hold Shift to add to the selection. Then we can click like this. Now to bridge the gap, click on edge in the Header Menu and click on bridge edge loops. And now we have our window opening. To make these little better, we'll add a window frame with these new faces selected, go to Mesh and then select Duplicate. If you move your mouse around, you'll see that there are some new faces stuck to it. Just right-click to stop them moving around. Then you can go to Mesh Separate selection to make them a new separate mesh. Now we can walk into object mode and make sure we have only the new mesh selected and then go to Object Properties and rename it to window frame. If I try to move the window frame, you'll see that the gizmo isn't in the center of the shape. So to correct that, click on Object, set origin and then set origin to center of mass service. Last Matter. Now would also be a good time to set the scale for this mesh. Now we can do a little more work on this. We'll start by scaling the frame to be within the window opening a little will also scale it so that it protrudes a bit on the front and back. Now at a solidify modifier and change the thickness to something like 0.09. That's thick enough but the bevel doesn't look right. To fix that click and drag on the handle here to apply the bevel modifier after the solidify. Beautiful. I'm actually going to go a little thicker with a solidify. Yeah, no, it's nice. Now for one final detail with the window, we'll create a separator, start with a new queue, name it separator, scale it right down until it's nice and small like this, and then move it out of the flaw. Then move it so that it is pretty central in the window opening. Now, I'll focus my camera on this new cube by clicking View and then frame selected. Then I'll just zoom out a touch. To finish this piece, let's move into Edit Mode. Choose face selection. All of the faces are already selected for me, so I'll just hold shift and de-select the front and back faces, leaving the other four selected. Now I can click on the extrude tool, choose Extrude individual, and now click on the handle and drag until the separate intersects with the frame like this. To complete this step, just put it back into object mode, apply the scale at the bevel modifier and make sure you're happy with the position. When I went to, let us move on to creating some furniture. 8. 8. Create a bookcase & desk using duplication: Now that you've got a good handle of the basics, we'll be able to speed up a little and fill this room up with cool stuff. Let's start with a bookcase. Make a new cube, move it up, scale it to a good size for a shelf, and then move it so that it's just above the floor. Now click on Object, duplicate objects, so duplicate it and right-click to cancel the movement. Move it up a bit to make another shelf and then duplicate again. But this time I'll use shift in DEI Council the movement with right-click and then move up again. Now select the middle shelf, duplicate it, and then select the rotate tool. If you click and drag on one of them manipulators, it will rotate freely on that axis, like you can see me doing here. I want to rotate this exactly 90 degrees though. I will hold the Control Kate, when I rotate so that it moves in five degree increments. Once they saw bright move it over to the side of the shelves like this and adjust the height so that it sits on the ground. Now you can simply duplicate it over to the other side. It stands out bookcases made up of five separate meshes, but I want it to all be one mesh. To do that we can join them. So start by selecting the sides and all of the shelves and then go to Object and join. They are now all acting as one mesh. Let's rename it to bookcase. Apply the scale and then add a bevel modifier. Awesome. Now you can position it in the room. Now for the desk, make a cube, move up and scale up to be a nice desktop size. Apply the scale and add a bevel modifier. Just going to move mine up a little so that it's ready for the legs to be valid. Create a cylinder for the light. Adjust the scale and get it to the right height like this. You can position it on one corner of the desk. Once it's in place at duplicates it over to the other corner, then you can select both legs and duplicate them over to the other side of the desk. Okay, now that's done. You'll want to select all five pieces and press Control and J to join them all into one mesh. Then you can rename it to desk and finally get it positioned in your room. Well done, you would clearly bond for this. Let's keep things rolling by adding some more details to the room. 9. 9. Create a picture frame, a monitor and a rug with more advanced extrusion: Let's make a star on the picture frame. Then we'll begin by selecting the walls, move into edit mode and then selecting this face. Then we'll duplicate it and separate it from the rest of the mesh. Move into object mode, makes sure all of the new mesh is selected and then sent to the origin by right-clicking and choosing set origin to center of mass. Now you can scale it to a good size for painting and move it into place. I'll just apply the scale and then move to edit mode. In Face Selection Mode, select the face, press E to extrude and then move the mouse to get the thickness you want, and then left-click to apply it. Now press I to insert the face, move the mouse until it looks like this, and then left-click to confirm, press a again to extrude and then move the face N and clicked confirm, just like this, perfect, you now have a picture frame. Let's stick it into object mode and rename it to frame. Next, we're going to make a monitor to go on the desk. The picture frame is actually a perfect starting point for this. So we'll start by duplicating the picture frame and then we can move it over him a little and then rename it to monitor. Then I'll rotate it 90 degrees, move into the center of the room so that I can see all around the mesh and then adjust the scalar, touch it so that it looks like a 16 by nine aspect ratio. I'll just scale it down a bit as well. Now let's move round the back and start turning this into our monitor. Will move to edit mode and select the face on the back, incident the face like this, and then use the scale tool to square it off and then move the face down to about here. Then we can extrude the face out like this and then select the new face we've created on the bottom. Extrude this down and then do one mole, it'll extrude down like this. Now you can select these two little faces on the sides. Just pressing E won't work this time. So I'll change to extrude along normal is over here in the extrude tool, and now I can extrude them out. Finally, slight these phases along the front and extrude them out to create the base. Now we can move back into object mode and apply the scale and set the origin to the center of the mesh. Lastly, for the monitor, it's time to position it on the desk. Next one, Let's do the rope. We need a new cube, name it rogue, make it a decent work size and puts it in a good workplace like this. Then apply the scale, move to edit mode and make sure you are on edge selection. Slightly edges on each of the four corners like this and hit Control and Bei to bevel. Move the mouse to preview the bevel and then left-click to confirm. The settings for the bevel will appear down here. Let's edit them, increase the segments. Experiment with adjusting the width and maybe try changing the shape value to once you're happy, move to face selection and select this big one on top. At an insect like this. This is how we're going to apply different colors to the rogue later. To finish it off, move to object mode at the bevel modifier and make sure you're happy with the position. Next, we'll create a chat to go without desk. 10. 10. Create a chair with some cool extrusion tricks: The trickiest part of the chair is the base, but I have a cool trick to make it easy. First we need a cylinder, then we need to change the vertices to five and then scale it down so it's nice and small like this. Bring it up above the floor and then take some of the high off of E2. Now we need to be an edit mode and have all of the faces selected except the ones on the top and bottom. Now extrude individual like this. Now I want to taper the ends off. But if I tried to just use the scale tool, it only gives this effect, which isn't what I want to make it work the way I want. I'll go up here to transform pivot point and choose individual origins. Now when I scale them, they stay in place. I'll just scale them like this and then move them down a little too. Now we need this face on top in sets. It'll, it'll then extrude it up. That's looking good. So now we can move back into object mode and apply the scale. Now for the seat will add a new cube scale and move it like this, and then move into edit mode, select the face on the back and extrude it out a little. Then we can get this new face on top and extrude the top. Now I'll just move it back a touch to make the shape looks a little better. Then I can move to object mode, apply the scale and just move it forward so it lines up a little better. Now to finish this off, we need some wheels, creates a cylinder, increase the vertices to 12, rotating 90 degrees, and then use the scale and move tools to make a wheel like this. Once you're happy with your whale, duplicated four times to add the others. Once they've added, apply the scale, select all of them meshes, join them and rename to chair. Then you can add a bevel modifier if you'd like. I'll finish us off by just getting the scalar position, right? Wonderful. Okay, We're almost done with the modelling now. Just a few more details to add. 11. 11. Final modelling touches - keyboard, book & mug: Okay, let's start with creating a simple keyboard for our PC. Select the desk and go to Edit Mode. Select the top face, duplicate it, and then separate it from the desk. Go back into object mode and select the new mesh, and then delete the bevel modifier, rename it to keyboard night and scale it into a good size for a keyboard and move it into roughly the correct place are the solidify modifier and use this to add some thickness to it. Now we want to make the effects of this modify permanent. So click on this little downward facing arrow here and choose Apply. Now head back into edit mode and move to Edge Selection. Select this front edge here and move it down a little. Next we'll use the loop cut tool, enable it, and then click and drag it to add an edge loop over to one side of the keyboard like this. Now changed to face selection and select the two top faces. Instead the faces like this. And then click individual down here to make the faces have individual insets. Now you can just extrude the faces up a smidge and scale them down slightly and showing individual origins is still enabled. Complete the keyboard by going into object mode, applying this scale and adding a bevel modifier. Nice warm. Next up we need a book for the bookcase. Make a cube, scale it into a generally bookies shape and then make it smaller like this. Apply the scale and move into edit mode, select these faces and then insert them like this. You'll also need to de-select individual in the settings. I can extrude by going to the extrude tool and changing it to extrude along normals and drag on the handle to move the faces into represent the pages of the book. That's the book pretty much done. Put it back into object mode and put it into place. Now let's create a multiple on the desk. We'll start by creating a cylinder, changed the vertices to 24, move it up and make it smaller. Now goes to edit mode and select the top face in sets it like this, and then extrude it down, put it into object mode, and apply the scale. Now we need to handle, let's create one more cylinder, set the vertices to 16, and then we'll also change the cap fill type to nothing. Then you can rotate it 90 degrees on the x-axis, scale it down, and move it up to be close to the rest of the mug. Now, just further refined the size and position so that it's about right for a mock handle. Once you're happy, just move it out to the side like this and make it a little thinner by scaling on the y-axis. Perfect. Now apply the scale and add a solidify modifier. Set the thickness to be something like this, and then apply the modifier. Now go into edit mode and delete the faces on this side of the shape. Once the face is gone and put it into object mode and stick it on the side of the Maglite list. Now you can join the two pieces and the bevel modifier, rename it to milk and then move and scale it into place. Now we'll just go back and rename the book as I forgot to do that earlier. That's the modelling done, well done for making it this far. Next up, we'll start adding some color. 12. 12. Add coloured materials to your models: Okay, then he's now time to make this look a little less Fifty Shades of Grey by adding some colored materials. We'll start by changing the viewport shading to material preview by clicking this icon up here. And then we'll set about adding some color to the floorboards. So start by selecting them and then we'll click on this icon here to open the material properties tab. Click the New button to add a material slot and you can give it a name by typing in this box, I'll call this one likes brown. Then click on this little box here next to base color to set the color for this material, I'll set it to a nice light brown and thus you can see the floor boards are now call it in. We can also have this material to other objects in the scene. Let's add it to the window frame by selecting it. And then we can click this little drop-down here to choose from all the materials available. I'll select light brown and then the window frame will also have the material applied. Let's add it to the separator as well. Nice. Now let's create another new material for the bookcase. Select the bookcase, click on the New button and rename this one too dark brown, and then choose a nice dark brown color for it. The bookcase now looks much better, and we'll add this one to the base mesh to now repeat this process to create a dark gray material for the chair monitor and keyboard and other white material to the mug. Leave everything else for now as we'll be adding multiple materials to these, which is a slightly different workflow. Once you've gotten to this stage, you're ready to move on. 13. 13. Add more than one material to a 3D model: Okay, Now we need to work on the objects that will have more than one material applied. We'll start with the rock, select it, click on the New button and call the new material yellow. Then choose a shade of yellow that you like. Now for the second material, pull the rug into edit mode and make sure Face Selection is enabled. Select the big face in the center of the ROCC and then click on this plus icon here to add a second material slot. Nine-eighths click on this Assign button here to assign the second material slot to the selected face. And you can now click on the New button. I make a new material, call it red, and then choose a red that you like. Now you can go back into object mode. Let's do that again on the book to make sure you've got the process down, select the book at a new material slot, name it green, and then set the cola. Now go into edit mode, select the three phases that make up the pages. They're actually still selected for me from earlier. Click the plus button and then click Assign. Now I can click on New and just use the white material you created for the mug. Awesome stuff. All that's left to do now is make an apply the following materials to the rest of the room, including the walls. Once you've got everything, call it in, you'll be ready to move on and we'll get the lighting setup. 14. 14. Lighting your scene in Blender: This thing is currently stand. The lighting for our room is very flat. We can do better than that. So let's set up some super sexy lighting for us in. The first step is to change the viewport shading to render. Everything will go a bit dark, but that's good because we are gonna hit it with some light. So click on Add, go to light and choose Sung. I want the sunlight to stream in through the window. So I'll turn on the rotate tool and rotate the light around like this until I can see it coming in through the window and giving us this nice shadow. Yeah, that looks nice. Well now change some of the properties of the light. And you might've noticed that the light properties tab has rather helpfully opened up for us. Let's make this a little stronger by changing the intensity to ten. Then click on the color to give it a warmer, yellowy orange tint. I also want a softer shadow so I will change the angle to fall. That's looking sexy were already the rest of the room now it looks too dark, so we'll add another light this time by pressing shift and a to bring up the menu. And then we'll go to light and choose area light. I need to move this new lights OK, to see as effects. Then I'll scale it up to make sure it floods the whole room. And then make it a little brighter by setting the power to 15. Now I'll do for that one. Now let's add some light coming from the monitor at another area light, move it up, rotate it 90 degrees like this, and then scale and move it into place just in front of the monitor screen as I'm doing here. Once you're happy with the size and position, change the power to two so it isn't too bright and give it a bit of a blue tint. For one final touch, you can duplicate it, rotate it around 180 degrees on the z-axis, and then move it away from the motto a bit so that the light doesn't hit the wall. And that will make the monitor look at touch brighter. Now that's all seen, looks suitably sexy. I think we can call the Latinx a success. Let's move on to setting up the camera. 15. 15. Adding and setting up a camera in Blender: Now we're getting close to rendering out our final image. We need to get a camera setup. I want to have an isometric or 2.5 D view. So I'll need to set up our camera accordingly. First we need to add a camera by clicking on ads and then camera. Now we need to be able to look through the camera. And to do that, you need to click on View up here and then Align View, and then choose a line active camera to view. Awesome. Now we need to adjust some settings and you should be able to see that blend that has helpfully opened the camera properties tab. The first thing we need to do to get the isometric low ACE to change the type to orthographic. Now you'll want to change the orthographic scale so that the room just about fills the render region. I'll also move the camera to get it lined up, but you need to press G on the keyboard to do this and then left-click one-year don't get the ethnographic scale and position dialed in and then we can move them. Yeah, that looks good to me. Now to make sure it looks right, I will go to the Object Properties tab and just adjust rotation of the camera a little bit. I won't rotation x to be 66.6. I'll set rotation y to 0, and then I'll set rotations at 245. That gives me the look I want and make sure it's all lined up nicely. Now, I'll just press G once more. I move my mouse until I'm happy with the framing and left-click to confirm. Now just make sure I'm still happy with the ethnographic scale. And yeah, I think we've done all this stuff to do now is get this bad boy rendered out. 16. 16. Rendering a scene in Blender: For the final part of the quick introduction to the wonderful world of Blender, we will render out a sexy nasa image of our beautiful room that we've created. We'll start by going to the rendering Properties tab, and then we'll change the render from EV two cycles. The scene will start rendering with this higher-quality renderer. Now to make this look a little better, we can expand the column management section and increase the exposure to make the colors brighter and more eye-catching. To stop the completed image looking noisy, we also need to enable denoising, which we can do by scrolling back up, expanding the denoising section and then enabling denoising for render by checking this box. There are some options for this, but we'll stick with the default NLM. Now we're ready to render. Click on Render from the top of the interface and choose around the image. Blend will now begin rendering the final image using the Cycles render. It might take a little while to complete depending on how powerful your hardware is. This image took about 34 seconds to complete for me. Once it's complete, you can choose to save the rendered image by clicking on image from within the Blender Render Window and then choosing Save As. Now you can give it a name I'm calling mine office. You can change the image type if you'd like, but I'm going to leave mine as a PNG. Then you can click on Save Image As and you don't print it off and show it to you. I bet she sticks it up on the fridge. 17. 17. Conclusion :): That's everything while going for making it to the end. If you want to, you can add some more details like filling the bookshelf or adding another painting. Or you can even create some models of your own. This was only intended to be a quick introduction to blend this. So if you feel like you want a more thorough and detailed class to work through that, let me know and I'll see if I can whip something up. If you enjoyed this course and they found that useful, then I will be eternally grateful if you could leave a review of the class. Is positive reviews like yours that tell Skillshare, that are courses I'm creating a God that will make it easier for other beginners to find them. Thanks so much for taking my class and I really hope to see you in another class in the future.