Falling Bouncing and Rolling Cubes Animation in Blender

1. Intro: Hello and welcome. My name is Suzana, I'm a 3D artist and in this class, we're learning together how to make quick animation of falling cubes, bouncing, rolling around over the surface. All that using nothing but Blender. You don't need previous experience in Blender for this class. Just install Blender and you are ready to begin. I will explain everything. After going through this class, you'll actually get an experience in how to use rigid bodies, how to apply certain modifiers, and how to combine all that into one beautiful animation with some colorful lights and colorful materials. Let's begin. 2. Cubes and Materials: We start as usual, left-click on general, and we will keep this one. So now we're going to do, is we want to add some materials to cubes, but we will The few more. So let's copy this and paste. And we will do that by going here to object, Left-click object, copy object, Left-click object based object. So we have a new object over here, cube 001. So left-click that cube and left-click here, Move tool. And now left click this arrow and move this cube or a lap. I will change the view to see from the front side completely. So I would just have to click this x axis over here. Okay? So we see that much better and we can determine distance. So we can have equal space between cubes. I will move those alleles. So live like this for between. Then I will, I left-click this hand and holding left-click and drag and Tyracine a little down. And I will zoom out a little so I can see better. So I'm repeating the same left-click hand and move this down holding left-click, just pulling mouse back towards me or away. You see what's happening. And I let go left-click and I do again, left-click object based object or you can use Control V on your keyboard. Left-click paste objects. We already copied objects. We can keep pasting now. Just now, left-click this new one, cube two, and left click this arrow holding left-click pool this arrow up. Leave for between, 44 of these between. And do the same thing again. Lively here. And then left-click paste. And you see new one is here. So I will just left-click now that new cube and left-click arrow holding left-click, I pull up. That means I move my mouse away from me, holding left-click. And I let go left-click and it's here. Okay? So now I will click on this first one over here. And I'll go here to materials, material properties. I'll have to click that. And I will now switch here to see what materials I'm creating. I left-click here. And over here is now our cube. So now left-click here on base color on this area over here, and change that to color. You want to use for thaw, I will begin with blue. You can use whatever you wish. And then I will click on cube one. And I will use this again, left-click here. And I will pin, left-click these dots. And holding left-click, I drag this dot to color I want, and I let go left click. You can also make color more lighter or darker, if you will. I have to click this dot and holding left-click you pull this up or down, you see what's happening. I can do the same here as well. Just left-click here and left click this dot and holding, making more lighter, more dark. Okay, so we'll go to the third. That's cubed two. And left-click here, and let's add another color. Let's say green. So I left-click dot and I holding left-click and drag the dots to green and left-click here and pull this up to make it more. I'm more light. And third cube, a left-click here, and left-click base color, and left-click dot. And what color are we going to make this one? Purple, red, orange. Let's make it orange. Left the gear and Jack. 3. Modifier Separating and Origin: Now switch here to select box. Left-click that, and left-click here, right above these cubes. And holding left-click, draw this box around. Make sure that you select only cubes, not camera and lights, just cubes. So zoom in if you need to. Zoom out. And we now have selected these four cubes, savage show again. Left-click on the side, right above queue called left-click. Jog this holding left-click and let go left-click. All for selected. Now point to any of those cubes. Right-click here. Left-click on join. We join these four cubes into one object. Now they're all had their own origin. Now there's only one. This dot over here is the origin that shows all merge into one object. Now, we're going here to modify properties, some extra to left click that. And then left-click God modifier. And here, left-click on it to select that. Now what happens is if elastically here on the x-axis and move a little to the right, you will see what's going on. Instead of one cube, we have two in each of these. And if we left-click here to increase number becomes 3456. And I will left-click here and enter nine. Left-click, so it applies. We have nine now. And I will zoom out a little so you can see better what's going on further. Here. Where it says factor and z axis, which is this one that goes up and down. I will enter one points to, and I will click on the sides is applied. So now everything went up. I will zoom out a little again. Left-click this hand, holding left-click, I will jog towards me. Mouse Coasters me. And then seeing goes down. If I push mouse away from me, saying goes up, I'm just holding left-click and doing that. Okay? So if I go now into kerosene is where it is. Now, I will likely this axis to show you more from the side. So you will see this is x-axis and we see that cubes are moving to this side. And it keeps going with each next group. And that's because here is set to one. We set this to 0. I would left-click now and enter 0. Left-click on the side. Now, everything looks like one chain and it goes up. Y I have sat here 1.2. If I increase this value, Let's say 1.5. And I left-click cytoplasm. You see there's more space between each of these. And I wanted to make those cubes fall down. And that keep happening at the same rhythm. So I just wanted to enter 1 too, because then space is just the same. Between those. I will left-click here x-axis and rotate this around, ready to pass. Now, I want to split these cubes and two odds origin to each to make them all separate objects. How do that? First, I need to apply this modifier before I do anything further. So I'm going to left-click here on this arrow and left-click click here to apply. So we applied modifier to everything. And we can now further separate this two independent objects. So how do we separate this? If you go to this arrow over here and left-click, There's edit mode over here. So let's click that. Now we can work on this cube chain. I will point here and right-click. And now I get the menu on which you will see here separate. And I want to separate those cubes not by selection, not by material, but by loose parts. That means simply selecting by these spaces around. So they will become each independent objects are not anymore as one single object as you can see here. So again, I right-click here, makes sure that everything is selected. If it happens, you deselect by an accident like this. Go here, left-click, left-click. And now I'm using mouse wheel to zoom in. I right-click pointing to cubes. And here, left-click separate by loose parts. Now let's see what happened. We have so many independent objects now. All are separated. Now, we left-click here again on this arrow and we lived Click Object Mode. We're going back to object mode. Now. We'll zoom in to show you what's going on here. And I would like to click this hand to push this up. So let's click hand and modern mouse away from me, holding left-click. To push entire scene higher. We have one origin still. And we want each of these cubes to get their own origin at the center. So how do we do that? We will now go here, left-click object, here, set origin, and here, origin to geometry. And now each has on, as you can see, each Hassan origin now become that chain. And we're ready to proceed. 4. Rigid Body: Now we're going to make this rigid body and make it bounce around as it falls. To do that, this select everything and left-click on fescue been pointing here and use the mouse wheel to scroll up to see if rescue, again, just wants to point here, using mouse wheel up or down. You can scroll through this list. So we're selecting first queue. Click that. That's the one over here. And now over here, you will go to physics properties. I left click here on rigid body. And now point here and scroll through. So you can see everything here. If you don't see these, if those are closed like this, left-click settings and left-click our own extra collisions. And here you will see a tick dynamic. Leave that as these collisions, you will change shape to box. So this is box over here and left click that. And now, if this is closed, you will left-click arrow to open surface response and involves in us, left-click and enter 0.5. That will make cubes bounce around once they fall. And here you can also change sensitivity and dynamics, but we won't go into that further. Rotation is set to 0.1. That's fine for now. And now we're going to apply this to all these cubes, but not by, one by one. That would be a long process. So to do that quickly, you will select, de-select first cube. Just click on the side and select Cube zeros 01. Last click that. Now pointing here, scroll using mouse wheel all the way down and press Shift on your keyboard and left-click to select Cube zeros or divide. Now, the only one that isn't selected these the first one. Now we will point here and using mouse wheel scrolling up. And now, press Control key. You are not holding Shift key anymore. You're not holding anything. Now just press Control key and left-click cube. Now. So now that cube is selected, but you see it was the last selection. So now what we're going to do is we will simply left-click here on object. And in this menu, you will search for rigid body. It's over here. And on the right side you have odd active and passive mode. We're not doing that. We already have an activated by that, those are cubes. We want to apply this transformation, we create it. We want to copy from active. That's why we selected cube, which already has that transformation. And we selected that as the last one so that this can copy from that one and apply to all. So select this copy from active. Left-click here. So now all cubes actually copied transformation from previous one. And now we want to left-click on the side, de-select everything. And now what we're going to do is to add, left-click here, mesh and Todd one plane. And it appeared here down at the center. Left-click here, don't click anywhere on the side because this will vanish. Just left click this arrow here as size enter, let's say 20. And left-click on the side. So it applies, we have 20 meters plane. And I will now left-click here. And I will have to click New to add new material. And I will call her that. I will have to click here. And I will left with this dot and drag it down to make this material block. I'm going down. I'm pointing here using mouse wheel. So it goes down all the way in here in metallic, I will left-click in this corner and drag this all the way down. Or you can simply a left-click and enter one to make this a little more darker. So now we go back to a physical properties, make sure that plane is selected only. We'll go back to rigid physics properties and left-click here to odd rigid body. Now, this one, this is plane. These are activated by that is, they're falling from top and falling to this object. We want this object to be passive. And we will set here passive. Left-click that. So that's it. And simply here, you can as valid select box. 5. Setting Camera: Now we're going to set our camera, select the camera and left-click here and enter values like, let's say 90 here and 90 here. And switch the camera so you can see what you're doing last week here. So camera is a little away from plane. We want the camera to be centered, so 0 here. Now it's at the center. What we need to move it down. So we will do that on that axis, I'm decreasing this value. You can just left-click here on the right corner and holding left-click, drag to the left. It somewhere here. Now let's move it a little back. And we point here and left-click and decreasing this value. And let's rotate a little like this. And click here and move this higher. And left-click here. And holding left-click, move this a little down. Something like that, but I want is a little more back. So let's see. That's now adjusting depending on your scene and the size of your scene. How you will enter these values just to left-click and drag to the right or to the left. Adjusting think this camera, this live on 0. If you want this center nicely. And just I'll move these values until you get perfect. You I think this will be fine. And now I will change this size of this plane. So I'll go here all the way. I'm pointing here and scrolling down. And I will have to click here. And then I will, because I selected this, I want to select again. And that's to show me what I selected. If I turn it to solve, I don't see if I select something, I don't see that orange line around. So that happens that you disliked by an accident. This is about a, does. This one over here is for tree on the side and these tools. So if it turns off, just left-click and it's on the Tsar to show you seen different ways. This one shows lit scene, what you will see once you render later. This shows without colors, without anything. You can see all the objects, you add it. So now we have satisfied and I select a plane. And I want to press S on my keyboard. And once they press S on my keyboard, I get this string. As you can see, there's a string over here. I'll show again. I left-click plane to select, press S on my keyboard and holding, as you see, I have the string with arrows. And if I then just move mouse left or right, I don't need to press anything on mouse. I just move mouse lived, right? This plane is increasing. Just keep holding gas on your keyboard until you're satisfied with the size like that. And then just left-click and let go. Okay, so we increased, I wanted to increase this plane so I can move the camera a little more far. Well, I click here and I will just on x-axis, move back this camera. So I left-click here and I dragged right to move this cellular back. Now on this axis and more higher like this. Okay? So it's something like that. And now this light over here will point the area where those boxes are falling. So let's see how that appears now. We will start playing. I see you don't see timeline entirely. It's maybe like this point here and left-click and drag it up. This what you see here is what will be rendered later within this box. So you can just zoom in a little. So you can see this box bearer. Now once you hit play here, boxes or those cubes, we will start falling. But you see what happens? They get stacked up and we don't see entire area and then some start falling later. So what we want is that we just, in a way leave their camera higher. Hello, so we can see better what's going on, on top. And that means it will change the rotation here, psi point, any change to this. And I go back further away from, from center. So that should be enough. Now, let's play again. Left-click here to play. They start falling and they stuck up like this. And that means we need to increase bounciness. You see an R, boxes are falling, go round. So let's increase that. We will go now to that first cube, left-click. And here, in physics properties, we have that rigid bar is selected. So we scroll down and let's increase the incentives to one. And let's see what happens. Now. Go back. And yeah, it works, it's bearer. So you see that first cube bouncing more, and you'll see every single one after that is falling differently. So you created your first animation without much effort. As you can see, when you drag this, you go back to the first moment. And you literally right now have your animation of falling cubes falling all over this, this field. 6. Rendering Animation: So now we want to render this animation. You can just switch here to camera view so I can see everything. And you can go here to render properties. First, add some ambient occlusion, add some bloom, and add some screen space reflections. Let's check the Weimar time than how it appears. You see the gods, some gloss from that, from that light. Okay. And now what we want here in output properties, left-click that. Scroll. Higher resolution is set to this. This is how wide it will be. This is how high it will be. So these are in pixels settings for high definition video. And I recommend taking this to render region and to crop the render region. Switch this to 25 frames per second, or you can switch to 30 depending on what you want. Higher-quality all 25 is enough. But if you want high-quality, you can switch to Saturday. Here. Don't forget to left click this folder to select where you want your render to go. You can render as PNG for video. And you will get serious or 250 frames starts at one. And the 250, you will get to 50 PNGs. You can later in part sequences in video editing software to export MP4 video or whatever you wish. Or you can click here and select one of these video formats. Don't forget, left-click here and save what you created. You can also, all through this process, keep left clicking here to save, make sure to save before you start rendering. In case blender crushes, you will lose everything. So that's important. So either render as PNG or select one of these video formats. Then once you selected folder where you want that to go, I'll have to click here and left click Render Animation. And this animation will start rendering Dan, and go to that folder of your selection and you can use it somewhere. Now you can also do another thing to not give much effort into this, and you can just left-click here and change this background to say black. So just point here, Left-click this dot and drag this back. Now, if you go here, left-click apply animation, you'll see what happens. Everything is black now. To see it better, you can just left-click here to deselect any of these. And it will look much better now. So-called Ron light and falling cubes. And your first week, rigid body animation. As it can save, you can adjust this light if you scroll down here to light. And simply left with here. And this is position of your light right now. So can change that to say, I'm placing light at the front side maybe. So we'll just point here and increase this value. Like here. You can leave tire like this or lower like this. Now, you can play with the light the way you like. You can change this to 0 to center that light. And you can make it a lower return somewhere over here. And let's say more down. Now it went all the way. If you go under 0, it goes under this plane. I want value below, above 0, not below. And now everything depends on like you can add more lights like left-click here, and it can point here and add point light. And then make sure that you enable this so you can see what you're doing it now here. You will see it's marked point light you entered. So you can drag it to the left side, somewhere here. So it's not visible. And all I have to click this arrow and pull it up higher and go here to this bulb. And increase value to say like 500. And left-click changes to area light. You see now it's pointing down, this shows it's pointing down. So if the lab to click here, you can use this to rotate that light viewpoint To x-axis and do this. You see what's happening. It shows very light bulb fall. So you can do that. And you can add more like, let's say 1 thousand. So now it shines this way. Dilbert Center, you can make it fall somewhere here. For an example, just point here and drag this to the left. Holding left-click. On x axis. You can change the color of that light even. Just left-click here. And let's say changing color to something for a boy, you can pull that light closer even. Summer here. You can add another light as well, like just go here, mesh point and place it on this side and enter here as well, 1 thousand. And change this one to say something blue. And left-click here and again on x axis, but we are going to negative value now. But first let's pull this a little higher somewhere here. And, um, but we'll change this to area light as well. Pressed. And now we will pull this summer here. And let's move this point light as well as higher summer here. So you have now two lights. Let's change this one as well. This is the first light, which is over here. So I can change that to, let's say orange or something like this. You can even change the size of that light. That's radius over here. Just bind to left-click and increase radius of that light. So you see what's happening. You can do the same to other by going here and just changing size of that light over here. I didn't want this to be. And let's change this one as well to something larger. So it's something like that. Now when you start this animation, everything will change. So these docking up again and then falling later. So let's do something to not make this happen. So we're going to go back over here. And I want to see this barrier. So I will switch to this view. And now I will select this one over here. And I will pull it to the right a little like that. And this one, I will pull to the left. And this one right. Now, we'll go back. And enabling this heel. Now watch what happens. Now. They're falling right away because they are not going in the same line. And this makes animation a lot different and a lot better. They are not stacking up with falling right away. So we can now move camera even closer a little. So I'm scrolling up the left, the camera here. Let's make it a little closer. So I will enter here, let's say 50. And let's disable this so we can see better. And a little higher. Over here, let's say 12. Yeah, that's better. Okay, Let's see now. Okay. So that's pretty much that if you want those cubes to start falling earlier, not this late, you can just go out. And we will switch to this view because it's easier to see. And then select first queue and go down and press Shift and select the last one. Make sure to enable this, to see if all are selected. Now, using this to zoom out and I hold this arrow over here and pull everything down a little. Make sure there's are not visible when you switch the camera view. That cubes are still out of the view. And we're just moving those allow down. As you can see. There are little lower now and animation will start earlier. So when we switch to this view, I will disable this. So you can see better what's going on. And I removed this down. I started in animation, starts earlier. And these are falling all around. So can offer the play with this and play with lights. I would like this light, although stronger. So I will increase this to 2 thousand and a little higher like that. So let's see now. Now everything is in adjusting and playing with lights and colors. And you can simply use some other shapes. You don't need to add q. You can just go here and instead of that first cube, you can delight for first Cuban mesh as something else. So create object of your own, something you want to use, and then copy pasting dose. The process is pretty much the same. Whatever you want to make fall down like this. This is just simple way to explain. So I use those existing that the existing cube and just multiply that to show you how this actually works. And it works with any object you want. So this is your animation. I'm just pulling this so we can see Foster. 7. Closing Words: I hope you liked this class and I hope to see you again. Practice, post your projects, and let me see what you created. Until next time, bye.