Modeling trees

I read a post in Allan Brito blog about modeling tress and how 3dmax has a plugin to generate trees models [1]. I researched web a little about the subject and found Arbaro [2], a tree generator written in java which exports models in pov ray format (.pov) and wavefront (.obj). Fortunately blender reads .obj format and I could import the trees. The sofware has a lot of examples and parameters to play with, but I didn’t spend much time on it.

You can download it in any SO with compatible java version. The only problem I had was due to the outdated manual, which tells to type:

java -jar arbaros_gui.jar

For graphical interface and:

java -jar arbaro.jar -p pov/quaking_aspen.pov -o \
pov/quaking_aspen.inc trees/quaking_aspen.xml

for command-line execution. But the actual filenames are arbaros.jar instead of arbaros_gui.jar and arbaros_cmd.jar instead of arbaros.jar.

Reference:
[1] Criando uma árvore com subdivisão no blender 3d (pt)
[2] Arbaro – tree generation for povray

Texture Mapping

After a while I’ve finally returned to my Blender studies. I’ve been busy with academic stuff, but I now remade my schedule and now I have more time for my hobbies.

Texture mapping is a nice way to apply textures to complex objects (like human head). The idea is to turn the surface of the object planar and then apply an image as texture.

I followed a simple tutorial and made an even simpler object to test what I’ve learned.

I created a simple texture image in Gimp from a random image if found on web.

Reference:
[1] UV Mapping and Texturing
[2] UV Unwrapping

Room 7

New version of the room. I remade the chair, using some new technics (now it has 5 legs as the real one).

Google Sketchup

Google Sketchup is a 3d modeling program specially designed from architectural projects.

I’ve heard about this software from Google before, but only now I had time to download and test it. I’ve watched some tutorials and just learned how to draw a chair.

It’s known that Google Skecthup is good for modeling, but not for texturing. So, I decided to export my simple chair to Blender. It took me sometime to find out how to “sucessfully” do it.

First of all, I used the most recent version of Blender (2.48a), Python (2.5) and Sketchup (7.08657). Then I exported my chair through : File > Export > 3D Model… and saved with .kmz extension.

Now, you have to rename the extension to .zip and extract it. One of the items extracted is a folder named ‘models’. There you’ll find a filename with extension .dae. Now open blender and go to Import > COLLADA 1.4 … and import the .dae file.

So far so good, but when I tried to export my simple chair it could not import the legs and the cilinders correctly. It creates empties instead. I don’t intend to spend more time learning this tool by now, but it’s always good to learn new stuff.

Allan Brito and Lux Render

I’ve been busy with my college work, but I think this week I’ll have more time. The only things I could do since the last post was read Allan Brito’s blog and test Lux Render [4].

I’d like to highlight two posts of his blog.

One is about modeling using subdivision [1]. There is a link to some tutorials, in spanish, using the software Modo [2]. They tell that there are three types of modeling: using NURBS, hard surface modeling and subdivision. I’ve been working with the second one, with little experience with the first. I found the tutorials quite advanced. Furthermore, Blender lacks some of the tools or characteristis of Modo, for example, binary operation like intersection, union and difference can only be applied for objects with volume, so an operation between a plane and a circle won’t work (correctly).

The other interesting post was a tutorial from Allan Brito himself, the modeling of a Barcelona Chair [3]. It seems complicate at first sight but he uses some tricks that turns the job easier. Unfortunately the tutorial is divided into parts and he just published the first one yet.

Last, I couldn’t get good results from Lux Render yet. The good aspect of this renderer is that it shows the whole image while rendering, while Blender internal just shows the image when the render is done. The following image is the result of the Barcelona’s Chair tutorial, rendered with Lux Render:

[click to enlarge]

Reference:
[1] Modelagem 3d por subdivisão [Portuguese]
[2] Técnicas y trucos modelado por subdivisión [Spanish]
[3] Tutorial: Criando uma cadeira Barcelona [Portuguese]
[4] Lux Renderw

Room 6

Just applied bevel modifier to the bed and used WardIso specular shader for a shining surface. Also added the drawers again to the desk, this time with more details.

Room 5

From the previous attempt, I only added the window grid. I managed to fix the blurred shadow cast by the outside light source. After taking a look at the Spot Lamp manual [1] I discovered that the scene was being rendered using Buffered Shadows, which is fast but renders low quality shadows. The other option is Ray Tracing, which is slow, but renders shadows at a very good resolution.

Room 5 with spot lamp rendered using ray tracing (rendering time: 2m:29s) :

Room 5 with spot lamp rendered using buffered shadows (rendering time: 1m:22s):

Reference:
[1] Manual/Spot Lamp

Room 4

I re-modeled all the objects using the same scale as the real ones. I added more reallistic textures to the bed, the desk and the floor (wood textures). I imported the baseboard from another scene I did for another post (Texture Types) using the append tool [1].

Another major change is the addition of global illumination, a light effect that Blender doesn’t support (AFAIK). There are several ways to fake it. I read about one at “Noob to Pro“, but I didn’t like the result. I discovered by chance a property in Shading > Material Buttons > Shaders Panel called Emit. This feature is useful if we want an object to emit light, but if all the objects in the scene emit a small amount of light, the scene seems to have global illumination!

The result of this changes follows:

I also tried to add an external light source for a cool effect, but the shadows cast by this light have low resolution. I still have to learn how to control this effect:

Reference:
[1] Blender tutorial – Append

Room 3

After learning some new features of blender, I decided to improve the modeling of my desk. The result can be seen below:

Unfortunately I did something wrong when building the faces of the new desk and when applying smoothing its faces become weird:

I’ve asked for help in blender artistis forum, but couldn’t get it solved yet. The full discussion can be seen here.

Bearing Modeling

Today I finished the bearing modeling. The final result can be viewed bellow:

Unfortunately I couldn’t follow correctly the lesson 9 of the tutorial [1], about texturing and rendering the bearing. Even with all the configuration given, the result wasn’t the same as the rendered image in the tutorial. Thus, I did my own.

This seems to be a nice way to show a mechanical device and its components.

Some additional things I learned (or remembered) how to do:

• Scale with respect to planes normals (Alt-S)
• Select loop vertices (Alt-RMB)
• Add neighbor vertices to the current selection (Ctrl-Num+)

Reference:
[1] Modeling a 608 Bearing