|
|
|
|
Back to Tutorials
|
|
|
|
|
|
Part 9 Materials and Rendering
At the introduction to
this tutorial I said I would not cover materials, textures or many of
the other vast array of features available within Blender. However to
use your model for visualisation or design drawing purposes you do need
to know a little about the process of applying materials and rendering
images to 2D bitmaps.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
We will use the detailed
model for this section so open the
608-Bearing.blend file. When Blender opens it automatically inserts a
Camera and Lamp object into your scene (3D workspace), in the outliner
select the Camera object
|
|
 |
In
top view move the camera G
and position it to the front and right of |
the bearing.
Rotate it R to point at the
Bearing, also check it points
at the bearing in side
view. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
In the Editing Buttons
window
the
Camera panel gives options for the camera.
The default lens is 35mm,
to
wide an angle for a decent image so change this to 55mm which will give
a less distorted view. |
| For a full description of the camera controls
see the Blender Wiki. |
|
 |
With the
mouse pointer over the 3D window press NumPad 0 which will
open the
camera view. |
| Select the outer rectangle of the camera RMB and move it G
so it is centred on the bearing.If the bearing doesn't fit in
the camera view signified by the dotted rectangle truck the camera
along its view axis G-MMB
and moving the mouse. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When
the bearing is positioned in the camera’s view select the beraing,
then select the Shading button and the materials sub context button. This will
open the Links and Pipeline panel, click on add new to open a new
material. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
A range of material
panels will become available to you. In the Material tab change the R,
G, B sliders to .560 to give a darker grey. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Click
the texture sub context and in the Texture panel click “Add
New”. Select "Image" from the popup list |
 |
In the Image panel load
the shinyball_ref.jpg image. |
This can be downloaded from the Blender
Texture Disk. A link to the Texture Disk is available on the Blender
Web Site, on the resources page. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Go
back into the material sub context buttons and in the “Map
Input” tab and click Refl which will make the image affect
the
reflection vectors (See Blender Wiki).
In the “Map
To” tab leave the default settings.
|
|
 |
Currently the 3D space has a dark blue background and we need to change
this to white.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
In the World
sub context, World panel change HoR, HoG
and HoB to 1.00.
|
|
In top view NumPad 7 select the Lamp RMB and move G it to the left of the camera. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Copy the Lamp Shift-D and move the copy to the right of the camera.
In front view, select both cameras Shift-RMB and move them G above the bearing.
Lamp Buttons  |
|
 |
The Lamp panel gives the settings for Energy, distance, colour etc.
|
|
The default settings should be OK for this render. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In
the context buttons, click on the scene and sub context Render button.
In the Format Panel change the Size x and Size Y to 800 pixels and
change the image format from Jpeg to PNG. |
 |
|
|
In the Render panel de-select "Ray", as we don't need to use Ray Tracing.
Set "OSA" to 16, so we get a good smooth edge to the render.
Press the Render button,
a new window will open and an image of the
bearing will be created.
|
 |
|
This is a pretty basic
grey colour material and with a little time and
experimentation with the material controls, a much more convincing
material could be obtained. Read the blender documentation and look at
examples of materials posted by other users to gain more experience in
creating realistic materials. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
As most of the parts we
have modelled are hidden within the dust shields it would improve a
drawing layout if we included an exploded view.
This
can be created by simply moving each of the components along the Y axis.
Go
into top view NumPad 7
and select the back circlip move it constrained
to the Y axis away from the bearing. Repeat this for all the other
components spreading them in order along the axis. They can easily be
reassembled by snapping the cursor to the bearing race and then
snapping the other components to the cursor.
|
|
Reposition
the camera to get all the components in the view.
With
all the parts being the same material it is a little confusing and
difficult to separate the parts where they overlap. To overcome this we
can change the material of the bearing cage to a brass coloured
material.
Select 608-CageA . |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
In
the Links and Pipeline panel after the material name is the
number of objects using the material. |
Click on the number and accept
"Single User". This will stop the following material changes
affecting any
of the other objects. Rename this material Bronze.
To change the colour of the cage click on the colour square in the
Materials tab. This will open the colour picker. Choose a bronze
colour.
In the "Mirror Trans" tab de-select Ray Mirror and in the Texture tab
click on Clear to remove the reflection image. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
To
add this material to the other half of the Cage, select 608-CageB and
in the links and Pipeline tab click on MA:Steel. Select Brass from the
list.
To output the picture of the exploded view select the Render
Buttons and in the Render panel press the Render Button.
As before a window will open and the Exploded View will be produced.
Press F3
and save the image. |
| |
| | |
| With
the two images created press Ctrl-W
and save your .blend file.
In the last section we will create a scaled line drawing of the bearing
and add these two images to enhance the layout. | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
