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blender tutorial

Pure white background

First set transparent rendering:

image-20230817121854933

Then Change color view transform to standard (the same tab, just below Film):

image-20230817121902473

Then open compositing window, and set use nodes, then add an "alpha over" layer like this:

image-20230817121909364

Add-on

Edit --> Preferences --> Add-ons Download the released zip file, and choose it from install... to install. (seems you need to manually enable add-ons every time when you start blender?)

obj sequence animation (Stop-motion-OBJ)

To animate a sequence of obj files. After enabling the add-on, choose file --> import --> mesh sequence. The files need to be organized as: 

name_000.obj
name_001.obj
name_002.obj
in the same folder, and a name keyword is necessary.

Rigging and deforming

  • load your ready-to-rig humanoid model.

  • Add (Shift-A) --> Armature --> Single Bone

    • Change to wireframe mode for easy visualization of bone-model position.
    • you may change the visibility to "always in front" so you can click your bone easily.

    image-20230914131227283

  • Adjust the bone's size, rotation, make it as the main spine of your model.

  • Go to edit mode:

    image-20230914131413554

  • click on the rotation ball, use E = extrude to create other connected bones:

    image-20230914131605802

  • After creating all bones, go to object mode, first click model, then shift-click bone, then Ctrl + P, choose automatic weights:

    image-20230914132030562

  • Then go to pose mode, and you can move your bones to visualize the deformed poses!

How to render transparent background

image-20230914130930948

How to rotate camera/light by parenting

  • Add (Shift + A) a new empty object (plain axis), set its location to (0, 0, 0).
  • In 3D viewport, first select camera/light (child), then select the empty object (parent).
  • Ctrl + P, set parent to object.
  • You could see in Outlier, the camera/light now belongs to the empty object.
  • Rotate the empty object, and the child will rotate too!

animation interpolation

default is some smoothing bezier curve.

In Animation pannel, choose channel --> extrapolation mode --> linear extrapolation.

Render

0 to toggle camera view.

F12 to render current image.

Ctrl + F12 to render animation.

Use ffmpeg to concat to video:

# -pix_fmt yuv420p is neccessary to be compatible to powerpoint
ffmpeg.exe -framerate 30 -i %04d.png -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4

Set output path:

image-20230305191231538

Set resolution & aspect:

image-20230522151233612

Animation

In animation tab, set keyframe by clicking:

image-20230305191530471

Camera follow path animation

image-20230522160717435

Ambient lighting

In the world properties:

image-20230305191716034

Move object origin to mesh center (instead of global center 0,0,0)

image-20230521220540588

UI and shortcut key

  • Middle Button (view control)
    • Middle Button + Drag: rotate
    • Alt + Middle Button + Drag: rotate to nearest axis
    • Ctrl + Middle Button + Drag (Vertical) == Middle Button Scroll: zoom
    • Shift + Middle Button + Drag: pan

  • Numpad (view control)

    • 2 / 4 / 6 / 8: rotate
    • 1 / 3 / 7 / 9: rotate to axis
    • 5: toggle perspective / orthogonal
    • 0: toggle camera view
  • Shift + A: add new objects
  • Shift + Z: toggle wireframe
  • Ctrl + Space: toggle maximize area with the current application window.
  • Ctrl + Dragging: discrete steps
  • Shift + Dragging: precise steps
  • Ctrl + Z: undo
  • Ctrl + Shift + Z: redo
  • Ctrl + Alt + 0: move camera to current view (very useful!)

Convert Trigs back to Quads

  • Left-top: change Object Mode to Edit Mode
  • Press A to select all faces.
  • top bar: Face > Tris to Quads

Although this is not a perfect solution.