Book Image

Blender 3D Basics Beginner's Guide Second Edition

By : Gordon Fisher
Book Image

Blender 3D Basics Beginner's Guide Second Edition

By: Gordon Fisher

Overview of this book

This book teaches you how to model a nautical scene, complete with boats and water, and then add materials, lighting, and animation. It demystifies the Blender interface and explains what each tool does so that you will be left with a thorough understanding of 3D. This book starts with an introduction to Blender and some background on the principles of animation, how they are applied to computer animation, and how these principles make animation better. Furthermore, the book helps you advance through various aspects of animation design such as modeling, lighting, camera work, and animation through the Blender interface with the help of several simple projects. Each project will help you practice what you have learned and do more advanced work in all areas.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Blender 3D Basics Beginner's Guide Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
3
Controlling the Lamp, the Camera, and Animating Objects
Index

Making modeling easier with Blender's layers function


A short while ago, you used the Move to Layer menu to hide the reference blocks so that you could render the boat. Blender's layers are a powerful tool and something that deserves a bit more study. Perhaps you may have used layers in Photoshop or AutoCAD. Blender's layers work differently:

  • In Blender, layers are similar to cubbyholes that you can put objects in, and hide them or show them.

  • Something on the top layer won't necessarily render on top of something on another layer. You cannot link them together, or move a layer as you can in Photoshop.

  • An object may be in more than one layer at a time.

  • An object in a layer that is active can be moved, modified, or rendered. An object in a layer that is not active, may not.

  • Layers cannot be accessed in Edit Mode.

There are 20 layers in Blender. You can use any or all of them. You can select them with the 20 buttons in the 3D View header in Object Mode, as shown in the next image. They are called...