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[edit] Grundlegendes Mesh Modelling

Dieser Abschnitt beschreibt einige der meistverwendeten Mesh-Bearbeitungswerkzeuge.

[edit] Extrude

Der wichtigste Befehl beim Arbeiten mit Meshes ist der "Extrude" Befehl (E). Mit diesem Befehl können Sie aus Rechtecken Quader und aus Kreisen Zylinder erzeugen, so lassen sich zum Beispiel sehr einfach Baumstämme erzeugen. Obwohl der Vorgang sehr intuitiv abläuft, soll das Prinzip hier kurz dargestellt werden.

• Als erstes bestimmt der Algorithmus den Außenrand für Extrude; das heißt, welche Kanten dürfen in Flächen umgewandelt werden. Standardmässig betrachtet der Algorithmus Kanten, die zu zwei oder mehr Flächen gehören, als intern und daher nicht Teil des Kantenrings.
• Die selektierten Kanten werden dann in Flächen umgewandelt.
• Wenn die selektierten Kanten nur zu einer Fläche gehören, werden alle selektierten Flächen dupliziert und mit den neu erzeugten Flächen verknüpft. So werden z. B. aus Rechtecken Quader erzeugt.
• In other cases, the selected faces are linked to the newly created faces but not duplicated. This prevents undesired faces from being retained 'inside' the resulting mesh. This distinction is extremely important since it ensures the construction of consistently coherent, closed volumes at all times when using Extrude.
• Edges not belonging to selected faces, which form an 'open' edge-loop, are duplicated and a new face is created between the new edge and the original one.
• Single selected vertices which do not belong to selected edges are duplicated and a new edge is created between the two.

Grab mode is automatically started when the Extrude algorithm terminates, so newly created faces, edges, and vertices can be moved around with the mouse. Extrude is one of the most frequently used modelling tools in Blender. It's simple, straightforward, and easy to use, yet very powerful. The following short lesson describes how to build a sword using Extrude.

[edit] Die Klinge

• Starten Sie Blender und löschen Sie das Standardobjekt. Erzeugen Sie in der Draufsicht einen Kreis mit acht Vertices. Verschieben Sie die Vertices, bis sie der Abbildung gleichen: Verformter Kreis als Klingenquerschnitt.

• Selektieren Sie alle Vertices und skalieren Sie die Form mit S, so dass sie in zwei Rasterquadrate passt. Wechseln Sie in die Frontalansicht mit NUM1.
• Der Umriß, den wir modelliert haben, ist die Basis für die Klinge. Mit Extrude werden wir sie in ein paar einfachen Schritten erzeugen. Drücken Sie bei selektierten Vertices E, oder klicken Sie auf den Extrude Knopf im Mesh Tools Panel im Editing Context (F9 - Extrude Knopf im EditButtons context.). Ein Bestätigungsdialog erscheint Ok? Extrude (Extrude Bestätigungsdialog. ). Click this text or press ENTER to confirm, otherwise move the mouse outside or press ESC to exit. If you now move the mouse you'll see that Blender has duplicated the vertices, connected them to the original ones with edges and faces, and has entered grab mode.

• Move the new vertices up 30 units, constraining the movement with CTRL, then click LMB to confirm their new position and scale them down a little bit with the S (The Blade).

• Press E again to extrude the tip of the blade, then move the vertices five units up. To make the blade end in one vertex, scale the top vertices down to 0.000 (hold CTRL for this) and press W>Remove Doubles (Mesh Edit Menu) or click the Rem Doubles button in the EditButtons (F9). Blender will inform you that it has removed seven of the eight vertices and only one vertex remains. The blade is complete! (The completed blade)

[edit] The Handle

• Leave edit mode and move the blade to the side. Add a UVsphere with 16 segments and rings and deselect all the vertices with the A.
• Borderselect the top three rings of vertices with B and delete them with X>>Vertices (UV sphere for the handle: vertices to be removed ).

• Select the top ring of vertices and extrude them. Move the ring up four units and scale them up a bit (First extrusion for the handle), then extrude and move four units again twice and scale the last ring down a bit (Complete handle).
• Leave EditMode and scale the entire handle down so that it's in proportion with the blade. Place it just under the blade.

[edit] The Hilt

By now you should be used to the 'extrude>move>scale' sequence, so try to model a nice hilt with it. Start out with a cube and extrude different sides a few times, scaling them where needed. You should be able to get something like that shown in Complete Hilt.

After texturing, the sword looks like Finished sword, with textures and materials

As you can see, extrude is a very powerful tool that allows you to model relatively complex objects very quickly (the entire sword was created in less than one half hour). Getting the hang of extrude>move>scale will make your life as a Blender modeler a lot easier.

[edit] Spin and SpinDup

Spin and spin dup are two other very powerful modelling tools allowing you to easily create bodies of revolution or axially periodic structures.

[edit] Spin

Use the Spin tool to create the sort of objects that you would produce on a lathe. (This tool is often called a "lathe"-tool or a "sweep"-tool in the literature, for this reason.) First, create a mesh representing the profile of your object. If you are modeling a hollow object, it is a good idea to thicken the outline. Glass profile shows the profile for a wine glass we will model as a demonstration.

In EditMode, with all the vertices selected, access the Editing Context (F9). The Degr button in the Mesh Tools Panel indicates the number of degrees to spin the object (in this case we want a full 360° sweep). The Steps button specifies how many profiles there will be in the sweep (Spin Buttons).

Like Spin Duplicate (discussed in the next section), the effects of Spin depend on the placement of the cursor and which window (view) is active. We will be rotating the object around the cursor in the top view. Switch to the top view with NUM7.

• Place the cursor along the center of the profile by selecting one of the vertices along the center, and snapping the cursor to that location with SHIFT-S>>Curs->Sel. Glass profile, top view in edit mode, just before spinning. shows the wine glass profile from top view, with the cursor correctly positioned.

Before continuing, note the number of vertices in the profile. You'll find this information in the Info bar at the top of the Blender interface (Mesh data - Vertex and face numbers.).

• Click the "Spin" button. If you have more than one window open, the cursor will change to an arrow with a question mark and you will have to click in the window containing the top view before continuing. If you have only one window open, the spin will happen immediately. Spinned profile shows the result of a successful spin.

• The spin operation leaves duplicate vertices along the profile. You can select all vertices at the seam with Box select (B) (Seam vertex selection) and do a Remove Doubles operation.

Notice the selected vertex count before and after the Remove Doubles operation (Vertex count after removing doubles.). If all goes well, the final vertex count (38 in this example) should match the number of the original profile noted in Mesh data - Vertex and face numbers.. If not, some vertices were missed and you will need to weld them manually. Or, worse, too many vertices will have been merged.

Merging two vertices in one To merge (weld) two vertices together, select both of them by holding SHIFT and RMB on them. Press S to start scaling and hold down CONTROL while scaling to scale the points down to 0 units in the X,Y and Z axis. LMB to complete the scaling operation and click the Remove Doubles button in the EditButtons window. Alternatively, you can press W and select Merge from the appearing Menu (Merge menu). Then, in a new menu, choose whether the merged node will have to be at the center of the selected nodes or at the cursor. The first choice is better in our case.

All that remains now is to recalculate the normals by selecting all vertices and pressing CTRL-N>>Recalc Normals Outside. At this point you can leave EditMode and apply materials or smoothing, set up some lights, a camera and make a rendering. Final render of the glasses. shows our wine glass in a finished state.

[edit] SpinDup

The Spin Dup tool is a great way to quickly make a series of copies of an object along a circle. For example, if you have modeled a clock, and you now want to add hour marks.

Model just one mark, in the 12 o'clock position (Hour mark indicated by the arrow). Select the mark and switch to the Editing Context with F9. Set the number of degrees in the Degr: Num Button in the Mesh Tools Panel to 360. We want to make 12 copies of our object, so set the Steps to 12 (Spin Dup buttons).

• Switch the view to the one in which you wish to rotate the object by using the keypad. Note that the result of the Spin Dup command depends on the view you are using when you press the button.
• Position the cursor at the center of rotation. The objects will be rotated around this point. *Select the object you wish to duplicate and enter EditMode with TAB.
• In EditMode, select the vertices you want to duplicate (note that you can select all vertices with A or all of the vertices linked to the point under the cursor with L). See Mesh selected and ready to be SpinDuped.

Cursor Placement To place the cursor at the precise location of an existing object or vertex, select the object or vertex, and press SHIFT-S>>CURS>>SEL.

• Press the Spin Dup button. If you have more than one 3DWindow open, you will notice the mouse cursor change to an arrow with a question mark. Click in the window in which you want to do your rotation. In this case, we want to use the front window (View selection for Spin Dup.).

If the view you want is not visible, you can dismiss the arrow/question mark with ESC until you can switch a window to the appropriate view with the keypad.

When spin-duplicating an object 360 degrees, a duplicate object is placed at the same location of the first object, producing duplicate geometry. You will notice that after clicking the Spin Dup button, the original geometry remains selected. To delete it, simply press X>>Vertices. The source object is deleted, but the duplicated version beneath it remains (Removal of duplicated object).

Avoiding duplicates If you like a little math you needn't bother with duplicates because you can avoid them at the start. Just make 11 duplicates, not 12, and not around the whole 360°, but just through 330° (that is 360*11/12). This way no duplicate is placed over the original object. In general, to make n duplicates over 360 degrees without overlapping, just spin one less object over 360*(n-1)/n degrees.

Final Clock Render. shows the final rendering of the clock.

[edit] Screw

The "Screw" tool combines a repetitive "Spin" with a translation, to generate a screw-like, or spiral-shaped, object. Use this tool to create screws, springs, or shell-shaped structures.

The method for using the "Screw" function is strict:

• Set the 3DWindow to front view (NUM1).
• Place the 3DCursor at the position through which the rotation axis must pass. Such an axis will be vertical.
• Ensure that an open poly line is available. This can be a single edge, as shown in the figure, or a half circle, or whatever.

You need only to ensure that there are two 'free' ends; two vertices belonging to a single edge linking then to another vertex. The "Screw" function localizes these two points and uses them to calculate the translation vector that is added to the "Spin" per each full rotation (How to make a spring: before (left) and after (right) the Screw tool.). If these two vertices are at the same location, this creates a normal "Spin". Otherwise, interesting things happen!

• Select all vertices that will participate in the "Screw".
• Assign the Num Buttons Steps: and Turns: in the Mesh Tools Panel the desired values. Steps: determines how many times the profile is repeated within each 360° rotation, while Turns: sets the number of complete 360° rotations to be performed.
• Press Screw!

If there are multiple 3DWindows, the mouse cursor changes to a question mark. Click on the 3DWindow in which the "Screw" is to be executed. If the two "free" ends are aligned vertically the result is the one seen above. If they are not, the translation vector remains vertical, equal to the vertical component of the vector joining the two 'free' vertices, while the horizontal component generates an enlargement (or reduction) of the screw as shown in Enlarging screw (right) obtained with the profile on the left..

[edit] Warp Werkzeug

Das Warp Werkzeug in Blender wird häufig übersehen, zum Teil weil es in den Edit Buttons nicht erscheint, zum Teil weil es nur für ganz bestimmte Modellierungsaufgaben nützlich ist. Für eine Aufgabe ist es aber unschlagbar, nämlich dann, wenn es darum geht Text in eine Ringform zu bringen.

Das eignet sich z.B. für Logos, oder denken Sie an den Universal Filmvorspann. In unserem Beispiel werden wir die Worte "Amazingly Warped Text" um eine Kugel legen.

• Als erstes fügen Sie die Kugel hinzu.
• Nun fügen Sie den Text in der Vorderansicht (Num-1) hinzu. Im Editing Kontext auf dem Curve and Surface Panel stellen Sie Ext1 auf 0.1 - dadurch wird der Text dreidimensional. Stellen Sie Ext2 auf 0.01, das fügt eine schöne Kante an die Buchstaben hinzu. BevResol stellen Sie auf 2 um den Bevel glatter zu machen. Das "Alignment" stellen Sie auf Middle. Da der Text für das Warp Werkzeug erst in ein Mesh konvertiert werden muss, senken wir die Auflösung DefResolU auf 4, damit nicht zu viele Vertices erstellt werden. Wir können später das Mesh in der Auflösung anpassen (Einstellungen für das Text Objekt).

• Wandeln Sie das Textobjekt in ein Kurvenobjekt um, dann direkt in ein Mesh-Objekt (zweimal ALT-C), denn das Warp Werkzeug arbeitet nur mit Mesh-Objekten. Subdividen (im Edit Mode alle Vertices auswählen, W-1) Sie das Mesh nach Bedarf und Rechnerleistung, so dass glatte Verformungen möglich werden. Ist das Mesh zu wenig unterteil, entstehen beim "Warpen" störende Verzerrungen.
• Nun schalten Sie in die Draufsicht Num-7 und bewegen das Mesh im Objekt Modus von dem 3D-Cursor, der sich in der Mitte der Kugel befinden sollte, weg. Der Abstand zum Cursor bestimmt den Radius des Warp (Draufsicht auf Kugel und Text).

• Im Edit Modus (TAB) wählen Sie alle Vertices aus (A) und aktivieren das Warp Werkzeug mit SHIFT-W. Durch Mausbewegung können Sie die Stärke des Warp interaktiv einstellen, durch Halten Strg ändert sich der Warp in Schritten von jeweils 5 Grad. (Warped Text).

Wechseln Sie in die Kameraansicht Num-0, fügen Material und Licht hinzu, und Sie können Ihr Bild rendern (Fertig gerendertes Bild).