Actions and Graphs in Blender - Week 8 Sculpt Tool Sculpting tools in Blender are very easy to use and they will help you create interesting effects and model characters when working with animation and game design. Open Blender and change the Mode from Object to Sculpt. The cursor changes to a circle (sculpt brush) that will allow us to shape our model. The first thing we need to do before sculpt is to add Multires (in the Editing Buttons Panel) to the cube. Multires is a modelling property that will add faces to the cube and make it mode editable (allows modelling in more subdivision levels). I am going to hit the add level button five times and each time it will add faces to the cube and smooth it out. Note: as always that the more levels you add the more faces you get so the slower Blender will be. But since you are modelling a character you will need a decent level of subdivision so compromise between quality and file size. Now we are ready to sculpt s hit N and you will bring up the properties window for the sculpt tool. This will allow us to manipulate the circular cursor (sculpt brush).
So let s go and set up our brush. We are in add mode since we are going to add depth to the model and we will also go and set the size number to 15 and the strength to 40. See the brush changing! We will also apply symmetry on the X axis since we want to symmetrically mirror what we do on the other side of the mesh. Ok so let s go add some eyebrows to the sphere... Now we will create the eyes but to do so we will need to subtract the geometry so as to hollow out the eyeballs of our character, so go to the properties panel and change the add brush mode to sub.
Next we ll create the nose of our character so change your brush to add again and go ahead to shape it out. Remember to hit ctrl + Z if you make a mistake. We will quickly add the lips again using the add tool and then we will go and draw the chin out. To do that, we need to change our Brush on the Properties panel from Draw to Grab. This we help us grad a group of vertices and pull them out. We also need to 200 (max) for the size value and then we will go and drag the chin out... So now we will go ahead and sculpt the ears but to do so we will change the Brush type to Layer, so as to model with more detail. The Layer tool will enable us to add one layer of depth each time we click, so we need to keep clicking to sculpt. After you shape the ear you need to also hollow it a little so select the Sub brush again and sculpt over the inside of the ear.
Finally we will select Grab and decrease the size of the brush a bit (e.g 100) and drag the ears up to make them look like a monster s ears. Now that we have our basis ready we will go and add another level of Multires to make our monster head even better looking and then we will also go and correct any bumpy or poorly sculpt areas with the Smooth brush. In the Properties panel change the brush from Grab to Smooth and hover over areas that need some correction. The final thing we will do is to shape the nose of the monster to be more visible. To do so, change the brush from Smooth to Inflate and go drag the brush over the nose. This will inflate out the area like a balloon and give it some volume.
And there you go you have created your first character head to use in your animations and games! You can also go and smooth it to round it out more. Ok, let s continue on to see how we can sculpt textures as well into our character. Go to the shading buttons > texture buttons (F6) Then on the Preview tab we need to select Brush instead of Material. Select the first channel to apply this and then set the texture type from the list. There are a lot you can use but we will use the Musgrave for this example. Finally go to the Musgrave properties tab and change the type to Ridged Multifractal. So now, if we go and paint over our model you will see the texture being applied on it. The reason why this is happening is because now the 3D texture is used as the brush. This is a cool and easy way to create skin detail to your characters and build up the model by sculpting.
Particles System We will now see how you can use Blender s powerful particles system to simulate fire, hair, fur, rain and smoke. You also need to keep in mind that particles can be emitted from any kind of object in blender (from the default cube to a monkey). But for this example we will use the plane which is the basic one. Open a new.blend, erase the default cube and add a plane. Go to Edit Mode > W > Subdivide the plane once. Go to the Buttons panel > Object buttons > Particle buttons. Now go and hit the add button to set up a new particle system and then select Emitter from the list. This is good for animating rain, smoke and fire where particles move over time. Hair is for more static particle systems like hair, grass and fur. So we will choose Emitter. Particles are emitted from the faces of the mesh (default 10 particles per frame). The default number of particles is 1000 but we will go and change it to 10000 (in the Amount filed).
If you now hit Alt + A you will see particles being emitted from the faces of the plane (four faces since we have subdivided once). We will continue building on this and we will go to the Physics tab. There we will increase the Normal value to 1 to give some height to the particles. Hit Al + A again and you will see them flying in the air. Random, will give a bit of randomness to the emitting direction, so we will mix Normals and Random to create a more realistic effect. Give a value in the range of 0.1 to 1 for the Random. AccX, Y and Z will give an extra push to the corresponding direction, so we will go and add the value of AccX to 0.5 to move the particles along the X axis. This is quite good for fire and smoke effects. The Start and End values define in which frames the animation of the particles will play. By default it starts at 1 and runs to 100 frames. Life will define for how long the particle lives, so if you increase the value the particles will stay visible for longer.
If you now go to a random frame (let s say 41) and render a still image, you will see that the particles render as halos and the plane is not visible. So let s see how we can change the appearance of the particles. Go t the Shading Buttons and add a red material to the plane. The next thing we need to do to control how the simulation looks like is to set the properties of the Halo. First go and hit the Halo button on the Links and Pipeline tab to see the result of your changes in the preview. Then go to the Shaders tab and there you can make whatever changes appropriate for what you want to create. Let s see some examples... Change the Halo properties as you see on the image below to make your Halo stars smaller and more visible to the 3D view and the render: Finally we will see how you can animate the halos to incorporate the simulation in your animation. Split the screen and set the second view to be the IPO Curve Editor. Then change the type of the animation from object to material since this is what we want to animate. Then go to the properties on the Ipo Editor and click on HaSize to select it. This is the property that will animate the Halo size. We will create an IPO Curve now to see how the particles will be animated in time.
Use ctrl + LMB and click over the IPO area to create the curve and then animate the sequence (export your animation) to see what you achieved. Remember that to animate as a Quicktime movie you should: 1. Go to the Render buttons and set the start and end frame of the animation (by default it is 250 frames). 2. Go to the Format Tab > File format (currently says jpeg) > change to Quicktime. 3. A new window opens. Choose: Compression Type > H.264, Frames per Second > 25 and Quality > best. 4. Go to the Output Tab, hit the browser button, and select where the file will be saved > (e.g) Desktop 5. Hit the Anim button. Actions in the GE Last week we had our introduction to the GE and show a few of the basic interaction that can be achieved via the Logic Bricks System. This week we will see another simple game that will give us the opportunity to understand how to create other basic GE controls like a score HUB and a Messages Logic Line. Let s begin... Start a new Blender (crt+x) and add a plane. This will be the floor so scale it up. Then select the default cube > Logic >Dynamic Actor. And as before we will create four lines (Sensor, Controller and Actuator) to control its motion. Look at image below on how the Logic looks for the basic motion of the cube:
*the process of simple character animation was explained in the previous course so take a look to remember the steps. Locked Door: Now we are going to build the environment for our Game. Give a material to the cube to distinguish it. Then add a new cube scale it down and then start extruding it to create a wall. Create a door on the one side, again with extrude and then select the faces of the door and hit P to separate it from the rest. Give a material to the door to be visible to the player. Now we will create a ramp for the cube to climb on and open the door. Add a new cube, push it down so as half of it to be under the floor and the go to Edit Mode (TAB) and scale the down facing surface. This way it will take the shape of a platform. After this quick modelling your game level should look like the one on the image below:
So now select the main character (green cube) and go to Logic. Then hit the Property button and give it a name (here we use player ). This will be the property name that refers to the cube. Now select the platform and add a line. Wire it together and select Collision for the Sensor. Go to the Property field of the Sensor and type in the name player that we used before. This way we say to the Sensor to get active only when it collides with the green cube and nothing else! For the Actuator change it to Message and on the subject text field write the name of the message you want to send. Here we use the name active. We can also specify the To text filed to define where we want to send the message, but here we don t need to do that.
What we want to do now is to animate the door so as to open and close when the cube touches the platform. Select the door, make sure you are in frame 1 > i > Loc and then progress to frame 31 (about a sec) and move the door under the ground. Hit i > Loc again and return to frame 1. So now we add Logic to the Door. Add a line and wire it. Make the Sensor a Message with subject active (sos basically this means that once the cube collides with the platform the message called active will be send to the door and make it move). The Actuator here is IPO where we set the start frame to 1 and the end to 31, since this is how long our motion will last. So now if you hit the PKEY you will see that the door opens once the cube runs over the platform. But if the cube touches the platform again the door opens again and we don t want that. We only want to open it once. Hit ESC to get out of play mode. Select the door and add a new Property. This will be int with value 1. Also name it up. Then Add another Sensor and Actuator and wire them to the same AND. Change the Sensor to Property, give it the name up and the value 1. The Actuator should also be Property with name up and value 0. We use this technique to force the door to open only once. This is because the property should be 1 for the door to open and when it does the property is set to 0 so as to prevent the loop and signify the door is already opened. Simple Score HUD: For the next step of our game we will create a basic scoring system. Add a UVshpere and give it a material, preferably a yellow one to look like o coin. Then go to Logic > Ghost (so as the main actor will be able to run through it). Now add a line and wire it. Change the Sensor to Collision and the Actuator to Message. The subject of the message will be score. Then add another Actuator and change it to Edit Object > End object, so as to delete the coin once collected.
So now we need to store the points somewhere and we will create a HUD. To do that, we will add a new Scene. Go to the top header and select Scene > Add new > Empty. Go to top view and then add a Camera. This will be an overlay scene so add a plane and adjust it to the top corner of the camera. Split the screen and load the UV image editor on the second screen. Then select the plane and go to Edit mode (TAB) than hit U > Unwrap. Then go to the UVEditor and hit Image > Open > arialbd.tga. So now scale your plane down to wrap around the first letter on the image. Once you are done turn your textured mode on, to be able to see and RKEY to rotate and adjust. The final should look like the one below: So now while in Edit Mode (very important!!) > Editing Buttons > Texture Face Tab > hit the twoside, text and alpha buttons. This will make the texture visible in both sides and help you get real time interactive text. So now go back to Object mode and then to the Logic buttons > add property >Text (must be capita T!!) and change it to an int. Finally add a line and wire it. The Sensor
will be Message > score and the Actuator will be Property > Add > Text >1. So now we add one every time we select a coin. Go back to the original Scene > Camera view and add a line to the camera. The camera Logic should follow the player and display the Overlay scene: You can duplicate the coin to make the player collect more points!!