Blender Tricks: Learn Something, Contribute to the Cause

(WhiteBoy) #1

Due to boredom (and the fact that I randomly decided to go buy a microphone for my machine), I recently decided to compile a list of some of the less known features in Blender and begin a series of video tutorials. The first result of this endeavor is episode 1 of “Blender Tricks.” This tutorial is approximately 20 minutes long and contains examples of over 25 generally unknown Blender tricks and features. Many of which were taken from the sticky thread on CGTalk entitled “Cool things in Blender that aren’t so obvious.”

Please take a look at it and let me know what you think. I’m asking for you (the almighty Blender user) to contribute to any possible future episodes by donating any interesting/generally unknown things in Blender that you have discovered. Simply contact me and explain the technique or whatever you feel deserves recognition. And yes, I will credit you in the video. Call me weird, but I think this could get very interesting if it works.

Anyway, I suggest that you download the high res version if you have the bandwidth as it is much clearer.

Also, if anyone would be so kind as to provide me with a better host for these files, I would consider you my hero.

Blender Tricks: Episode 1
Low resolution: http://storeandserve.com/download/4942/tricks_episode1_low.zip.html (WMV, 12.8MB)

High resolution: http://storeandserve.com/download/4944/tricks_episode1_high.zip.html (WMV, 47.3MB)

Happy Blending! I hope you learn something. :slight_smile:

(r9onaldo) #2

Thanks Whiteboy, I found it very informative. Keep up the good work.

(Ongnissim) #3

I always enjoy a good video tutorial, and this was one. Very well done, both in concept and in quality. I really enjoyed it. However, I dont think you mentioned (in the camera fly mode part) that Ctrl and Alt can move the camera up and down on the Z-axis, which can help some times. Up until then, however, I had never known about that, and I had asked for it as a feature request :frowning: … This tutorial series can help clarify what exactly Blender does and does not have within its depths. Good job, looking forward to a sequel!

Hold on Tight,
Ongnissim

(Fligh) #4

http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16122

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(nam) #5

hey whiteboy, how’s rollercoaster tycoon coming along? LOL, jk. good effort, i watched it and it had some nice editing. I bet that took u awhile to edit huh? but yeah, good work

(NeOmega) #6

That cgtalk thread is one of the most informative threads I ever ran into.

(knellotron) #7

Great idea, but I have one complaint:

The Control + U thing to set user defaults is NOT the same thing as opening up your last project automatically. It duplicates your project and saves it as another file.

Let me give you an example:
-Day 1: You work on a project for a while, then save it, hit Ctrl+U.
-Day 2: you open Blender your project appears again automatically, but it’s actually still an untitled document. Saving it again means finding your old project and overwriting it.
-Day 3: The next time you open your project, your project appears automatically, but because you didn’t hit Ctrl+U yesterday, what you see is the version from Day #1. So you need to hit “reopen last” from the file menu, like you did before.

Ctrl + U is meant for saving the UI configuration. It’s covered in the Gus tutorial, and I think going beyond that makes things confusing.

(WhiteBoy) #8

I just assumed people already knew that Ctrl+U was used for saving UI configurations. The method described in the tutorial is simply an abstract use for this feature that I found somewhat useful. I suppose I should have given more background information on the subject, but I was trying to keep things brief.

Good catch though. :wink:

(levi) #9

Very nice indeed, I learned a good number of things from it that will come in very useful. Thanks for that !!. :smiley:

(NeOmega) #10

small correction on Tip 17:

You actually do not have to select a vertice first.

You just hold your cursor over the mesh part you want, and press L, Blender will pick whichever vertice is closest. Selecting a vertice does nothing. (try it out, separate the suzannes far apart, select a vertice on the first suzanne, then hold the cursor over the second and press L… the second suzanne will be selected, in addition to the one vertice on the first suzanne… without holding the shift key)

(NeOmega) #11

In the file viewer, I selected to just look at some pictures on my desktop, and a .bpib file appeared on my desktop.

Does that file get made in every folder/directory pictures/textures are viewed from?

I was totally floored, in one of the folders, I had a choice of a bunch of .flc files!!! Some of them even proprietary files!

I mean, it had little previews for a special format of .flc files for the civ III game engine. Even stranger, it opens some, but not others, of the civ III flics. I cant even figure out what the possible difference would be between them.

(z3r0 d) #12

I’ve pre-emptively done my part!!!

(MADCello) #13

In trick 16 you can use CTRL+O (Reopen last).

In trick 24 if you use SHIFT + CRTL you get a precision 1/10 smaller than just CTRL.

A new one that i think is really usefull (i think i’ve learned with z3r0 d, thank you).
When in camera mode, SHIFT+B let you draw a small window in the camera area and that small window is the only part of the image that is rendered. To render all window size again disable “Border” in Scene Buttons “F10”.

Very nice tips. Thank you!!

(NeOmega) #14

Did not know that… very useful. Did know abotu the ctrl key, which I consider to be the “precision key:”… shift I consider the tiny adjustment key… hmmm…

While I am here, does “fill” only work on flat planes? Would “extrapolation fill” be possible for curved surfaces? OR highly complex?