I’m new to 3D modelling, and would like to learn more about it. My aim is to be able to make a car using Blender - I know that will take a long time, not only to produce, but for me to learn how to do it and to master the skills. I am determined to do this, but I do not know where to start.
There’s Blender, of course - but then I have seen other apps mentioned as well, such as Yafray. How do these all link together, in what order should I learn them, which will I need to use to make that car, and which tutorials do you suggest for a complete newbie? I am quite good with Fireworks 8, but am still getting to grips with Photoshop (although I understand that it’s a popular tool to be used to make textures and stuff for Blender).
Any help would be appreciated
Thank you.
lance
[edit] Sorry, I forgot to mention - I am an advanced user of Linux and Windows, and am proficient in using OS X.
The video tutorials on this page are a great way to take your first steps. I recommend watching them in order. As for the car model, use the search function on this board and I’m sure you will find plenty of information on car modelling. Don’t be intimidated by the sheer number of buttons and functions, after awhile things will get much easier. (At first I felt like a monkey at the controls of a space shuttle…)
It’s just like any other kind of art: Get your pencil out and sketch some roughs The better an idea at the start, the better the result. At the same time RTFM in small chunks and get the hotkeys and techniques second nature. After three years of using autocad, Vue, Blender, and others I still find myself learning more. My question about skinning earlier was frustration at doing a procedure the manual refered to and finding it didn’t work as stated.
Here are a few essential hot keys that you will eventually memorize.
G is grab, or move.
S is scale, for making things larger or smaller.
X is delete.
E is extrude, like if you had a plane you might extrude the face to make a cube. (Ignore for the moment that Blender has a default cube shape already…)
B is box select, so you can drag a box around whatever you want to select.
A is select/deselect all.
X limits the movement of a selection to the global X axis. Hitting it twice restricts movement to the mesh’s local X axis.
Y does the same thing as X but limits movement to the global or local Y axis.
Z does the same as X and Y but for the global and local Z axes.
i am just getting started aswell and i guess i have the same ambitions, to design cars:)). but i think that will take quit a while to get there. how ever blender is not only a pure modeling program but it does this pretty easily once you get used to it. so blender is actually a very useful tool for 3D modelling from scratch. yafray is more a makeup tool for finishing steps on renderings such as making things look more realistic and plastic with lighting effects.
by the way if you find any pretty videos on how to model cars with blender, i’d be glad if you would throw me the link into my mailbox here.
wish you leaping progress learning with blender,
veyron
Just want to say to both of you, you’ll probably learn a lot faster than you think. I thought it would take me years before I had enough skill to start modelling a stargate, but I’ve only done 2 or 3 big projects so far and I’m already started on my hyper-detailed labor of love.