I’m new to Blender/3D animation (but a FAST learning n00b). I have to say that 2 days into having my hands on Blender that I’m learning it at an exponential rate and I’m completely in Love with it (don’t believe me, ask my wife!).
So after doing some reading in various forums, I’ve yet to really come across any posts/threads/stickys that list ‘must have’ tools for Blender. Can any of you recommend to me preformatted textures, libraries, .blend files, or libraries that you commonly use that I should have?
(If it helps at all, I’m going to use Blender for everything but video game production)
Many thanx, as I look forward to becoming a regular active member of this community!
Unlike any other app you will use Blender’s interface, well, sucks. So, there is no texture/material libraries that you can just enter and sellect a material. But, there is a Material script that you can download and then upload all your materials into it. Or, you can download Material libraries off of blendernation.com and then from the blender file that you are working in go to File>Append or Link>Materials.blend>Materials>Your material. This is something very hard to grasp for a new person, it was for me. I been using bryce which is a noob heaven.
hi, once you have made your object that you wish to texture, press the round material button then press add new, this will give you access to change colors and some other settings. Once you have done this press the textures button (next to the materials button) to access the preset textures, there is also an option in these dialogs to import an image as a texture. You can apply multiple textures to the same object. Also if you press to colorband option the textures can be further changed to suit your design. Once back to the materials window, on the far right there is a dialog for changing mapping and if you use multiple textures theres some very photoshop style dialogs for mixing textures.
Check the forums for material tutorials and this should become easy for you. Blender is capable of an unlimited amount of different texture & material settings once you know how. Give it a little time and the sky is the limit. This may be hard for basic program users like bryce that use a more generic texture set up, but the truth is Blender has one of the most advanced textures/materials functions of any 3d program, once you take the time to learn it. @gat Blenders interface only ‘sucks’ if you don’t take the time to learn it.
Try to explain how to use it and give some helpful information, rather that belittle it.
Thanks M.A.
I understand how to make materials, UV objects, lighting, etc, I think what I meant in my original post was in regards to ‘must have plugins’… I’ve downloaded some .blend files already labeled as free textures already as well as VirtuaLight and was wondering if there are any others out there that are ‘must haves’
I don’t know if there are any must-have plugins for blender. None that I’ve ever seen, anyway. Most of Blender’s tools will get you pretty much anywhere, I just use the basics, myself. There are a few specialty scripts, but most of those are kinda uniquely usefully in specific areas only.
I like to use(play with) other renderers so I would look around for some export scripts that work for Indigo,Sunflow,Kerkythea, also http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread?t=56552.
And Yafray of course. their are allot of others to.
