I got a couple Blender questions.

[Mattus]

Hi GrandMasterK

I'm also new to blender and enjoyed reading your questions. I have the answers to a couple of them...

2 - A poly Count can be seen if you exit 'Edit' mode by pressing tab. (your selected mesh will be outlined in pink). Know if you look at the top of your blender window, you'll see a set of figures that looks like:

Ve:1002 l Fa:1030 l Ob:6-1 l La:2 l Mem:1.50M l Time: l Sphere

The 'Fa' figure of 1030 is your Facets total or Poly Count as you call it.

-----------------------------
3 - to get a camera facing directly forwards is probably easier to just create a nweone than try and aim the default camera.

Simply move your mouse over the front-viewport and hit spacebar, select the Add optionm then Camera. Now you have a level camera which can be moved (G) and rotated (R) in the top viewport.

-----------------------------
1 - to move your nose in edit mode, you'll have to select all of the mesh, using any of the three select modes (Vertex Select, Face Select or Edge Select) then in the top view hit R ad rotate as desired.

If you're in object select mode, you'll probably find that you're rotating the whole mesh including the body (if you've modelled anything other than the nose)
-----------------------------

Hope this help bro

take care

Matt

[TheWood]

Hi !

Welcome to the blending world.

I think most of the question you asked are answered in the blender manual that you can find on blender.org under documentation.

However, heres some pointer to help you with your questions.

The camera is like any other object in blender, you can move it using the grab mode (press g with your object selected) and place it where you need. you can also rotate it using the R key. The way I usually work to make it point in the right direction is by making it track an empty. An empty works like an object but does not appear on the render. to create one just press space>add>empty. Three axis will appear where the cursor was placed and you can move it where you need to. To make the camera track the empty, select the camera and the empty (use shift key to select both - order of selection is important here) and press ctrl+t. choose "constrain" and the camera will be tracking you empty. Now when you move your empty, the camera follows it.

To get rid of the graph (we call it the grid), go to the view menu on the desired window and select view properties. This will popup a menu setting window. There you can choose to deselect the grid floor.

The time to create a short in blender greatly depends on the artists and their skills / knowledge of the program, polycount, lighting setup, etc. overall the complexity of the scene and how it was modelled.
For working on blender with ease, I recommend min 512 m of ram (although it can work on less easily but again it depends of the scene you are creating and its complexity). Also, for shorts, some good amount of space is required on the hard drive if you want to work it with raw frames (no compression - output is simply a series of rendered image in a folder). This is the best way (imho) to work on a short since you can work every frame as you wish and then compile them using the blender sequence editor or other video editor.

There sure are short created with blender. Take a look at the blender3d.org website there are some good examples of animations. http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Movies.160.0.html

Also, although cgtalk is a wonderful website, www.elysiun.com (http://www.elysiun.com/) is dedicated to blender and might provide you with an answer more quickly.

Hope this helps,

cheers,

TW

[kattkieru]

2. The other way to get a poly count is to go into edit mode and select all (A-key). This'll give you the polycount by object.

3. I hate the cameras in Blender, but I came up with a manageable system. First, create a new camera. Then create an Empty. Select both and clear rotation (Alt+R). Now select the camera, and then shift-select the empty. Hit Control+T and choose "TrackTo Constraint." This'll have the camea always aiming at the empty. Next, hit Control+P to parent the camera to the empty.

Now, you can move the empty to move the relative camera target, and you can move the camera in orbits around the empty without having to bother rotating the camera. It's proven very useful for me, especially because I had a lot of times in my last animation where I had to have the camera's target moving independently from the camera itself. Try it out!

5. Rough estimates of that sort are impossible without first knowing a lot of other information, like script, shots and shot types, and geometric complexity. If you're doing the next Myst's opening sequence it's going to take you, with 5-6 competent users of your target software, a good long time. If you're learning the software while you make the project it'll likely take twice as long. I'd also say to budget lots of extra time for any lip sync and facial animation, as they're the biggest time killers.

If all you're doing on a short of average quality is working on the short (IE, no job or other obligations, at least 6 hours a day) then you'll probably be able to finish about a minute of non-dialogue animation a month, I'd wager. But again this depends heavily on scene complexity; if you're just rolling a ball down stairs you could probably do the five minutes in a day.

6. Yup. I did for a contest. Can't post it for that reason.

For working on blender with ease, I recommend min 512 m of ram (although it can work on less easily but again it depends of the scene you are creating and its complexity). Also, for shorts, some good amount of space is required on the hard drive if you want to work it with raw frames (no compression - output is simply a series of rendered image in a folder). This is the best way (imho) to work on a short since you can work every frame as you wish and then compile them using the blender sequence editor or other video editor.

I would agree. I'd also recommend using a Pentium 4 if you're running Intel hardware. I've found that the HyperThreading works wonders on Yafray's render times.

However, the 512 meg of ram thing depends also on your textures. I have a simple scene that I'm working on on my Powerbook (which has 512 meg of ram) and blender sometimes chokes due to the textures I'm loading in. Textures should be twice the render resolution, so right now the hair textures I'm using ar 2048x2048. The scene itself is weighing in at 91 meg. I'm considering getting a gig or a gig and a half of ram next paycheque. ^-^

[GuyGrr]

3. I cant get the camera to face directly forward, I can only get it on diagnals and I want to render my simple body picture from straight ahead. When I put the camera infront of him, it's looking off left into space and I havent been able to figure out how to make it look straight. I'm assuming there's a better way then just moving the model infront of the camera.

The camera is just another object. You can Grab (G) it, Rotate (R) it, even Scale (S) it ... although that is only useful so that you can better see it. A good rule of thumb is to go to top view (numpad 7 ... by the way ctrl numpad 7 gives you a bottom view, as do ctrl with the other numpad keys 1 and 3 give you the "other side" of your scene), move the camera (G key), then select the view that would best enable you to rotate it. If you don't know, just try a different view and try to rotate it. You can also use it in perspective view (everything other than the 1, 3, and 7 views) by holding down the MMB (Middle Mouse Button) of your mouse and moving your perspective so that the camera appears to be pointing to either the left or the right ... now rotate it to point it up and down. You will quickly get used to it.

You can also animate the camera ...follow paths ... do instant moves during animations (simulating going to another camera), and other camera tricks such as changing the lens being used, zooming, etc. To cover these details, I would suggest you read the online documentation which can be viewed by selecting Help -> Manual from within Blender (if you are online at the time).

It is not necessary to create another camera, although that is indeed possible and sometimes desireable. I find that it tends to clutter my scene, but alot of people prefer it to animating the camera position.

If you would like to experiment with the instant camera move technique, try this:

1. Go to frame 1 (Shift Down Arrow Key [not numpad arrow key]).

2. Select the camera. Align it to what you want to view (using G [Grab Mode] and R [Rotate Mode]).

3. With the camera selected, and the mouse cursor over the 3D window, press I. You have just created a keyframe for the camera at frame 1.

4. Select LocRot (Location/Rotation) from the pop-up menu that is displayed when you press I. This records both the location and the rotation at that time of the selected object (camera).

5. Now go to the frame that you want the different camera location and/or view (use the arrow keys again [remember, not the numpad keys], or just enter the new frame number in the frame number display in the header). Move the camera to the new location using the standard Blender translation tool G (for Grab). Point the camera to what you want it to see (using the R (rotation) mode.

6. Press I to set a second Keyframe for the selected camera. Select LocRot again.

Now the fun part ... and the reason why you can get away with this.

7. Make one of your windows an IPO Curve Editor ... the icon looks like a tv thing with a graph in it.

8. Don't let what you see scare you. I know it did me ... I didn't go back to that window for weeks after seeing it. You will see a graph with six lines colored red, orange, and yellow (Location) and Green, Light Green, and Blue (Rotation). These curves were created when you created the two keyframes above. Notice that they are trully curves. If you were to press Alt A to view the tiny animation you have created, you would see the camera physically move to it's second position. This is no good (although it's cool too) ... you want it to look like the camera switched to a second camera ... right?

This is how it's done:

9. Put your mouse cursor in the IPO window and press A. This selects all of the curves.

10. Now select the Curve option on the header bar. If you don't see the curve option, you'll notice a little sideways triangle. Press it and the Curve (along with Select and View) option will be displayed.

11. Press the Curve option.

12. A menu will be displayed. Select Interpolation Mode.

13. A new menu will be displayed. Select Constant. You will now notice that the curves are no longer curves, but straight lines that change at your keyframed position.

14. If you play your animation now, you'll notice that your camera has instantly changed locations and view. Looks just like you switched to a new camera, doesn't it?

Hope this helps.

Edit: Well ... I see others have beaten me to the punch ... oh well ... it's not the first time. Hope you get something out of all this typing anyway. :sad:

[TheWood]

Poor GrandMasterK, That a lot of information in a few posts. Don't scare him guys :)
One thing to remember, whatever I and other people say, the best method is the one you are confortable with, and blender has this magic that you can do things in different ways.
I am sure you will find your way. Be patient and you'll see that blender is a fantastic tool.

btw: I agree with all of the above, although IPO curves is often a subject avoided by newbies. However, the way GuyGrr explains it make it less scary :thumbsup:

One more thing about computer hardware. Performance also depends on the operating system you are using. I use Linux (Fedora Core) and I have a AMD athlon 2.4ghz with 1 gig of DDR 400 ram. I also use a dual head NVIDIA 256 mb video card. With this machine, I can run three instance of blender (I know I am a freak), the gimp with some huge textures open, some image viewer (for texture choice) and off course good old netscape and evolution mail client. And it is perfectly workable without lagging the system (except when I render of course). I tried the same with Windows... and it crashed :sad:. Naturally windows have other advantages but I like the smooth linux maniability.

Cheers,

TW

[GrandMasterK]

Wow, that was the best replies i've ever gotten in a forum before. You spoil me good sirs.

All the films i've done (machinima, stopmotion, animation, realtime) I've been used to being the guy who came up with the idea, wrote the story, wrote the script, orchestrated the whole thing, then did or did not direct (depending on what it was). Even with some of the ones I directed I basically would sit back and twiddle my thumbs while the specialists in each area did there thing. It was also volunteer work for everybody, they joined on to hone skills and because it was fun and nobody had a problem with the fact that I set up the process and they do the work (Excluding post-production editing). Is it the samething with 3D or is the guy who orchestrated the whole thing expected to get down and dirty with the designing because people dont feel writing the story and being the guy the concept artists answer to is pulling enough weight?

I have a Dell windows XP 2.66Ghz 512MB RAM computer with a 120GB built in hard drive and a 200GB external hard drive. Very soon im gonna order either a 512MB or a 1GB chip to fill in the second RAM slot (i've only got two slots). Is my processor good enough?

For a short, I was thinking of something like a spaceship battle. Where anywhere from 1 up to a dozen or so ships would be on screen at the sametime. I figured spaceships have to be easier to work with since all they really do is go forward and rotate. Is something like that do able with a few guys, who live in different parts of the world and only communicate online or over the phone? What kind of team do you need? Would the same guys do everything in different phases? Here's how I have it in my head right and would liek you guys to add and fix it up for me if you dont mind:

1. Write the script.

2. Recruit a team.

3. Draw or get someone to draw concept drawings until every ship used in the film has been drawn and picked out, then drawn from a couple different angles.

4. Draw the storyboard based off the script.

5. Give the drawings to the modelers and have them model it.

6. Give the models to the texture artists have them texture it.

7. Have a graphics designer design the background and whatever else (planets probably) based on the drawn storyboard.

8. Assign shots based on the storyboard to people and have them animate it accordingly.

9. Take all the rendered shots into Video Editing.

10. Sound Editing.

11. Music Composition.

12. Credits

I'm sure there are things im ignorantly missing here so could you guys fill me in.

I do have another Blender question. When I go to view, background image, pick an image then hit use background image, it doesnt come up, why is that?

[TheWood]

Well, that sounds like a good planning overview to me. However, be aware that some people in your team will want to change things a bit. The difficult part is to get people to have a common workflow and getting everybody to agree on their task. I think there is no good or bad ways to direct such a project. One way will work for one team and not for the other. The most important is that everyone has fun. People are blending for their pleasure and lots of people don't want to follow a strict set of rules. Although producing a short with a team requires a minimum of rules, it should still be too restrictive (imho).
The least we can say is that you seem motivated. I hope you will find people for your projects.

Concerning the background picture, I would first check if you are in orthogonal mode (press 5 on the numpad to switch between ortho and perspective). Background pics only appears in ortho mode and in top/bottom, side, front/back views. Also, I believe only jpeg are supported for that purpose.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

TW

[kattkieru]

I have a Dell windows XP 2.66Ghz 512MB RAM computer with a 120GB built in hard drive and a 200GB external hard drive. Very soon im gonna order either a 512MB or a 1GB chip to fill in the second RAM slot (i've only got two slots). Is my processor good enough?

Certainly. I'll say that if you're running a Celeron you're going to experience some issues, especially at render time, but other than that that'd be fine. I used to use earlier versions of Blender on a 667 MHz Pentium 3. Right now I mainly run it on my 1.25 GHz powerbook, and offload it to my 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 linux box for rendering.

But like I said above, the 2 processors thing decreases render times significantly, so if you can swing a hyperthreaded processor and if you're running Linux or windows xp pro I'd recommend it. I think they're adding multiprocessor support to blender itself next version (and not just yafray), so it'll even speed up regular scanline renders.

[GrandMasterK]

I'm doing that natalie portman face model tutorial on the blender site, so thats why I ask about the background. It is a .jpeg and I did hit 5 on the numpad, but it's not there.

ahhh questions questions questions.

Does rigging mean creating a skeleton for a model?

I noticed that there's a point of how small things can get, intead of being able to zoom in for ever. How do people decide on the scale of models, like a human for example. I'd imagine if you made it to small you'd limit yourself to detail or am I wrong.

Do people do texturing on blender or on a different program specialized for that kind of thing.

[TheWood]

Is the extension of your image .jpeg or .jpg. Althought some programs accept both, most of them only take .jpg (especially windows based applications).

There is basically no limits in the zoom you can get on an object and creating a model in highly zoomed viewport will normally cause no other effect than making things smaller in blender units.
3d objects acts similarly to vector graphics, you can size them up the way you want without loss of definition. The important thing to keep in mind is to keep the camera close enough to see something.

Texturing in blender is definitely possible, especially since they included the LSCM unwrapping option which allows uv mapping without pulling your hair the all night.
Althought it seems difficult to take a grasp if how it works in the first place, once you got the trick, there are no real limits (you can also program your own texture plugins in python). The only texturing limit I encoutered is the export to external renderer. I use yafray a lot and sometime I wish the export system could export more procedural textures, but the yafray dev team is already doing a great great great job and I am confident they will fix the gaps sooner or later.

Hope this helps,
Cheers,

TW

P.S: could you post a link to that Natalie Portman's face tutorial. It sounds interresting:bounce:

[GrandMasterK]

http://members.lycos.co.uk/duxbellorum/get_a_head.html


Ack, dont know any program languages, they seem so intimadating. I've been in desperate need of an online C++ guide easy enough for a 7 year old to understand :rolleyes:

"LSCM unwrapping"

"UV Mapping"

:cry:

Hmmm, do you manually color the models and thats considered texturing or do you take some sort of digital slate, paint on it, then wrap it around the model as necessary or something?

EDIT: Oh yea, what is YaFray? Is that a texture dedicated program?

I'm doin that face tutorial right now, we cut the face in half and deleted one side, did all the curving and what not to a half but now I dont know how to take a duplicate of the half, turn it around and connect it to make a full head.

[LetterRip]

Regarding programming - while parts of Blender are written in C++ (mostly it is C right now) you might want to start with Python since most of what an artist wants to do will be on the python side.

http://diveintopython.org/toc/

Python is simple enough that it can be picked up in a day, but powerful enough that it can be used for fairly powerful tools.

LetterRip

[GrandMasterK]

Thanks Tom, im startin to think i've annoyed some people. It's just those dang tutorials always leave me hangin in a spot I cant figure out somewhere along the way, thus so many questions.

Until someone helps/I figure out about the duplicating a face and making a hole one, I'm messin around with the monkey!

[LetterRip]

YOu might consider doing some websearches before asking, as they will generally answer your questions.

For instance yafray is a renderer, not a texturizing tool.

http://www.yafray.org/index.php?s=10

LSCM is a type of UV unwrapping, basically it maps the 3d coordinates of your model to 2d coordinates of the image.

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/lukep_test.323.0.html

After you have UV unwrapped you load your image file, then you can either paint on your object either directly with blenders internal paint tools, or you can paint image in something like GIMP or photoshop.

LetterRip

[LetterRip]

Also if you are having difficulty with using blenders tools you might consider waiting for the next release which has manipulators (Ie handles and buttons you can use for grab, scale, and rotate).

LetterRip

[GrandMasterK]

I do try and look it up before I ask. Couldnt even find out what UV means in UV Mapping, I'm gonna say ultra violet. That not being able to turn things around problem of mine is really screwin me up the ole A hole. Anything I've tried to do so far involved having to do that.

what does Yafray do that Blender doesnt do, you said it renders but Blender renders to dont it?

(Yes I did check out the Yafray site, kinda beatin around the bush over there.)

[LetterRip]

UV are two dimensional coordinates, sort of like XY.

UV mapping is like projecting a globe onto a flat map.

Here is one tutorial,

http://home.att.net/~yorik/LSCMexplained.jpg

there are many others in this thread

http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25918

Yafray has certain raytracing features that the Blender internal renderer doesn't have. You are probably best off just trying to learn Blenders internal renderer first.

Tom M.

[GrandMasterK]

Thank you Tom.

Could you tell me how to do this so I can move along.

"When we go on to model the details of the face, it's rather helpful to have a full head. Now, before you hit me for having you remove half of it earlier, I would have you know that it's all according to plan:) You need to go out of edit mode and into objectmode. With the half of head selected press Alt+<D>. Move the duplicate to the side - make sure you constrain movement to the x-axis by hitting <X>. Now apply a scale <S> along the x-axis <X> and input -1, to do a negative scale. Then move the halves together to make a whole. You may have to turn off "Doublesided" in the "Mesh"-panel if the duplicate turns black on you. The difference between duplicates made in edit- and object-view, will become apparent in the next section"

The part I underlined is what I know how to do after that I just hang up, im not sure how to do what he's asking.

I have one more question and I wont ask anymore. How do I cut things, like If I have a plane how do I cut out a square in the middle, or if I have a circle how do I make indents or holes?

[LetterRip]

press SKEY to enter scaling, then XKEY so that you are scaling along the x axis.

I think the -1 is unneeded, it should just work by moving the mouse towards the center.

by moving the halves together - I'm guessing that he means move the two pieces together until the center seam aligns.

Duplicate turns black - refers to the mesh that is duplicated (instead of the one you are working on). If you press F9 key you will get the editing buttons panel, if you are in edit mode there will be four panels across the bottom, Link and Materials, Mesh, Mesh Tools, and Mesh Tools 1

In the Mesh panel go to the bottom right hand corner and you will see a button that says "Double Side"


I have one more question and I wont ask anymore. How do I cut things, like If I have a plane how do I cut out a square in the middle, or if I have a circle how do I make indents or holes?

A square cut out in the middle - easiest is probably select the plane, Extrude (EKEY) then ESCKEY, then scale. This will create an inset face which you can delete. A circle again the same method (but would probably only work for a single cut out...). I don't really do much actual modeling so I'm probably not the best to ask.

LetterRip

[GrandMasterK]

Thanks, what do you do?

[LetterRip]

I program on my tool sculptmesh, and do various writing and marketing stuff, plus research to help out other peoples coding projects.

LetterRip

[Room335]

I'm doin that face tutorial right now, we cut the face in half and deleted one side, did all the curving and what not to a half but now I dont know how to take a duplicate of the half, turn it around and connect it to make a full head.

I realise this explanation is long but in practice however I can do it in under 10 seconds.

Before doing the following steps it helps to have your object center on the welding seam. Typically I pick a vertex on the tip of the nose although others on the seam will work as well. In edit mode, select the vertex you want to use for the center, press Shift-S and select "Cursor -> Selection". go into object mode (Tab key) and in the edit window (F9) press the "Centre Cursor" button. The center of your object is now located on that vertex you selected.

In object mode and in front view:
to copy "Shift D" [edit 4-19-05] When you make the copy it will be in grab mode, meaning - if you move your mouse, the object will be dragged around with it. DO NOT MOVE THE MOUSE, PRESS ENTER OR ESCAPE TO RELEASE IT FROM GRAB MODE. If you are in textured or shaded mode you will not see the copy but it is there. JUST GO ON TO THE NEXT STEP

To make a mirror image "Ctrl M" select "X local"

This will give you a mirror image. To join both halves - Select both halves the press "CTRL J" and select " Join selected meshes"

It's important to make sure your seems line up as close as possible before welding.

Make sure the optimal button in the editing window (F9) is off, welding works better with it off.

Go into edit mode "Tab Key"

select the vertices to be welded together. You can use the box select B-Key.

Press the W key and select "Remove Doubles" It will give you a count of how many vertices will be welded, select it.

It is also good to make sure your normals are pointing the correct direction, In edit mode select all vertices A-key. press CTRL-N and confirm.


Sometimes some of your verts will not weld together becuase they were not close enough to each other. In this case you can select both verts and pres ALT-M the select "at center".

Hope this makes sense, if needed I could put together a short video to explain it. If a picture is worth a thousand words than I guess a video is worth a tetrabite of words.

Tim

[GrandMasterK]

to make a mirror image "Ctrl M" select "X local"

This will give you a mirror image. To join both halves - Select both halves the press "CTRL J" and select " Join selected meshes"


This is where I get lost. I duplicate the half and it's just floating in space waiting for me to put it somewhere. I hit Ctrl M and nothing happens and I dont know what X local is, I figured it meant keep it on the X axis, so I did. Then you go on about lining the halves up, im not sure if you mean in each other or next to each other. So I was trying to get the second one inside the other one as much as possible but not so it looks like there's only one there because I needed to be able to select both of them like you said. I hit ctrl J then selected Join selected meshes and nothing happened, or atleast I dont think. So then I went on and selected the corner Vertices on one side, the Vertices that would touch the other half of the face and did the Remove Doubles thing. My count was 0.

Once I hit that point I called it an afternoon.

[LetterRip]

X global is location relative to the XYZ axis of 'global space' that is the XYZ axis that is at the center of your screen and which the grid is on when you first open Blender.

X local is the X coordinates of the object in its local coordinates (ie if you don't move or rotate the object, the local coordinate space and global coordinate space are the same, but if you rotate the object or move it, then the local space is still at the objects center relative to the initial orientation of the object, ie if it is a head, y always goes through the nose and back of the head, x goes through the ears, and z goes through the base of the head through the top of the head - even if you've have rotated the object so that the ear faces a different direction in the view port.)

For what you are doing x local and global should be the same.

LetterRip

[Room335]

Oops, see my edit above. Sorry about that! :shrug:

[Dracofodder]

I'm still quite new to blender, well at least I feel like it anyway. But, I've found that when I get stuck on one of the text only tutorials, it is best (for me anyway) to find one of the narrated videotutorials to work through.

Inevitably, not only do I learn what is specifically being presented, but I also find out some neat trick or two in using Blender. Plus its nice to be able to watch someone go through the steps, rather than explain what the steps are and have me struggle to findhow to do it.

[Room335]

I'm still quite new to blender, well at least I feel like it anyway. But, I've found that when I get stuck on one of the text only tutorials, it is best (for me anyway) to find one of the narrated videotutorials to work through.

Inevitably, not only do I learn what is specifically being presented, but I also find out some neat trick or two in using Blender. Plus its nice to be able to watch someone go through the steps, rather than explain what the steps are and have me struggle to findhow to do it.

I agree and I made a video of my explanation above but it's too large 30 megs + so I'm working on a reduced file size.

Here's some links with Blender video tutorials

Greybead aT http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/

Blenderman http://www.blenderman.org/index.php

[LetterRip]

If you are on windows, I would recommend using Wink http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

it is great for making flash animation explanations and is easy to learn and make very low bandwidth demonstrations.

LetterRip

[GrandMasterK]

Alright, I had to take a couple day break because I was getting frustrated. Alright so I went back and tried it again, now I'm stuck at the part where you want me to pick the vetices that are supposed to touch each other whenever the second half is supposed to flip around and touch it. Well I click them and do the W key thing and it still says 0 vertices.

The back of the half is shaped different from the front (to look more like a realistic head) Is that a problem? Because that second half I made is facing the other direction so they dont match up.

by the way, I've tried every picture format I can think of, jpg, jpeg, gif. Still no picture in the 3D viewpoint or when I render and I have "use background image" selected.

[Room335]

Alright, I had to take a couple day break because I was getting frustrated. Alright so I went back and tried it again, now I'm stuck at the part where you want me to pick the vetices that are supposed to touch each other whenever the second half is supposed to flip around and touch it. Well I click them and do the W key thing and it still says 0 vertices..

try this - make sure you are in wire mode, select all A-key then try W key again. If this doesnt work, zoom in on two of the verts on the edges to be welded. Sometimes, the two halves may not be close enough. if after zooming in you see that there is some space between them then: deselect all, select one side by moving the mouse cursor over a vertice and press the L key. Don't touch the mouse - Next grab G-key, then use the arrow keys to move the selected object and align it closer to the other half.

The back of the half is shaped different from the front (to look more like a realistic head) Is that a problem? Because that second half I made is facing the other direction so they dont match up..

You probably mirrored the wrong coordinate, you should have ended up with an exact mirror copy.

by the way, I've tried every picture format I can think of, jpg, jpeg, gif. Still no picture in the 3D viewpoint or when I render and I have "use background image" selected.

Make sure your window is in it's aligned window, example, numpad 1 key will align the window in front view, or make sure the window is not in the ortho view numpad 5 key.

also, I made a pdf tutorial on the copy mirror, drop me a pm with an email and I'll send it to you.

[Room335]

One other thought on this. When you make a copy make sure you're in object mode not edit mode.

[Room335]

I made an tutorial based on the above with some screen shots. Let me know if you think it can be improved. I tried to make it newbie friendly.

Tim

http://www.animationbytim.com/images/Blender 2.36 mirror copy joining and welding mesh object.pdf (http://www.animationbytim.com/images/Blender%202.36%20mirror%20copy%20joining%20and%20welding%20mesh%20object.pdf) 2.36 mirror copy, joining and welding mesh object.pdf

[GrandMasterK]

alrighty, I'll hit it later tonight and let yah know.

[GrandMasterK]

It doesnt form a whole head, It takes the duplicated head and puts it on the Y axis right next to the first half. In your tutorial the head is such that it cant be backwards or spun, it'll connect to the other half and look normal no matter what. This head is shaped like a real head. I couldnt grab it and connect the two because the nose on the duplicate is where the back of the head is and vice versa. In your tutorial it looks like you selected a vertex in the center. There is no vertex in the center of my half, just empty space, so I use the vertex at the nose instead, then carry out the instructions. I tried messin around alittle bit by selecting all the vertices on one side the doing the mirror, I get the same result.

So it's doin 3 things wrong:

1. It's not making a duplicate of the head turned around, I need a D and a backwards D, not two Ds.

2. It comes out facing the wrong direction, one nose is looking the other nose is off looking into 3D space and im starring at the back of the head/ear region.

3. After I hit Ctrl M and X local, it slaps the duplicate on the Y axis right next to the first half.

Why is it that there's no way to grab objects and spin then like that.

[GrandMasterK]

http://fapomatic.com/8/halfhead

Look what I learned how to do!!! go me.

Ok, this is the front of my half. The Left side is the hollow side, the side that needs to be filled with a second half. You cant see it from the angle but the middle vertex on the left is the nose, it's sticking out quite a bit. So what happens is it makes the same head infront of the original head on the red line, with the nose facing the other directing, but still with the hollow side on the left. So if you were to do it manually in reality you'd just spin the current head around until the nose was facing the other direction.

If im being to hard to understand, I'll take a screen of the two dupes.

[Room335]

Here's a quick video tutorial http://www.animationbytim.com/images/Copy%20mirror%20Join%20a%20head.avi

If it still does not work or make sense, email me your blend file. Go to my web site and click on the contact me link.

http://www.animationbytim.com


It doesnt form a whole head, It takes the duplicated head and puts it on the Y axis right next to the first half. In your tutorial the head is such that it cant be backwards or spun, it'll connect to the other half and look normal no matter what. This head is shaped like a real head. I couldnt grab it and connect the two because the nose on the duplicate is where the back of the head is and vice versa. In your tutorial it looks like you selected a vertex in the center. There is no vertex in the center of my half, just empty space, so I use the vertex at the nose instead, then carry out the instructions. I tried messin around alittle bit by selecting all the vertices on one side the doing the mirror, I get the same result.

So it's doin 3 things wrong:

1. It's not making a duplicate of the head turned around, I need a D and a backwards D, not two Ds.

A. Make sure you are in object mode before copying and mirroring the object
B. It may be that the alignment of your head is on a differant axis. Try Y then Z for the mirroring and see if that does the trick.


2. It comes out facing the wrong direction, one nose is looking the other nose is off looking into 3D space and im starring at the back of the head/ear region.


if A&B don't work post or email me your blend file so I can take a look at it.

3. After I hit Ctrl M and X local, it slaps the duplicate on the Y axis right next to the first half . see A&B

Why is it that there's no way to grab objects and spin then like that.

You can spin it on any axsis but it's not a mirror image.

[GrandMasterK]

Youreeka!

Y local is what did it! But how come mine is layed out differently?

After doing it so many times, I dont think I could ever possibly forget how to do it. So that's one problem down, 10,000 more to go in my series of near future unfortune blender events.

There's a slit at the top of my head, other then stretching it manually, is there some sort of...vertex connect thing I can do to snap the openings together?

oh by the way, thanks alot for the video, very kind.

[Room335]

Youreeka!

Y local is what did it! But how come mine is layed out differently?

After doing it so many times, I dont think I could ever possibly forget how to do it. So that's one problem down, 10,000 more to go in my series of near future unfortune blender events.

There's a slit at the top of my head, other then stretching it manually, is there some sort of...vertex connect thing I can do to snap the openings together?

oh by the way, thanks alot for the video, very kind.

You're welcome, glad I could help. Download the paper tutorial again (link above) and check the last page on welding the other verts.

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