A few questions

#1

Mello!

I’m planning on learning Blender now (would work great in conjunction to Wings), and just need tog et the program ready.

I’ve read somewhere that Blender can read OBJ files. Where could i get that plugin, and how do i go about installing it? :blush:

And how do i get the Yafray renderer to work? I tried many things, but it doesnt seem to render. :hmm:

Thanks guys, sorry for sounding like a fool. :stuck_out_tongue:

#2

Originally posted by Admiral Ra

I’ve read somewhere that Blender can read OBJ files. Where could i get that plugin, and how do i go about installing it? :blush:

That’s easy!!!

Thake this file OBJ IN/OUT SCRIPT by Chris Lynch
and save to your script directory (it is a sub-directory, usually named “scripts” located where you installed Blender on your hard drive).

Now, within Blender, open a script-window and click on the “script” menu and then on the option called “Update menus”. The script is now installed!!! :beer:

From now on you will always have the “Wavefront OBJ” meny entry right there on the script menu, under the “Misc” category.

The script itself have documentation about the internal options to export-import OBJs, just open the script file with any text editor to read the documentation.

As with most of the scrips available for Blender, you need to have Python 2.2.3 or greather (but not Python 2.3.x) installed in order to use the script.

  • Note that I’m not the author of the script, I’m just mirroring this slighly modified version that was adjusted to run on 2.32

Originally posted by Admiral Ra
And how do i get the Yafray renderer to work? I tried many things, but it doesnt seem to render. :hmm:

If you are running on Windows, as soon as you install Yafray (get the most updated version) it should work by itself. Of course you need Blender 2.32 or newer. What version of Yafray are you using?

#3

Wooot!! It all worked! Thanks man! :bowdown:

I was using Yafray 0.5.0 (because of wings). I downloaded the new one and it worked! :smiley:

By the way, about the OBJ plugin. Do i have to type in the path i want to export/import a file everytime? Isnt there a browser thingy? :hmm:

Thanks again man! Really :slight_smile:

#4

Oh and, is there an easier way to orient the camera? I always seem to mess up the view when moving it. (Moving stuff in Blender is so tough. So easy to mess it up. :p)

#5

Originally posted by Admiral Ra
By the way, about the OBJ plugin. Do i have to type in the path i want to export/import a file everytime? Isnt there a browser thingy? :hmm:

This come from the scritp itself:

If you do not enter a path, the path will default to your blender directory. You can change the default path in the script itself by modifying the variable ‘Filename’ at the top of the script.

#6

Originally posted by Admiral Ra
Oh and, is there an easier way to orient the camera?

You can bet there is, actually there are many ways, pick your favorite.

A.- Camera Fly-By mode:

  1. enter camera mode by pressing 0 (Zero) on your Keyborad Numpad
  2. then press Shift-F
  3. move the mouse SLOWLY
  4. Left-Click to accelerate forward, Middle-Click to de-accelerate, and eventually reverse.
  5. space bar to keep the orientation once you are happy, otherwise…
  6. escape to cancel fly mode.

B.- Trucking the Cammera:

  1. go into cam mode with NUMPAD 0
  2. move the camera with pressing G key
  3. press the middle mouse button
    … and tadaaa!!

C.- Fallow-me Cammera: (my all-times favorite)

  1. Add an ¨Empty¨ to your scene (Add -> Empty)
  2. Select your cammera and by holding Shift pressed, also select the empty (wich one is selected first is really important).
  3. Press Ctrl-T to make the cammera track the empty (there will be a pop-up menu, choose either option).
  4. If the cammera took a weird orientation, select it and press Alt-R to clear it’s rotation.
  5. From now on, wherever you put the empty, the cammera will allways focus on it, and the best is that empties doesn’t show up in the render. :stuck_out_tongue:
#7

Thanks so so so much Apollux!! Your the Blender god :bowdown: :stuck_out_tongue:

I just love how Yafray works in blender. Its so damn good. I truly hope all the Yafray features get implemented into Wings sometime!

Thanks again man!:thumbsup:

#8

Argh! I seem to have run into a problem, i imported a model from Wings, and, when i try to render the model, the render comes up blank. But if i add a cube to the scene it renders only the cube and not the model i imported. :scream:

Any ideas?
Thanks and sorry for troubling you. :surprised

#9

I asume the black render only happens when you try to render with Yafray. I’ m right?

That is a bug many peple are having with 2.32, if I recall correctly, it has to do with the combination of lighting, materials and Yafray settings. Untill a better solution is found, try mixing those 3 factors. (I am having a tought time with this myself).

Area lights inside Bleneder and the photon setting of Yafray are the most likely to cause that kind of situation. Try turning all photons off.

#10

Nope. It doesnt give a black render. Its just that the object i imported acts like an “empty” object. It just doesnt exist when i render.

Oh and, where are the photon settings? Cants seem to find em, i’m trying to test out the caustics rendering. :smiley:

Really sorry for bugging you like this. :hmm:

#11

There is a setting on the ¨Mirror Transp.¨ tab of the shader control called ¨Env¨ that does exactly what is happening to you, make sure that the option is NOT set to on.

Photon settings: On the render control (F10), set Blender to use Yafray instead of the internal render engine… a few new tabs will appear.

One of those new tabs is Yafray GI, and when you set it to ¨Full¨ you can control the Photons.

More detailed info on http://www.blender.org/docs/2.32_release/release232_yafray.html

Keep in mind that from within Blender you CANN’T control all the Yafray settings, so you might be better off by using the traditional Yafray ways for doing that kind of stuff.

#12

Hmmm…There arent any shaders for the mesh. :confused:

Heres the .obj file. You could check it out if you like.
Cliff Scene

You must really hate me for bugging you like this. :stuck_out_tongue:

#13

Originally posted by Admiral Ra
Hmmm…There arent any shaders for the mesh. :confused:

Wao!! Your guess was quite exact for a blender newcomer!!!.. actually, is that your mesh doesn’t have any Material index defined.

Go into edit mode (press TAB) and select all the vertices (Press A untill all points are yellow). Now go to your edit-buttons (press F9).

Under “Material” click on “New” and then on “Asign” and Tadaaaa!!!

(the previous step wouldn’t work if you didn’t have all the vertex selected)

From now on is just a matter of breaking that single material index into others indexes, for let’s say the water, the lighthouse, the mountains, etc. etc.
But that is material for a full tutorial, and there are many tutorials on the subject already.

Originally posted by Admiral Ra You must really hate me for bugging you like this. :stuck_out_tongue:

LOL… Don’t worry, I’ll have my revenge once I start learning Wings and start asking you questions about it :twisted:

#14

WOOOHOOO!! It worked! Thanks man!:smiley:

LOL… Don’t worry, I’ll have my revenge once I start learning Wings and start asking you questions about it

Goes off laughing hystericaly I’ll be glad to help you! (By the way, i thought you knew wings? O_o)

Thanks again man. If you need help call me! :stuck_out_tongue:

#15

This is what I’m talking when I say to break the single material index into many different indexes. Please forgive the ugly shaders, just some procedural textures put together in 5 minutes :wink:

The original render: http://picserver.student.utwente.nl/view_image.php/265HE300839/picserver.jpeg

Some post-processing done outside of Blender: http://picserver.student.utwente.nl/view_image.php/Z9KN7P410C2/picserver.jpeg

More post-processing and some tweaking on the water to dissapear the reflextion of the Area-light. http://picserver.student.utwente.nl/view_image.php/8EE77MRN6EB/picserver.jpeg

#16

HOLY ****!! :eek:

Nice render. :surprised

Man your good! :smiley:

By the way, how do you change to face/edge selection modes? So i could try editing each face, and adding colours like you did! :smiley:

#17

This one was quite hard to answer, seems like multi-material tutorials for Blender are off the radar for many search engines.

Anyways, here you have it

First, the official manual: http://download.blender.org/documentation/NaN_docs/Manual2.0/MaterialTexture.html
just scroll down untill you see the title “Multimaterial” . Much of the manual is out-dated, specially when it talks about “how to fake this, how to fake that” because now those things no longer need to be faked, but it is a mandatory reading for any blender-guru wannabe. :slight_smile:

Some tutorials that explain the multi-material subject:
http://10secondclub.org/users/juicy/mid_tute104.html
http://www.ingiebee.com/Blendermania/2%20bumpmaps%201%20object.htm
http://viewhow2.qarbon.com/vf/vkxfjoo/6/basicmaterials_viewlet.html (this one is interactive)

Unfortunately, all the reference literature I could find is written for the previous interface (the one many people hated), but the button-icons are still the same and are placed more or less on the same position.

Hope this helps :shrug:

#18

Thanks again Apollux! I’m starting to get the hang of Blender a bit now! Hopefully one day, i shall do something worthwhile. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks man!:smiley:

#19

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