The normals of 3D models are vectors that are used to know the orientation of each face of the model and have many utilities, mainly for the rendering of a 3D model, for example they allow to calculate how the model will be illuminated, how the light will bounce, how the shading will be; they are also used in physics for collisions, so it is important that the normals of our models are consistent with what we need, occasionally some normals of the model are pointing in the opposite direction and this brings problems. In this article we are going to see how to make visible the normals of a 3D model in Blender.
In the following video we see how to display NORMALS in Blender.
We start from a generic 3D model like the one in figure 1 and we are going to enter the edit mode, this is IMPORTANT because the normals can only be made visible from the edit mode and they are only displayed in the edit mode.
Fig. 1: 3D model selected in object mode in Blender.
Fig. 2: The Edit Mode of a 3D model in Blender.
We click on the icon shown in figure 3, which displays a window that allows us to configure the elements that overlap in the 3D view window.
Fig. 3: Window of overlapping elements in the Viewport.
To show the normals we click on one of the icons in the “Normals” section, in general I am interested in seeing the normals in the center of the face, so I choose the option in figure 5, although sometimes I also use the option to show the normals at the vertices. Mathematically it does not make sense to talk about the normal vector to a point, but in the rendering the meshes consist of lists of vertices that form triangles and each vertex has a normal vector associated with it, those normals vectors are generally interpolated.
Fig. 4: Option to display the normals on the vertices of a 3D model in Blender.
Fig. 5: Option to display the normals in the center of the faces of a 3D model in Blender.
Figure 6 shows the normals in the center of the faces of the 3D model when in edit mode.
Fig. 6: The normals of the 3D model are now displayed in the center of the model faces.
Using the “Size” parameter we can change the length of the normals, as shown in Figure 8.
Fig. 7: Modification of the length of the normal vectors to be drawn.
Fig. 8: The normals of the 3D model are displayed longer.
Introduction
Sometimes it is necessary to know the length of the edges in Blender, for example when we are modeling parts from a schematic or building a model for 3D printing, in this article we will see how to display the length of the selected edges.
All the IMPORTANT information is summarized in the following TUTORIAL FROM MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL
We start with the 3D model shown in figure 1, to activate the display of the edge lengths you can be in object mode or in edit mode, in this case, with the model selected, I will enter in edit mode and select an edge of the model, as shown in figure 2.
Fig. 1: 3D model whose edge length needs to be known.
Fig. 2: In edit mode an edge of the model is selected.
Let’s locate the icon over the cursor in figure 3, when we click on it the “Viewport Overlays” window is displayed, which allows us to configure which elements overlap in the Blender’s 3D working space, here we will activate the “Edge Length” checkbox, which is shown in figure 4.
Fig. 3: Window of overlapping elements in the Viewport.
Fig. 4: Option to display the edge lengths of a model in Blender.
In doing so, the edge lengths of the selected model are now displayed, as shown in Figure 5.
Fig. 5: The 3D model now has the lengths of the selected edges overlapped in the Viewport.
Introduction – Why mirror objects in Blender?
In this article we are going to see how to prepare a 3D model to use the “Mirror” modifier in Blender, which allows us to model with symmetry with respect to one or more axes.
When mirroring an object in Blender we can focus on creating just one side of the model and then Blender, in a procedural way through a “modifier”, will produce the rest of the model based on one or more symmetry axes, this makes it much easier to create symmetrical pieces, as it could be the basics of a human face, once you have covered the basics you can apply that “modifier” and continue working with the full 3D model, introducing asymmetries if needed.
Given any 3D model that we want to mirror, the first thing we have to do is to see where its origin is located, this is very important because the origin is the point from which the geometry will be mirrored, so it is important to place the origin in a consistent position.
In this particular case we are going to use the cube shown in the figure, notice that the origin of this object is in an unusual position, what we are going to do is to place the origin in the geometric center of the object.
Fig. 1: To configure the mirror modifier we start from a simple cube.
To do this we select the cube, right click on it, go to “Set Origin” and choose the option “Origin to Geometry”, as shown in figure 2. This, as the names indicate what it does is to move the origin of the object to the geometric center of it, the result in figure 3.
Fig. 2: The origin is set to the geometry of the selected object.
Fig. 3: The object has its origin at its geometric center and is also at the center of the scene.
The next thing we are going to do is to make a cut in half using the command CTRL+R and bringing the mouse to the object, when the cut lines appear as shown in figure 4 we click to confirm. This adds an edge loop as shown in figure 5.
Fig. 4: A loop cut is added over the center of the cube.
Fig. 5: The cube now has a loop of vertices passing through its center.
I did this to obtain a symmetrical piece with respect to the X axis and eliminate one of the halves of the cube, for this I enter Wireframe mode, select the vertices that are in one of the halves of the object (do not select the ones in the center) and with the X key we eliminate those vertices, as shown in figure 6.
With this we obtain the piece shown in figure 7 and we are ready to apply the mirror modifier.
Fig. 6: The vertices in the left half of the object are removed.
Fig. 7: We keep one half of the cube to use the mirror modifier.
How to mirror a model in Blender – Mirror Modifier
With the model we want to mirror selected we go to the modifiers tab by clicking on the icon in figure 8 and add the “Mirror” modifier (figure 9).
Fig. 8: Modifiers tab of the selected object.
Fig. 9: The mirror modifier is selected from the list of modifiers to be added.
Immediately we see that the missing half appears and if we go into edit mode and modify the position of a vertex we see how the change is reflected symmetrically (see figure 10), note that in one of the halves the vertices do not appear, it means that the other half of the model is being generated procedurally.
Fig. 10: The object reflects the geometry automatically.
You can change the symmetry axis or add more symmetry axes in the modifier properties.
Fig. 11: Mirror modifier options panel in Blender.
The model going through the mirror
In this particular case, as we have configured it, the mirror would be like a vertical plane perpendicular to the Y axis and located at the origin of the object, which in this case coincides with the origin of the scene. Normally if we take a vertex we can make it cross the mirror plane, as shown in Figure 12.
Fig. 12: Result of the mirrored model geometry going through the mirror plane.
To prevent this from happening there is the “Clipping” check box shown in figure 13, when this option is activated the vertices that touch the mirror plane will remain attached to it and can only move in the two directions of the plane, in figure 14 the selected vertex is on the mirror plane and cannot move in the X axis, only in the Y and Z axis. If we need to remove a vertex from the mirror plane we can uncheck the box “Clipping” remove the vertex and then re-enable it or leave it disabled.
Fig. 13: The “Clipping” option prevents the geometry from crossing the mirror plane.
Fig. 14: Vertices that lie on the mirror plane cannot move out of that plane.
How to apply the mirror modifier
In case we need to work on the geometry of the object and add asymmetric details we will have to stop using the mirror modifier and switch to working with the complete geometry of the object. Before applying the mirror modifier it may be a good idea to save a backup copy of the model, for example by duplicating and hiding it or moving it to another collection.
Fig. 15: This object is used as the starting point for applying the mirror modifier.
To apply the mirror modifier we click on the arrow icon to the left of the cross to remove the modifier and choose the “Apply” option, as shown in Figure 16.
Fig. 16: Option to apply a modifier in Blender.
Now the model whose geometry was being procedurally mirrored became a full 3D model with all its vertices and faces that can be repositioned without being mirrored.
Fig. 17: When applying the mirror modifier the result is a mesh with the complete geometry.
How to revert a Mirror modifier that has already been applied
It often happens that we apply the Mirror modifier, we do several actions and then we regret it and we want to undo the changes until we have our object with the Mirror modifier applied but it turns out that we ran out of actions to undo, for this reason it was a good idea to save the backup copy of the model, However there is a very simple way to remove the vertices of the model and reapply the Mirror modifier, for that we select the model, enter the edit mode, switch to Wireframe mode (figure 18) and arrange the view in a convenient way to see the mirror plane vertically and have both parts of the model well separated.
Fig. 18: Switch to “Wireframe” mode.
Then we draw a selection box as shown in figure 19, in such a way that we select all the vertices of one of the halves of the object but without selecting the middle vertices, the result of the selection is shown in figure 20.
Fig. 19: The vertices in the left half of the model are selected.
Finally we delete those vertices and we have one of the halves of our symmetrical object, ready to reapply the Mirror modifier.
Fig. 20: The selected vertices are deleted.
Fig. 21: One of the halves of the 3D model is obtained.
Fig. 22: The Mirror modifier is applied again.
Fig. 23: The 3D model with the Mirror modifier was recovered.
Introduction
In this article we see how to get information about the geometry of the 3D models in Blender, that is to say the vertex count, the amount of edges, faces and also the amount of triangles.
If you prefer to watch a video I have the right video for this topic:
We start with a 3D model, what we are going to do is to locate the icon on which the cursor is located in figure 2, it may be necessary to change the working mode to object mode or edit mode.
Fig. 1: Starting from two objects in Blender with Shade Smooth applied.
Fig. 2: Window of the overlapping elements in Viewport.
The window that appears, “Viewport Overlays”, allows us to configure the elements that are overlapped on the 3D view window, there we will click on the “Statistics” checkbox, this will show us in the upper left corner information about the models that we have in the scene and the amount of polygons.
Fig. 3: “Statistics” option that allows the display of 3D model information such as vertices, edges and faces.
If we select an object, the number of selected objects appears next to the total number of objects, as shown in figure 4.
Fig. 4: Polygon information is displayed in the upper left corner of the Viewport.
If we enter the edit mode of the selected object now the information changes and shows us the number of vertices, edges and faces of the object we are editing together with the total number of elements of that particular object.
Fig. 5: Information about the geometry of an object within the Edit Mode.
Introduction
The scale of an object is the property that is related to the dimensions of a 3D model and it is something to pay attention to for several reasons, having models with non-normalizedscales can bring us problems in physical simulations or in the UV mapping of textures. In case we are building a 3D environment with other models where it is important that the distances and size differences between objects are consistent, we will have to pay extra attention to the scale of the objects.
In this article we are going to see how to normalize the scale of a 3D model in Blender, but before reading on I leave you with a video in which I show the 3D modeling process I use and mention several things I keep in mind, among them the importance of the scale of 3D models:
All the IMPORTANT information is summarized in the following TUTORIAL FROM MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL
How to normalize the scale of a 3D model in blender
We start with a 3D model with the unnormalized scale as shown in Figure 1, that cube has a scale of (5.414 , 3.813 , 2.463) which makes us think that it has experienced different scale transformations while in Object Mode.
Fig. 1: We start from a cube with a non-normalized scale.
To normalize the scale of the model what we must do is to select it in the object mode and “Apply the scale“, with the shortcut CTRL+A the ” Apply” window appears as shown in figure 2, click on apply to normalize the scale.
With this we are indicating that this 3D model is located in the scene in its real size. As seen in Figure 3, the scale of the model is now (1,1,1).
Fig. 2: Menu to apply different properties to an object such as position, rotation and scale.
Fig. 3: Object now has normalized scale, (1,1,1)
Introduction
In this article we see how to reuse the same material in different objects in Blender, that way when we modify the material that change is automatically applied to all the objects that are using the same instance of the material.
In the following video we see how to APPLY the SAME MATERIAL to MULTIPLE OBJECTS in Blender
Creating and assigning material to an object in Blender
The first step will be to create the material, if you have already created a material continue down to “How to reuse a material in Blender“.
We start with the objects shown in figure 1, these have not yet been assigned any material so we will select one of them and go to the material tab with the icon shown in figure 2.
Fig. 1: Set of objects to which a material is to be applied.
Fig. 2: Material properties of the selected object.
Now let’s add a new Material Slot by clicking on the + button shown in figure 3. An object can have multiple materials assigned to different faces of the model, so you can add as many slots as you need.
The next step is to create the material by clicking on the “New” button, at this point we are creating the instance of the material, this step must be done only once if we want to reuse the same material.
Figure 4 shows the material I have created and assigned a name and color to it.
Fig. 3: A new material slot is added to the object.
Fig. 4: This is the material to be reused in the other objects.
Fig. 5: The object shows the material that has been assigned to it.
How to reuse a material in Blender
To reuse the material that was created in the previous step in another different object what we are going to do is select the other object and in the materials tab, instead of adding a new slot and creating a new material, we directly click on the materials icon (the sphere to the left of the new button in figure 6) and select from the list the material we want to reuse. In figure 7 we see the result, both objects have the same material assigned.
Fig. 6: The instance of the previously created material is assigned to the second object.
Fig. 7: Both objects show the same material.
Modificar el color en un objeto en Blender cambia el color en otros objetos
This happens because both objects are assigned exactly the same material, precisely this is the concept of instance, a material has been defined in the scene and that same material has been assigned to different objects, the objects are simply using that material, so that when we modify it, for example if we change the color as shown in figure 8, all objects that are using that instance of the material will change their appearance, as shown in figure 9. If you want each object to show a different material you will have to create new materials as shown at the beginning of this article.
Fig. 8: The color assigned to the cube material is changed.
Fig. 9: The change of material applies to all objects.
Introduction
In this article we see how to load an image in Blender to use it as a reference for the modelling process, either to exactly trace its geometry or simply to have it there and consult it to help you with the modelling. We will also see how to orient the reference image in space and how to make it transparent.
In the following video we see how to load a REFERENCE IMAGE in Blender
A reference image in Blender is like any other object in the scene, so to add it we can use the shortcut SHIFT+A while in OBJECT MODE, this displays the “Add” menu in a floating way, we go to the “Image” part and select “Reference”. As shown in figure 1.
A window will open in which we have to choose the reference image we need.
In figure 2 you can see the result of this operation, the reference image was added correctly, the problem is that it was added according to the orientation that the camera had at the moment of adding, maybe that was what you needed although in many cases one prefers to have the reference image oriented according to the front, side or top views. If that is the case you can delete the image, orient the view properly and add it again.
Fig. 1: Adding a reference image in Blender.
Fig. 2: Reference image object in Blender.
Orient the reference image in Blender
As mentioned before, the best way to orient a reference image would be to first adjust the view and then create the reference image, in this way the image already appears with the proper orientation, however, as it is an object in the scene we can also transform it, apply translation, rotation and scale. For example we can select the image, press the R key to rotate it, constrain the Z axis and type 90, so that the reference image rotates 90 degrees with respect to the Z axis. We can also type directly its orientation in the transform panel shown in figure 3. Figure 4 shows a reference image oriented according to the XZ plane (front view).
Fig. 3: Transformation of the reference image.
Fig. 4: Reference image positioned in the XZ plane.
How to make a reference image transparent in Blender
In many cases we will need the reference image to have transparency to be able to see the 3D model we are making, to achieve this we first select the image. Then we go to the image properties using the icon shown in Figure 5, note that this icon appears when an image object is selected. In the image properties we enable the opacity checkbox and set the desired value, where 1 is completely opaque and 0 completely transparent. Figure 7 shows the result.
Fig. 5: Access to the properties tab of a reference image in Blender.
Fig. 6: Properties of the reference image.
Fig. 7: Reference image with opacity in Blender.
Figure 6 shows other options to configure our reference image, for example we can make the image visible only in a certain view.
How to add multiple reference images in Blender
We can add as many reference images as we need, one way to do it is to repeat the process mentioned above, i.e. add a new image object and select the file, but we can also take the existing reference image and duplicate it with SHIFT+D, as if it were a 3D model, figure 8 shows how I duplicated an image and immediately pressed the R key to rotate it 90° around the Z axis.
Fig. 8: A reference image is duplicated from another image as if it were a 3D object.
Once we have duplicated the reference image, it is now time to make the object show another image, for that we go back to the image properties tab (figure 5) and in the “Image” section we click on the “Open Image” button shown in figure 9 and load the desired image file, the result can be seen in figure 10.
Fig. 9: Modifying the reference image file.
Fig. 10: Two different reference images in Blender.
In this video we’ll see how to access a variable that is defined in a script from another script in Unity.
Procedure to read a variable that is in another Script step-by-step:
1. We start with 2 scripts, A and B. In the A script is the variable we want to read. In the B Script we are going to read the variable that is in A.
2. In the A script we make sure that the variable is declared as public, otherwise we will not be able to access it from a context outside of A.
3. In the B script we declare an A-type object and we must find the reference of that object. This will depend on where we are programming, in the case of Unity we will do it in the Start method and with the instruction FindObjectOfType.
4.To read the variable that is in the A Script from B, we use the reference that we define from A and with the dot operator we can access it and use it inside the B Script.
This other video may be useful:
🟢 How to DISPLAY TEXT on screen in Unity – Text Canvas Component
Video Description
In this video we see how to display text on screen in Unity, starting with the creation of a Canvas Text field that serves to render text on screen. Then we see how to write is text through a Script, for this we need to find the reference of the Text component within our Script, in our case we define the variable as public in the inspector and then.
This video and the one for reading text entries in Unity I need them for my series of programming exercises resolution using Unity.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Create the TEXT component
00:13 Configure the CANVAS SCALER
00:26 Adjust the TEXT component parameters
00:36 It’s important to differentiate this elements
01:00 Create a script to modify the text
01:11 Variables in the script
01:40 Assign the script to any GameObject in the hierarchy
01:50 Setup the component in the inspector
02:04 Write the TEXT from the script
02:27 Updating the TEXT element
Reading Text Input in Unity
Video Description
In this video I show how to create an Input Field that allows the user to enter a text to the game or application. We also see how to receive that text input in a script and store it in a variable, this allows us to use the data later.
This can be useful to ask the user for a name to create a profile, a name for a save file or to configure parameters of our game at run time.
Follow my itch.io page and download the Unity package
Video Description
In this video we see how to create a transparent material in Blender Eevee similar to glass, we will use the Principled Shader BSDF, the shader that is created by default in Blender. We will configure its transmission and roughness parameters so that the material allows light to pass through it. Then we have to set some things in the rendering options to achieve the transparency effect in the material.
In this video we see how to create a simple 3D text in Blender, using a custom Font.
How to make a basic 3D Text in Blender Step by Step:
While in the object mode, press Shift+A and add a “Text” object.
With the Text object selected, press Tab to enter the edit mode and edit the text.
In the Text tab (it appears when you have a Text object selected) you can configure all the main properties. Choose the font, center the text (in “Paragraph – Alignment”).
To add volume to the letters go to “Geometry” and give a value different from zero to the “Extrude” parameter.
When finish editing the text, go back to the object mode, right click in the Text object and choose “Convert To Mesh”. That makes a 3D object out of the Text object.
Here are a couple links where you can download fonts:
We see how to easily make holes in Blender 2.8, we take an object and we make a hole in it using a second object, to achieve this we use the boolean modifier.
Know how to quickly merge two objects into one and then select a part of the mesh and split it into a separated object.
To join two or more objects in Blender we need to select them and press CTRL+J. To separate a certain mesh from an object into a new object, we need to select that part of the mesh in edit mode, press P and choose “Separate by selection”.
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