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-normalized scales 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

How to make a reference image transparent 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.

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.