Xara plus Blender questions

[guyke]

Well done, Frances. It's nice to see where Xara and Blender come together, and the problems you meet in Blender look quite familiar to me

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Frances,

Very nice teacup scene. You're learning to map textures onto objects and doing some modeling, so you're definitely moving right along!

Hirsig's tutorials are a good start, because he tends to teach about various functions, one-by-one. (rather than having a large project made up of many functions where each one is casually mentioned in snippet form)

You're really making progress and I look forward to seeing more!

Take care

James

P.S. Remember also that a texture can control many things, not only color. Especially useful are textures as bump maps and for the alpha channel, where you can even make objects have various amounts of transparency, all the way to completely invisible. Like the checkerboard sphere that I made, it was much easier to make that sphere by just mapping one texture than to go back and hand-select and remove all the various faces. Also, with the texture, you can always modify it by just modifying the texture.

P.P.S. Did you print out the cheat sheet reference for the keyboard shortcuts? Blender has many, many buttons and menus, but there are a lot of functions that there are only keyboard shortcuts for, so it pays to have that reference. Here's a handy one for you. Shift-H. When you press Shift-H, the currently selected object remains, but all the other objects are hidden. When you have a complex scene or you just need to get to some part of an object that might be obscured by other objects (like a wall!), then Shift-H makes it so that you can focus on that one part and get it right. When you have it, then you can press Alt-H and everything comes back (but be careful, since it all comes back SELECTED.... just press A afterwards) If you just need to hide some particular object, then you just have to have it selected and press H.

[angelize]

Thank you Guy and James.

Yes I did print out that keyboard reference, and it's already been helpful! From it I learned to hold the alt key to select an edge loop, came in very handy for modeling the teacup. I'll remember the Shift-h alt -h. thanks for the encouragement it's really helped me to not give up.

[Hwy101]

Thanks Tom. I found an online course with all kinds of links, tutorials, lessons, and a pdf manual with illustrations Blender 3D Design course I haven't been through a lot of it yet but I think it may be a good resource.

Thanks for the Link angelize -the site looks like a great place to learn (123D update did not work for me -something about video card, yet the prior version was fine) So, I will be 'Blending' for a while -I just hope the Tutorials will stream to South America [many won't] - Tom

[guyke]

I like the pdf-tutorials, because then I can work at my own pace. The results I get when trying to follow the videos usually don't match the assumed outcome...

[Hwy101]

I like the pdf-tutorials, because then I can work at my own pace. The results I get when trying to follow the videos usually don't match the assumed outcome...

I have that happen (a lot) too...

[angelize]

Me too, I thought I was probably the only one who had trouble following the videos. What would really be helpful would be if they would slow down for the beginners and if they could be more clear sometimes when using the keyboard short cuts!

[Soquili]

I prefer written tutorials (html more so than pdf). The Pause button helps with video tutorials but often the person making the video forgets to mention the keyboard shortcuts they use.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Frances

Re: Keyboard shortcuts in Blender tutorials

There's no excuse for it, since Blender will display the keyboard shortcuts as they are pressed, while recording. They should show up in the bottom left of the main viewport. They have to be turned on.

James

[Hwy101]

Hello Frances

Re: Keyboard shortcuts in Blender tutorials

There's no excuse for it, since Blender will display the keyboard shortcuts as they are pressed, while recording. They should show up in the bottom left of the main viewport. They have to be turned on.

James

Speaking of Keyboard Shortcuts -I made a crib sheet you can Print Out to have as a Handy Reference.



Now, I was printing on A4 Size; So, you might have to tweak for Other Size Paper. If anybody wants the file, PM me with your email and I will be happy to email it to you.