Xara plus Blender questions

[angelize]

My apologies if this is not the right place for this post, I'm not sure exactly where to ask this.

Inspired by some of the Xara/Blender creations posted by James I decided to see if I could manage to learn to use Blender and see if I could create something.

To start I'd like to ask about importing my xara work into Blender, and how to use it once I have it in there. I am sure I will have more questions along the way, already I am finding blender's learning curve much steeper than Xara's.

[handrawn]

I'll move it to [general] 3D graphics as its a blender question....

[pauland]

I think the major thing to realise is that Blender and all other 3D programs build their own world as a visualisation of surfaces. So the cube is six surfaces arranged to form a 3D cube . With Xara you effectively build 2D planes that sit over or under each other and can mimic the appearance of 3D (if that's what's required) or just look flat (2D).

To use 2D artwork in a 3D environment, you essentially need to apply a 2D texture to a 3D surface. So returning to the cube example you could map some Xara created artwork (exported as PNG perhaps), and map the artwork to the faces of the cube, then you would be able to see it.

So, essentially working with 2D artwork in a 3D environment is about mapping 2D textures to a 3D surface. You build a 3D world then apply 2D textures to it (either from basic colours within the software or imported artwork).

I think that you would find it easier having a simple goal in mind when trying to get to know Blender, then you can target your questions towards a specific goal. I haven't used Blender much, I used to use Lightwave quite a lot.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Frances,

There are several ways to integrate Xara with Blender.

First is a special add-on (included) with Blender...you only have to make sure it's turned ON in User Preferences. It's called "Import Images as Planes". You can import images manually (but why?), however this add-on makes sure that the created plane has the same aspect ratio as the original graphic. Also, as you go to import, you will see some options on the lower left of the screen for using the alpha channel, for premultiply and for shadeless. The alpha channel you want clicked if there is ANY transparency in the original that you want to preserve. Also, if so, click premultiply, it will make the edges look better. As for shadeless, that makes it so that the graphic is shown just as it is, with no shading based on where the lights are, etc. (normally, you want shadeless OFF, since you want the graphic to integrate into the scene) If you're using a (distant) background for something, then you often want shadeless ON so that the graphic looks exactly as it did in Xara. For most planes, you will want to go to the specularity slider in Materials and slide it to the left to turn off specularity. (90+% of image planes will need it OFF)

A second way to pull things into Blender is (as Pauland commented) as textures for objects. All objects need a material and SOME objects need a texture. You only have to decide how you want that texture to be mapped onto the object. For planes, cubes, cylinders, tubes, spheres, or sphere-like objects, there is a direct option that maps it correctly. (find the mapping method on the Textures panel, looks like a checkerboard). For more complex objects that you need to map perfectly, you will have to unwrap the object, which means to have the program convert those faces of the object so that they are laid out flat. Then, when you import an image, it is laid correctly across all of the faces. Unwrapping simple objects is not so hard...the more complex the object, the more difficult the unwrapping. Luckily, the plane (flat), cube, tube, and sphere mapping works for most objects. (You can also paint right onto objects!)

The third way is to activate the SVG saving option in Xara (for DP7, it required a small registry change which I think I got from Mike B, here). With this, you can take your shapes that you make in Xara and pull them right into Blender. The same way that you can create a 3D extruded shape in Xara from a shape, you can pull that shape into Blender and extrude it there. Because of this, it is often easier to make some complex shape in Xara and then pull it into Blender rather than to try and make the shape by placing vertices to make the shape.

If you had a large blue star that you made in Xara and wanted to use that in Blender and it wasn't really close to the camera (ie. the fact that it has no depth is not important, because of the viewing angle), then pulling it in as a SVG works excellently, even preserving the initial (solid) coloring.

Blender is not easy, because there are so many options and settings. Still, tackle it one piece at a time and it all starts falling into place nicely. Really, there are a finite number of "tasks" that you are likely to need (for anything that you're "building" in Blender)...so learn it once, and use it forever.

One more thing, Blender uses keyboard shortcuts extensively, so it pays to print a listing out (available at Blender.org) for reference.

One other little tip...in User Preferences, there is a checkbox for something like "Dynamic Space Bar". When you start a New document, click this checkbox and then hitting the space bar gives a menu with many of the mostly used functions. If you don't know this, then you have to go search everything out in the menus.

I agree with Pauland that it is a good idea to start with SOME idea of what you want to make and then work to learn the functions that you need to make that happen. For example...say you wanted to make a small scene with a ground surface, a cylinder (with say, your image wrapped on it) and a mirrored sphere next to it. For this scene, you'd need only 3 objects. (not including lights and camera, of course) The ground, you would likely load in using "Import Image as Plane", but make sure specularity is OFF. The cylinder and sphere are primitives that you can get just by going to the Add menu (or using the dynamic space bar menu that I mentioned above). Once you create the cylinder or sphere, you will likely want to turn on smoothing just so that they don't appear faceted. To make the sphere mirrored, just give it a new material, turn the coloring darker and give it some amount of mirroring (0.5 to 0.9). For the cylinder, create it and then go to Materials and give it a new material. Go to Textures, choose New and then choose "Image or Movie" and Open the file that is the image. Tell it that you're mapping the image to a tube and then, with the cylinder selected, hit R (for Rotate), Z to constrain it to rotating about the Z-axis and then 180 and hit Enter. This will rotate the cylinder so that the seam (where the left edge of image meets right edge of image) will be in the back and invisible. If you are using a seamless image, of course, you can leave out the rotating. For a plain, photo image, you will need to rotate it.

Mostly...have fun... don't feel intimidated, you won't break anything.

One cool feature that I wish that Xara had is, when you click Save As, if you've given the file a name with numbers in it (for revisions), then there is a little PLUS button that automatically increases the number in the filename. It pays to save at many points along the way...never know when you think, "oh, I want that shape back the way it was before I changed it to...."

The normal way of working with Blender is to have the right hand (assuming right-handed) on the mouse and the left hand on the keyboard. Even if you don't start that way, you'll end up that way.

Ask if you have problems/questions...I'm glad to help.

Thanks for the nice comments!

Peace

James

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Frances,

To show what I was saying above about importing SVG graphics into Blender:

I made the following in Xara.



After saving (SVG) and then importing into Blender and extruding (literally 2 mins)...



You can see that the "objects" came into Blender, just as they were created in Xara. Here it is from another view.



Lastly, I changed the tops of those objects to show that they are editable objects, free to do whatever you want to with... The snake-like line has a texture applied to only the top faces. The left cylinder has another (Xara-made) texture mapped to it. The right cylinder has a cloud texture applied (to the top) from within Blender.



Using this method, it becomes much easier to have complex shapes that are made with Xara's (excellent) drawing tools and have them imported right into Blender, ready to use/manipulate/position.

Take care

James

[pauland]

Frances,

James has provided some great advice and shown off his skill. Don't be put off that you will struggle to turn around decent results at first. It takes time to switch to a 3D mindset and time to get used to doing all the stuff that goes with it - modeling, texturing and lighting.

Everybody struggles at first. You'll appreciate how easy Xara's 3D tools make it to get a fast result.

Paul

[guyke]

Thank you, James, for your explanation.

I was attracted to Blender by the nice things you showed here in TG, and decided to give it a go. Meanwhile I bought the 'Blender for Dummies' which is helpful, but mostly as a reference work in my opinion. What I didn't find yet is a set of tutorials like Xara has (Gary's mostly), in a written format. I don't like the video-tutorials as they sometimes are difficult to follow for a non-native-english-speaking person.

I agree with Frances about the steep learning curve and being 67 isn't much help there either - it's like climbing a hill on a bicycle: much easier when you're 30 than when you're 65+.
But I'm determined I will get there one day...

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Even if you weren't going to build a complete scene in Blender, you can see how Blender can help with things like mapping textures onto objects and it doing accurate reflections.

Since the angle isn't straight on the object, a simple copying and flipping would NOT create an accurate reflection and no one would be fooled.

Here is a simple texture made in Xara, pulled right into Blender and mapped onto a sphere (with multiplication/mirroring of the texture) and a ground surface with a little bit of reflectivity. You can see that the reflection is not the same (image) as the object, since the views are from two different perspectives. (relative to the object) In the reflection, you're seeing the object from below, so the perspective of the object is from the FLOOR for the reflection, but from the camera for the object.



By the way, I'm excited that you want to learn Blender. You're an experimenting type, I think you'll have great fun with it and make some cool stuff as you get further into it. Cool!

Peace

James

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Guy,

Thanks! And you're welcome for any explanations... it excites me to help others learn/understand such a cool (free) tool!

Yes, I think you're right, there should be more written tutorials for it.

I think because the creating of things has MANY steps (often) that it's just so much easier to document through the steps in video form, where it would take a long time to write out everything step-by-step in text and a gazillion screen grabs.

Still though...for basic things, I think you are 100% correct...there should be basic tutorials for all functions. If you'll look up individual functions on Blender.org, there are text explanations with graphics for most everything...so the basics can be learned that way.

When I watch tutorial videos (say, by Andrew Price, Jonathan Williamson, Greg Zaal or Kernon Dillon), I almost always pick up some tip or idea that I didn't know before...some helpful little (or not so little) thing.

The main thing is to have fun and try not to get frustrated...then, every time you open up Blender will be a happy one full of exploring and playing.

I'd like to get a copy of Camtasia Studio, because I think I could make some cool videos about basic functions and about interworking with Xara and Blender together.

Take care,

James

[angelize]

Wow lots to read here! thanks so much James and pauland. I hope to get some time to play later, and I thought for a simple first project I might start with a sphere with a repeating texture created in Xara mapped to it. Eventually once I have a little practice I'd like to do objects in xara as svg and bring them into blender.

One thing I'm finding is that having to right click to select things in blender takes a bit of getting used to.

James, have you tried Fastone Capture for producing video tutorials? It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a more expensive program but for around $20 CAD it works quite well and it does screen grabs too. I have used it for a few videos that I posted elsewhere, and I use it frequently for screenshots for tutorials and forum posts, and for work related stuff too.