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3D Modeling

Lesson 1

Introduction to Blender

Interface, adjusting panel layout. Viewport panel: navigation, modes, display regimes, overlays. Outliner panel.
Adding and duplicating mesh primitives. Object transform: Properties panel, N-Panel, gizmos, tools, and shortcuts. Euler angles vs quaternions. 3D-cursor, geometry origin, and pivot points. Applying transform.
Modifiers Mirror, Array, and Screw. Applying modifiers.

Downloads TOPEX/Poseidon.blend

Lesson 2

Boolean modeling

Boolean modifier, non-destructive modeling with Array and Mirror, order of modifiers. Bool Tool add-on, shortcuts for live and applied booleans.
Object parenting, Viewport Display properties, hiding and disabling objects.

Downloads LEGO blueprints.pdf

Examples


Lesson 3

Shading

Mathematical foundations: face and vertex normals, Phong shading. Flat and Smooth shading modes, sharp edges, Auto Smooth modifier. Shading artefacts, dependence on mesh topology.

Edit mode

Viewport object interaction modes, Edit Mode select modes, 3D-cursor and element transform in Edit Mode, sliding elements along edges. Non-planar faces.
Selecting multiple vertices, X-Ray toggle, hiding and unhiding. Adding vertices: Extrude and Subdivide. Merge vertices at center, by distance, auto merge on move. Deleting verteces.
Adding edges: Join vs Fill vertex pairs, inserting Edge loops, Knife tool. Delete edges vs Dissolve, limited dissolve. Selecting edge loops, rings, and shortest paths.
Adding faces: Fill an edge pair, filling based on one and three edges, commands Bridge Edge Loops and Grid Fill. Delete Faces command variants.
*Snapping settings, Proportional Editing, mesh symmetry toggles.

Lesson 4

SubD modeling

Commands Extrude and Inset on individual and multiple faces. Bevel on edges and vertices.
Subdivision modifier: mathematical foundations, Catmull–Clark algorithm, relation to B-splines, comparison with Bézier splines. Adjusting subdivision smoothing: support loops, edge and vertex Crease.
*Bevel modifier and Bevel Weight parameter, use for adding support edges. Loop Tools add-on.

Examples


Lesson 5*

Materials and rendering

PBR materials: physical foundations, Principled BSDF, basic parameters, Shader Nodes. Lighting and camera settings, HDRI environment maps. Eevee and Cycles rendering engines: mathematical foundations, GPU setup. PBR materials: physical foundations, basic parameters, Shader Nodes. Lighting and camera settings, HDRI environment maps. Eevee and Cycles rendering engines, GPU setup.

    References

  1. Procedural Materials (tutorial playlist)

Lesson **

Procedural geometry

Geometry Nodes modifier, basic nodes, stock node-based modifiers. Mesh instances, Realize Instances node. Loops and simulation zone, use for solving ODE and trajectory visualization.

Downloads Procedural LEGO piece.blend

Examples


Lesson 5*

Animation

Keyframe animation, Timeline and Graph Editor panel (Bézier splines). Importing animation keyframes and 3D meshes from Wolfram Mathematica.
*Importing and animating LaTeX expressions.

Lesson **

Physics simulations and Scripting

Rigid-body simulations: body properties, Rigid Body World properties, initial conditions, constrains, baking. Liquid and gas simulations, Dynamic paint. Volumetric shaders.
Drivers. Visualizing trajectories with particles.
*Python Console scripts.

Linked Lessons