Week 2: Getting the hang...Oh wait what?

Started the task of the pill pretty fast quickly came across a problem but realised why straight off so quickly started again. Still having a few problems with camera angles and hot keys but its becoming clearer with practise so hopefully understand it fully soon. I realised that most of the problems I have last week with zooming in etc wern't working because I'm using a laptop touch pad, and it just never seems to pick it up so I plugged in a mouse and it worked a treat so much easier to work with. I got to the end of the task pretty easily, however I found a lot of the tutorial pretty useless telling you to press certain things where is was easier just to do it other ways. I got as far as the adding the colour, that was really easy to create however the tutorial doesn't tell you how to actually add the colour to the object only how to create it, which seems a bit silly, I can add colour and textures with my eyes shut in 'Maya' so why cant I on 'Blender' it's pretty frustrating, but the pieces are beggining to fit together. Just incase I tried rendering the object without colour or anything but it was just blank even though I added a camera in the right

place weird.

So so far I have this:

Right so I finally got the pill comepleted after way too many attempts, the problems before was because I wasn't on the right view, as it changed at one point and I didnt change it with it, On a lot of the diagrams however it has 4 views on one screen as automatic almost, I cant find a way to do that which is very annoying, but atleast the main thing is completed. And in regard to the rendering problem I had I changed the setting as after lots of online research it appears it has a few problems with 'Windows Vista' which is what I am using.

The salt shaker task was pretty straight forward after feeling pretty confident after doing the first task a dozen times, made this one very straight forward as it simply adds the skills learned in the first week with the second one.

Week 1 Continued: The Jigsaw Pieces Finally Fit

Alfter much playing around today, everything finally clicked, I decided to look into different views why had I not thought of this before, it was by doing this that I became able to see the object I was making in 3D whereas it was only 2D before making the object in creation very misleading, it is due to this that i believe my previous attempts to be displayed on its side. When looking at the 'Castle' challenge before it appeared very daunting, how would I be able to make this from the front view alone? Well now I've worked out to see it in 3D my camera display looks the same as the one on the tutorial, and I feel like I can attempt the 'Castle' challenge.

Before attempting the 'Castle' challenge I tried to create the house again with the knowledge I gained in the last few hours, and it was on its side it wasnt until I rotated it that it was upright, however when rendering I still had the same problem that it faded to black, but I got a quick screen print before it disapeared.

So far I have found this software to be shockingly useless or just very unstraight forward, I have been trying to complete tasks and then clicking something by accident and having to start from scratch as there is no undo button, its rediculous, also where is a rotate view or zoom in and out button as the work I am creating is becoming very inaccurate. I had just completed the 'Castle task to then find it not to render, while trying to solve this problem the model just turned on a weird angle and looks rediculous and I cant get it back so I have yet again just wasted more of my time, After feeling positive towards this software I have been torn back again, now i've got to start all over again!

After a very stressful hour I have completed the castle, I am not very happy with the result as because of the lack of zoom and rotate option I have not been able to make it completely accurate, but atleast it is finally completed, and because of so many attempts the final one took literaly two seconds as I was learning short cuts of how to do things as I went along.

The anoying this is i'm sure I will look back at this and think how did I manage to stuggle with completing such a simple task, I attempted to fix the problem of how to rotate and zoom by searching online for short cuts but they only resulted in my work disapearing. I will ask my lecturer next class how to and it will be as simple as pressing a button.

Week 1: Lost Already

I have previous experience of Maya which I have been learning for another module that I am taking this semester, I also have experience of Pro- desktop which I used doing A Level design technology. I imagine Pro- desktop is simpler than Blender, but I am about 100% sure that Maya is more complicated, then why is it that I am finding blender so difficult to grasp? I believe its because some aspects of the tutorial appears to be useless like I dont even need to press that button to get it to work, and other things are not there, so what am I supost to do just skip past that process? Surely if I did that it wouldnt work!

I am supost to right click the image in red

























But it doesnt appear to be on my page, I am currently at a stage of 'stuckness', I am sure that once I get the hang of it it will seem like a piece of cake, but right now maya is looking easier, and right now I am unsure as to how to continue, I think I am going to search to find out a way to get the 'icon' onto the page, maybe I have a different setting as standard or something.

Right added a camera, was as simple as going on the add button at the top, I was clearly looking to hard, the only thing is my camera looks slightly different to the one in the diagram and when I moved it to the top it didnt put a bif dotted square around my house like in figure 15, but i'll just have to wait and see if it works.

Right so the camera appeared to have worked as when I rendered you can see the image, as if it hadn't it would have just looked black, however my house is sideways when rendered, i'm not really sure why that is, its something i'm doing to need to look into.

















Now that I have completed the house I want to try and use the same process with different shapes, without using the same tutorials, so that I can demonstrate these skills in action, also the more I practise the moment confident I will become.

In the process of practising I realised the camera was there all along and I hadn't even noticed it, however the second camera I added did the job just as effectively, but atleast I know where it is for future reference. When creating the house for a second time I found much easier ways to complete the task, most of the options were available with a right click option, and the tasks that wern't were already cemented into my brain, so it took me literaly 2 seconds to complete. However when completing the task again I still had the problem of it being displayed on its side when rendering, I am still cluless as to why, as it has not been created on its side in 'Blender'





As you can see the house looks slightly different, but is still on it's side, however I think it looks better as the room is more defined, and therefore more realistic than the first atempt.

Right I have just spent a rediculous amount of time experimenting and making new creations using the skills I have gained this week, and unfortunely whenever I go to render it flashes on screen then goes to black so its very difficult for me to report my progress with evidence, I have tried various camera views etc, and am doing the exact same thing as I previously was, so I do not understand why it has suddenly started to happen.

I managed to print screen thins image before it went to black:


As you can see I just played around with various shapes using the skills learned in the tutorial, as you can see this has also rendered on its side. In conclusion for this week I feel like I am starting to get to grips with the software but I still have a few problems to overcome, I hope I will learn why these happened and how to fix them as the weeks go by.

Here We Go Again

Year one over, completed, passed. A summer of what even happened it went so fast.

Year two first lesson of the year, and I create a blog, a blog to show my progress of this module, this module being 3D modelling and Animation. The task begins with learning the software 'Blender', I will show my progress and any break throughs of skills on this blog.