Vertex groups are a useful tool when we want to mask things in Blender. Many modifiers have an input slot for vertex group, allowing us to only affect portions of the object. Likewise, we can use vertex groups with particle systems, simulations, and with a little trick convert them so that we can even use […]
UV unwrapping can be a daunting task when you first get into it. There are many things that can go wrong, and you need to know what you're going to use your UV map for. Here is a list of 10 tips that I have composed to help you on your journey to become a […]
Vegetation is the name of another nature asset add-on for Blender. This time it focuses on trees, shrubs, and bushes exclusively. This is a smart move since digital 3D grass is a quite saturated market that needs some complementary assets in the Blender space. In short, the assets are of high quality as expected, but […]
Soon after you start to dive into nodes, shaders, and compositing in Blender you will come across the color ramp node. This is one of the most used nodes and it is important to understand how it works. A color ramp in Blender is a node that we can use in either the shader editor […]
Blender is a great way for you to start making animated movies because of how it is completely opensource and comes with great editing tools that will allow you to try to create your own 3D animations all for free. There have also been great movies that were made using Blender. You may not have […]
Pro lighting: Studio is one of those add-ons that has been around for quite a while. For me, it is an add-on that often gets used as part of my workflow, but in the community, it seems to live in the shadows of its slightly older brother, Pro lighting: Skies. Let's see if it doesn't […]
The gaming world has been thrown under the spotlight in recent years, with some becoming interested in exploring the alternate realities they have to offer, and others being drawn to the prospect of creating games themselves. While game development definitely takes skill and patience, the software chosen can have a massive impact on the process […]
I remember when I first started out in digital 3D art; I was really struggling to make anything look good in Blender. The pieces that I was neglecting were the lighting. Lighting is one of the most important pieces of any 3D scene. It can make or break any 3D project. The goal of lighting […]
There are many good add-ons for Blender making various tasks easier or at all possible. This is a list of the ones I have found to be the most useful as I work with Blender. F2 Node wrangler Power sequencer Animation nodes Bool tool Amaranth toolset UV Squares EasyFX Camera Manager MB-Labs Many of these […]
The most common use of a particle system in Blender is to scatter objects across a surface. Many times, this is vegetation or debris that we scatter in our scene using a hair particle system. Select the object that will emit your particles Go to the particle tab in the properties panel Press the plus […]
To use the 3D cursor effectively, the first thing we need to learn is how to position it correctly. There are a handful of tools at our disposal to position the 3D cursor either manually or precisely. We can position the 3D cursor precisely by using the snap menu accessed through Shift+S. Then use the […]
There is no official way or launcher that allow us to install and manage multiple versions of Blender at once. But since there are so many releases for different needs and with new features coming all the time, the need for a solution to install and manage multiple versions of Blender increase. To install multiple […]
The number of vegetation asset plug-ins for Blender has grown lately. Botaniq is one add-on among many today that battle for attention in this field. The question is if it is worth your time and money. I would say a definitive yes. I think this add-on and the assets are very well made and sit […]
Most Blender artists have had the issue where they cannot select an object. There can be many reasons for this, and most of them are simple once you understand them. Here are the reasons we will cover. You are in edit mode for a different object You marked the object as unselectable You marked the […]
Sometimes during our digital 3D art project we may find ourselves when we have stretching textures. A texture gets stretched to its limits when the corresponding UV map has no area. This may happen if we create new geometry on an already UV unwrapped and textured object. To solve it, UV unwrap the new geometry. […]
With the EasyFX add-on you can quickly add post-processing effects to your render in Blender without having to set up a compositing node graph manually. I used it for many of my quicker projects when I just need something to show, but it is also great for creating a starting point for further post-processing in […]
Sometimes a scene overflows with geometry thanks to poor use of the subdivision's surface modifier. It's hard to control and can become a performance hog as we work on an increasingly complex scene. Adaptive subdivision surface dynamically changes the subdivision level of objects based on the distance from the camera. We can use it in […]
During recent years, the number of marketplaces for 3D assets has increased and so has the number of artists that try to sell their 3D models online. Either through their own store or through one of these marketplaces. To get started selling your 3D models you need to have an account on at least one […]
The baking system in Blender takes a lot of critiques for being unintuitive, hard to understand and error prone. In this article, I aim to untangle the confusion about baking in Blender with Cycles. To bake from a material to an image texture in Blender, follow these steps: Choose Cycles as your render engine Add […]
Rendering is at the heart of what we do in Blender. When you are starting out it is good to understand how it works so that you can actually get some output to show and use. To render in Blender Press F12 for rendering a still image or Ctrl+F12 to render animation. You can also […]