By default when using Cycles or Eevee in Blender, there are no post-processing effects, including glow. This means that no matter how bright an object is it will not radiate that glow effect that we so often see in a regular photograph when a bright object is present. So how do we set it up? […]

FBX is one of the most common file formats used to move 3D models and assets between different applications. When using Blender together with other software there are many cases where we will need to import and export FBX files. Whether that be for exporting a model to a game engine or other some other […]

In Blender, modifiers are great automatic operations used to modify an object’s geometry non-destructively. In particular we will be discussing the Solidify modifier, a common and versatile modifier used to add thickness to an object, which can become very valuable for your workflow. To use a solidify modifier, select your object. Next, click on the […]

Mixing materials and textures is essential for creating stunning shading results in Blender. There is rarely a single clean material that on its own can capture the essence of a surface and therefore mixing becomes a crucial part of the shading workflow. This is how we can mix materials in Blender: Setup a material for […]

You have probably heard of PBR. But what is it and how do we use it in Blender? PBR stands for Physically Based Rendering. It is a loosely defined framework for storing data that is needed to recreate real-world material in a digital 3D format. We use it to store different material properties in individual […]

When we learn about materials and texturing in Blender it is easy to get stuck on tasks that for senior artists have become obvious and even hard to cover. Scaling textures is one such task that often is done without thinking. But for beginner artists it can be a challenge to find the right place […]

Sometimes when we're working on a project in Blender, we may want to composite our shadows separately or isolate them from the object they're being cast onto such as when we're compositing a render over a background. So how do we do that? To make an object a shadow catcher in Blender follow these steps: […]

When creating meshes in Blender we will often need to consider poly flow and best practices for creating geometry, it commonly recommended to keep our meshes quad based, but why is this? Quads are preferred to triangles because they're easier to work with and in general have more consistent results such as smoother and more […]

When transferring three-dimensional (3D) content across devices or platforms, a common file format to use is OBJ. Blender supports exporting and importing OBJ files, as does many other 3D software. To export or import an OBJ file in Blender, in the top left corner click File > Export/Import > Wavefront (.obj). Continue reading to learn […]

When we're setting up an armature or animation in Blender, we will often find ourselves using Inverse Kinematics. We may want to control the direction that an IK chain bends in. Pole targets can help us achieve this. So, what is a Pole Target? Pole Targets are a Component of an IK chain that allows […]

When animating in blender we will often come across IK and FK, they are the two most common methods for handling the posing and animation of our armatures, though the two can often be hard to distinguish. So, what is the difference between IK and FK? IK and FK are two ways of handling motion […]

One of the newer features in Blender is a built-in Asset Browser that helps us organize and manage our assets. The asset browser makes it much easier to access premade models, materials, worlds and animations. Making the process of adding assets to our scene as simple as dragging and dropping them in. Here is how […]

When we are sculpting it can be very helpful to isolate parts of our mesh to organize our work. Face sets is a great feature that allow us to do just that. To use face sets follow these steps. In sculpt mode, select the draw face set brush. Draw an area on your object with […]

For many beginner Blender artists, normals can be hard to understand. What effect do they have on our 3D models? How do we control them and what kinds of normals are there that we need to worry about? A normal is a perpendicular vector of an object. In Blender, the object is usually a vertex […]

In Blender you can mark edges, which can be used for several reasons, allowing you to give special treatment to these edges in various ways. These are the edge markings available in Blender: Seams Crease Bevel weight Sharp Freestyle To mark an edge, enter edit mode, select an edge. Then click Ctrl+E to open the […]

N-gons can be a very useful tool when creating a model, they can speed up the process of creating our topology quite a bit and can help us resolve the details of our model, but at some point we'll likely want to fix them as they can cause problems for our topology and may not […]

When importing and exporting models in Blender there are many formats to choose from, sometimes the format that you'll need to use is DAE also known as collada. Whether you're looking to import or export, here is how to do it. To Import a .dae file first navigate to file > import > dae select […]

When creating art in Blender there are many cases where we may need a glass shader. Glass can add a lot of realism to our scenes and getting a glass shader right can be key to lighting our scenes in a convincing way. We will explore glass shaders for both Cycles and Eevee. To create […]

The poly build tool in Blender helps the artist with polygon modeling and retopology. We can use it on its own or combine it with other tools in Blender to get the most out of it. Poly build is an edit mode tool. We primarily use it with snapping when doing retopology. Enable it in […]

Rigid body simulation is probably the most common type of physics simulation. It is extensively used in games, and it allows objects to fall, collide, slide or bounce without deformation to any involved object. A rigid body object is a solid geometry that has no deformation, or a deformation small enough to be ignored. To […]