Baking is a fundamental technique in the world of 3D animation, allowing you to convert dynamic simulations or animations into keyframes. By learning this process, you get the ability to easier transfer animations to other software. To bake a rigid body animation, select the animated object(s) and go to the Object dropdown at the top […]

If you're interested in 3D animation and want to bring your characters to life, armatures are an essential tool to master. Armatures consist of interconnected bones that form a hierarchy, allowing you to control the movement and deformation of your character models. In this article, we will dive into the world of armatures, exploring how […]

Have you ever been modeling something in Blender and wanted to move a face along the direction it's facing? Maybe you wanted to rotate an object relative to its current rotation. We can do that with axis orientations in Blender. So how do we change the axis orientation in Blender? To change the axis orientation […]

The camera composition is crucial to create an aesthetically pleasing render, and aspect ratio is one of the numerous factors which can alter the way elements within a scene are arranged and shown. Aspect ratios can, for example, be used to achieve a more realistic feel to the render. So how do you actually change […]

Animation can be a complex process that requires a deep understanding of the software being used. Whether you are a professional animator or a hobbyist, it's important to be aware of the common problems that can arise when working with Blender. This article will provide a general overview of some of the most frequently encountered […]

Mixamo is a handy free tool that we can use to easily rig and animate our models. While we can do both of those inside of Blender, Mixamo speeds up the process quite a bit and comes with a ton of animations. To use Mixamo in Blender, we need the Mixamo add-on and an account […]

Looping animations can be quite useful in a number of ways. For example, we wouldn't want to manually animate hundreds of frames of walking. Instead, we'd just create a short walking animation and play it on a loop. So how do we create a looping animation in Blender? To create a looping animation in Blender: […]

Having an appropriate and suitable camera angle for your renders can be crucial to help in showcasing your beautiful scenes and objects. In this article, we will explore the process of positioning the camera to capture an object within the scene. To aim the camera at an object in Blender, pan around the viewport using […]

Like many of the things we can do in Blender they usually are accessible by both a menu and a shortcut. This can become quite repetitive when we need to repeat these operations many times. So what are the main shortcuts used for animation in Blender? A few of the most commonly used animation shortcuts […]

Before we can start animating in Blender, we have to setup our animation length and fps. So how do we set these and what should we set them to? To change the animation length in Blender: Go to the output properties tab in the right-side properties panel and find the frame range section. Here, change […]

Whenever we're doing any sort of 3D rendering in Blender, we'll need to use cameras. One detail about cameras that can be a bit confusing is the active camera system. To change the active camera in Blender: Navigate to the properties window > scene properties and to the scene tab. Under the scene tab click […]

There are many times in Blender where we will need to setup vertex groups and weight paint, whether we're creating an armature or setting up a vertex group to distribute particles. So how do we weight paint? To Weight Paint in Blender: Select the Object to weight paint and navigate to Properties > Mesh Data […]

There are many times in Blender where we may just want to draw. Whether we're looking to take notes, make quick sketches, or create entire pieces of 2D artwork. So can we draw with Blender? Yes, you can draw in both 3D and 2D in Blender. There are two types of drawing. Annotations and Grease […]

If you want to learn animation in Blender, what better way to learn it that to watch some video about it? After all, animation goes hand in hand with motion and it is hard to visualize the pacing by using blog content only. So let's look at some great animation tutorials on Youtube that can […]

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 […]

When I first started out using Blender, empties were a completely foreign topic to me. I had no idea why they would be useful. Today, I can't remember when I last did a project that didn't involve empties. An empty object is often just called an empty in Blender or empties for multiple empty objects. […]

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 […]

A straightforward way to create a simple animation from your scene in Blender is to move the camera through it. This way we need only worry about animating a single object, the camera. To animate the camera in Blender, follow these steps: Set the play head in your timeline to the first frame Select your […]

Shape keys, or previously called Relative Vertex Keys (RVK) in Blender is a simple and effective tool to set up basic animations or different versions of the same object. In other applications shape keys can also be called morph targets. How to use a shape key in Blender?  Select your object. Go to the object […]