Talk:Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Die Another Way

This page is a little confusing and doesn't follow conventions from other articles (most notably keynames, such as GKEY or WKEY). It also isn't part of the chain of next/previous pagelinks. Perhaps someone should fix this? If I have time I might revise it a little bit. 68.126.1.251 20:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. This tutorial is not as clear as the previous ones.

good stuff, a couple minor issues though
In addition to the above mentioned problems with keyboard naming convention, there's a lot of confusion between panel / window etc... this stuff could be cleared up a lot. In particular, the section on assigning materials is VERY confusing... clearing up the nomenclature and adding some screenshots would be very helpful.

Also, a suggestion... the modelling goes MUCH quicker if you extrude and merge the 'dots' BEFORE you spin-dupe the dice. (i.e., after applying your face loop cuts to one side of the die and deleting the other sides, extrude and merge the 9 faces that will become dots. Then spin dupe and you save a lot of time extruding and merging) ... note that this will change the correct number of vertices we should have after removing duplicates (since we add 9 vertices to our side * 6 sides = 54 new vertices, + the 384 originally... now we should 438 vertices after spin-duping and removing duplicate vertices).

I'd be happy to help edit this thing... not really sure how that works though :)

About the step after loop cut
The step 5 is not leading to any option to enter numbers directly. Or am I missing something? I have tried it many times before I have added the comment. car313

I have problems with section 18. I cann't assign the color to the dents. A few pictures of the process would help.

And here is where I quit the tutorial due to frustration.
I AM using blender 2.4, so this might be a part of the problem, I'm a total noob when it comes to blender. I can't get the "loop cut" exact using my mouse (I'm using a logitech g5 2000 dpi laser mouse), it jumps from .168 to .174, and from .338 to .344 (there has got to be a way to type these in right?). I went ahead and did "loop cut" form NUM1 and NUM3, then horizontally on NUM3 so I allready had all the grids I needed. After removing the bottom in section 8, and putting the 3d cursor at 0,0,0 "spin dup" following the directions DID NOT produce a cube the ends of the dupes protruded through the sides of each other in a # shape, so I figured it was due to my use of the cube blender creates by default, however I see no way to aligh the cube so the bottom is on the surface of the grid(like just typing the value, as in maya),which would allow "spin dup" to do what was intended. personally I would like to see the "simple person" and "mountain out of a mole hill" continued as I have a feeling of a loss of continuity with the "puppy from a cube" stub, and "gingerbread man" which seems to dupe "simple person". As I said I am a complete NOOB, today is the first day I have ever used blender, I would be more then happy to contribute to the tutorials once I figure this freaking program out. I would like to see the "simple person" and "mountains" continued untill there is a "detailed person" in a "lifelike setting" for now I have to search for other tutorials. Drn8 23:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

How to enter numbers at step 5
I use Blender 2.4, and I am also a beginner.

After several trials, I think I found the way to enter numbers at STEP 5.

You have to move the cursor to the bottom bar of 3D viewer window and click LMB(laft mouse button) once. Then press GKEY &rArr; XKEY(or Y, Z) &rArr; enter numbers you want--140.116.202.68 16:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

As of Blender 2.4 loop cut seems to allow you to enter the number of cuts you want to make. So if you select k->loop cut, select the face and then enter KEY9 you can get the described effect without the hasslo of measuring the sections.

how to turn on subdivision surfaces?
hi, i think this is a good tutorial, since i understood everything right, until point 12: "12. Tab out of editmode. If you haven't done this already, hit set smooth in the editing panel and turn on subdivision surfaces" i did everything exactly as it was said, but i can't find a button to turn on "subdivision surfaces" and the screenshot doesn't help me either. do i have to add a "subsurf modifier"? but when i do this it doesn't look like the following screenshot in the tutorial nor can i turn it on or off, as it is said. any help? i think i'm just missing something, but i can't get it. thanks

Shade

The tutorial says, "In 2.41, you will need to use "Add Modifier" on the Modifiers tab, to add a SubSurf modifier." --Davidfg4

colour
i cannot mak two differrent colours. why? if i make a new material it is the same like first, so all my materials are the same. what should i do? my version of blender is 2.41

[User Answer: I am also relatively new to Blender, using 2.41 and found this point particularly frustrating until I solved it. The key to using materials to make seperate colours is to step between the Edit: Link and Materials tab and the Shading: Material tab.

In summary: you must make new materials in the Edit panel using the 'Link and Materials' tab, seperate then colour the materials in the Shading panel using the Materials tab under the Materials button, then go back to the Edit panel and assign different materials to specific layers.

Make sure you are in Edit Mode and have the whole mesh selected before you start.

1. Go to the Edit panel, look under the Link and Materials tab (hit F9 to go to the edit pnael). Delete any materials you have created using the 'Delete' button. Create the number of materials you need - in this case two. Click 'new' twice - you will see '2 Mat 2' in the dialog box above.

2. Go to the Shading panel (hit F5), find the 'Materials' tab and click on the number '2' to the right of the OB and ME buttons. You'll be asked if you want to make these single user - comply with 'yes'. Use arrows either side of '2 Mat 2' to switch between the two materials. This is the bit where you assign the colours to the two materials - stick with red for the first and white for the second. After you have done this your dice will be entirely red.

3. Got back to the Edit panel, then make sure you have the faces (not just vertices) of the indents selected - there will be four triangular faces for each indent. Then select the second material, the white one, then assign.

If you find these steps useful go back to the Penguin you made in an earlier tutorial and apply the same process to give it a white chest, orange beaks and feet.

Blender is a very complex tool but even after only a few days I can see the sheer potential. If you get stuck whilst following a tutorial try searching google using search terms relating to the operation you are having difficulty with you are stuck on (e.g. "blender 3d materials howto"), or consulting the manual on the blender site. You will usually find others will have had the same difficulties as you. Good luck!]

A revised page
I have tried to get to grips with Blender for a long time and not until I came across this Noob to Pro set of tutorials have I made any progess. This, I hope, will be something to give back to the community.

I have nearly finished a revised page, based on 2.41, incorporating the suggestions and alternative paragraphs which have already been added to the existing page, with changes where 2.41 does things differently and additional images.

I don't know anything about modifying wikibooks — where can I put it so that you can “mercilessly” edit it?

wynnmc

The revised page has been added to the Noob to Pro Contents and created.

There are a few whimperings in the discussion page there...

--Wynnmc 11:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Incorporating 2.42
This is a very good tutorial, but with the new version out it can be extremely simplyfied.

The note below the first point already explains how to skip point 3-9. Point 10 and 11 can be combined into one since you can now just select all the faces for one side of the dice, extrude and move them backwards and merge→collapse them.

I'm willing to make these changes myself. Just give me a go. -- DanMan 10:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Lack of subsections
It would be fine to make a structure with subtitles. --N comme Nul 20:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Die easy
I strongly favor the "Die easy" tutorial over this one. It's much clearer and easier. Anyone agree? ~ Yes, this tutorial seems like a waste of time.MDD4696 03:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Die Easy (proposed revision)
Thanks to Mdd4696 for the compliment. Credit should be given to the author of Die Another Way for all the hard work put in finding out how to model dice: dividing the faces to get the pip locations, making the pips round instead of square, colouring them — not to mention the arrangement of the pips on the faces and their spacing. Hours of work — and then there's writing it all down so a Noob can follow.

After a time away from Blender I have come back and discovered that Die Easy has now been overtaken by Blender versions and could do with an update.

However, I don't want this to seem a competition between Die Another Way and Die Easy. Die Easy was written because it seemed to me that updating Die Another Way would end up in a mess and starting afresh would produce something that Noobs (like me) could follow.

Again it seems that there are so many things to remove and user suggestions to add to Die Easy that it should be rewritten from scratch.

But, before that, I would like to be sure that it is not seen as a competition and that a revised Die Easy would be welcome.

Please let me know what you think.

I would also like to hear what the author of Die Another Way thinks too.

--Wynnmc 10:54, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Having problem with the pips.
Thanks for this great tutorial. I am only having a problem with the pips.Here is the screenshot of what I have so far: link title As you can see that the perimeter around the pips are not sharp. This happens when I click "set smooth" button. If I don't click 'set smooth' then the dice looks edgy, but when I click, this time the pips are smoothed out and doesn't look sharp. Can anyone tell me what should I do here? Thanks in advance.

Yes, I got the same problem (the pip edges are not sharp when "set smooth" is used). What I did, instead of using "set smooth" I bumped up the subserf level to 6. It slowed down everything considerably, but allowed me to get sharp edges.

I wonder what we did wrong.

Yeah. I have that problem. I'm using blender 2.48 and when I click Set Smooth the edges don't look sharp.

Is there any way to stop this happening?

Edge Creasing the Pips; regarding the Newbie Note
I'm using version 2.49a, and I found that you can indeed select all of the pip edges when using SHIFT+EKEY then mouse to crease all of the pip edges at once. If anyone else wants to verify that this works, perhaps the newbie note should be amended that this isn't an issue any longer from version 2.49a onwards.

Camera Setup. How to?
I've tried to setup camera with help of Fly mode (BTW it's very comfortable :)). But my problem is that: When I switch to edit mode and try to rotate view, it move around the camera, not dice. How to change it?

Easier way to locate the pips
It is very easy to find the centre of the pips simply by selecting the faces and using WKEY->Subdivide multi, and entering 9. With 9 divisions on each face, you will have one node at each pip centre.