Blender help

Luxy

I need to do the following in blender, but I have no idea how to:

Check the amount of tris/polygons and such
Smooth out the model in general, preferably not manually since it will take forever and not be that good
Texturing

I am a total newbie at this, sorry.

Thanks in advance!

helloPeas

Hiya, not sure what type of smoothing your after but all your shape editing options are in the editing panel (press F9). Here you could add a subsurf modifier or press the set smooth button. Depends what you're after. Play around with the modifiers and see what works (you can easily hide modifiers in the viewport to make texturing / unwrapping easier).

If it's the normals that are messing up or looking odd; if you press CTRL & n (while the whole object is selected in edit mode) it will recalculate the normals.

Okay, the upper header on the right hand side there is a face count- fa:. This counts quads as faces. In edit mode it's about the selected shape otherwise it's the whole scene count. It mentions verts, edges and scene memory up there too.

Not sure where to find the tri amount though! I'm pretty new at Blender too. If you find out post it up here please!

gibson543

On the top right of the header, there should be two letters that say FA. This is your quad count. To smooth out the model without adding any geometry scroll down into the toolbar until to come across smooth shading. If you want to smooth by adding geometry add a subdivision surface modifier. And for texturing, look up some UV Mapping tutorials and you should use the Gimp or Photoshop or images for texturing/painting. Blenders painting tools are pretty sub-par

Michael Knubben

Gibson: Given that this is a community aimed at realtime, I imagine he would want to see his tricount. Which, as I hear it, isn't currently possible, or even something anyone's looking into.
Hellopeas: Thanks for the helpful post!
I know you're used to just posting shortcuts, but for new users it might be useful to name the action, rather than just saying 'ctrl-n'. First off, some shortcuts have changed between 2.49 and 2.5, and secondly it's just nice for a beginner to be able to find that tool/action in a menu as well. With people having the option to change their shortcuts now, there's also that third problem, certainly if people choose one of the presets to emulate max/maya/etc.

helloPeas

Oh I see... To recalculate normals you'd have to go to the 'mesh' option on the viewport header. Go for mesh > normals > recalculate outside. That might help sort the surface out if that's the problem at all.

As for the tris. There's one way I know that works for now and that's by converting your quads to tris, which you can then undo. To do this make sure that the object is selected in edit mode and go to mesh > faces > convert quads to tris. Then the 'fa' amount in the top right will definitely be the tris. I thought that the 'fa' amount was quads but now I'm not so sure; I think it's just all faces.

Anyway, there's probably an easier way to do this but I find that this doesn't take too long to do and you can easily undo it so that the model is still quads (just make sure you save first just in case).

Zwebbie

Luxy wrote:

Smooth out the model in general, preferably not manually since it will take forever and not be that good

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you're just looking to flatten the whole thing a bit, there's a Smooth option under Mesh->Vertices->Smooth for 2.49 and under Mesh->Vertices->Smooth Vertex in 2.5

Luxy wrote:

Texturing

This is very vague. What part exactly do you want to know?

MightyPea wrote: »

Gibson: Given that this is a community aimed at realtime, I imagine he would want to see his tricount. Which, as I hear it, isn't currently possible, or even something anyone's looking into.

Correct. But selecting everything (A), and using Ctrl+T or Mesh->Faces->Convert Quads to Triangles (or 'Quads to Tris', in 2.5) obviously gives you the correct triangle number; then it's just a matter of undoing it.

I know you're used to just posting shortcuts, but for new users it might be useful to name the action.

It's Mesh->Normals->Recalculate Outside in 2.49 and 2.5, but in 2.5's search bar it's Make Normals Consistent. That said, if you're serious about Blender, Ctrl+N is one of the more useful hotkeys, since it tends to make a bit of a mess of the normals whenever it gets an opportunity.

Luxy

Thanks for the help Zwebbie, but when I say smooth, I just mean make the whole thing a higher poly. The smooth tool you showed me destroyed many curves in my cane and didn't improve its look that much.

Lamoot

If you mean smooth shading like on this example http://www.videotutorialsrock.com/opengl_tutorial/lighting/spheres.png then select all mesh elements, press W -> Set Smooth

If you mean the smooth by adding more geometry, like on this example http://www.borderbladetutorials.com/Subsurf.jpg then subsurf modifier is what you're looking for. In 3d view have the mesh selected and press ctrl+1 or ctrl+2 etc. to quickly assign a subdivision modifier to the mesh (1, 2 etc. mean the level of subdivision used). But these are just shortcuts, to have full control over the modifier, see the buttons window, under Editing, Modifiers panel, where you can manually assign subsurf and other modifiers.

Luxy

Thanks for the info, Lamoot!

gibson543

For tricount, I believe that when you add a decimate modifier and without changing any settings, the face count shown in the modifier is your tricount. This is in 2.49 I'm not sure about 2.5

HAL

for triscount theres kind of a workaround, convert the mesh to all triangles and read the facecount on blender's top bar.

e:// should read more carefully -.- what Zwebbie said.

Michael Knubben

Zwebbie: Oh yeah, learning a shortcut you use often is always worth it. It's just that it might change at some point, and more importantly: when trying out new software it's nice to know the name of the tool, and to be able to suss out the internal logic of a program.
If you're then looking for something related to that, you at least know which menu it's in.

Michael Knubben

Oh hey, speaking of the tricount:
http://www.artforcode.org/node/106

I don't know if this is possible, but if you guys add a bounty of your own to this, it will become more attractive to developers!

okno

I second the decimate modifier technique for getting a tri count.

That art for code thing is interesting, is there any way for additional artists to offer a hand to increase the incentive?

Dim

Yes, under "Incentives for this Bounty" click "Add an Incentive". As is I'm the only one offering an incentive for this, but I think there are enough people here that want this feature that we could make it very attractive for a coder.

Tea Monster

For smooth groups, you can apply smooth to all faces, then use the 'face split' modifier to define your smooth groups. You can either do that with the slider to judge it from angle of joint, or you can manually go in and define them by marking the edges of your smooth groups as 'sharp' and split them that way. When exporting your obj, make sure you choose 'apply modifiers' when exporting.