3ds Max user learning Blender
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Hey guys, I managed to land myself a little internship testing exporters for the Wild Pockets engine. I need to create assets in Blender to export to Wild Pockets and report any bugs or problems I find along the way. The thing is, I haven't used Blender since high school, like 3 years ago. I've been looking through some tutorials I used back then but I've learned its not like riding a bike. Anyway, I'm fairly proficient with the workflow and tools in Max, so I was wondering if anyone had any advice or tutorials for someone going from Max to Blender. Sorry if there is already a thread on this.
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a few shortcuts off the top of my head that will be necessary are:
Tab = enter edit mode. you can select an object, hit tab, and you can now adjust the components.
CTRL+R = insert edge loop, you do this while hovering where you want the loop, real time. you can continue moving your mouse and it'll put the loop across whatever ring you're hovering, you then click, and are able to slide it towards one adjacent loop or the other, or input a value (usually right = positive and left = negative, same for up down respectively...though it's not always the case).
CTRL+E>Edge Slide = Slide edge loop towards or way from adjacent loops.
X = Remove [...] submenu. If you have 4 verts selected that have surrounding faces, "remove faces" will leave the vertices there, and remove the face." remove edge would delete just the highlighted edges, and leave the floating edges going towards the face. remove vertices would remove the verts and all edges touching them. remove edge loop will remove the loop non-destructively; creating new faces between adjacent loops.
F = create face/edge. you can select 3-4 verts, hit F, and it will make face. if you select two parallel edges it will make a face. if you select two verts it will make a line, and you can keep that line selected and select 1/2 more verts or an edge to continue making the face (you don't have to worry about it duplicating the first edge you made when it makes a new face, as it doesn't function that way).
Ctrl+LClick = add vertex/edge. if you have nothing selected, it will add a vertex in floating space. if you have a vertex it will add a vertex in floating space, with a line connecting it to the original vertex. if you have a line selected, it will add a line in floating space, and i believe it will make a face between them. this feels a little awkward sometimes because you're just clicking in space, but it's actually fairly useful and requires little adjustment afterward.
E = extrude. easy enough. submenu's that come up are pretty intuitive.
S = scale.
W = potentially the most useful submenu. tons of features to check out there. subdivide is an obvious one. Merge is like weld. "At last, center...etc" refers to the order which you selected the vertices. if you select vertex A, then B, choosing "At Last" will weld them together at vertex B's coordinates. Smooth is like relax. "Set Smooth" and "Set Solid" refer to the shading.
Tell me if you have trouble finding the modifier section, as it contains the Subsurf modifier (similar to turbosmooth or Sub-division modeling in Maya). it also contains Mirror, which is the most effective symmetry modifier i've found in any of the 3 programs (haven't tried XSI). You choose the mirror modifier, and it mirror across the objects center, tell me if you have problems setting the center if it's not mirroring correctly. in the modifier options, you choose your axis, and "Do Clipping" will automatically merge vertices along the center.
That should be enough for now, if anything else comes to mind i'll let you know, and feel free to ask any question
Edit: I'm also having trouble scaling along more than one axis at a time. Help me not suck :thumbup:
scaling along more than one axis is easy, all you do is SHIFT+ [the axis you don't want to scale along]. so if you want to scale x and z, you push S, then shift Y.
Including the inset one: