Blender Class

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Blender 3D Animation and Design Class

Overview

Blender Logo

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite. It is one of the great options available for new and independent artists to learn and make 3D art, 2D animation, edit videos, make vfx, build apps and even program games. With a thriving online community of contributors and plentiful tutorials available, the barrier to entry has never been low.

In this class, participants will experientially learn the basics of the Blender animation pipeline that will help them start their endlessly rewarding journey of animation and design.

When and Where

When: Weekly every Sunday from 1pm-3pm. Optionally, stay till 4pm and practice your new learned superpowers.
Where: Noisebridge (Noisebridge has moved to a new location, find out more about the new location here)

RSVP and more info: Meetup, Discuss

Don't panic

You do not need to own a fancy laptop/computer to start. Because of recent breakthroughs, any computer with a decent CPU and latest WIN/MAC/LINUX OS can render high quality images, so join in, and become a creator of your own universe.

What to bring

  • Laptop (desktop) with updated OS
  • Laptop charger
  • Mouse that has a mouse wheel and a mouse wheel button (Preferred. Will increase your workflow speed)
  • Hard drive (If laptop has limited memory. P.s. Blender is light at 200mb-500mb depending on your OS)
  • Notepad to take down notes (Can be taken on any device)
  • Reference photos of things you would want to make (Download PureRef to organize your reference photos)
  • Download and install the latest Blender version from https://www.blender.org/ (Optional but will save precious time for the class)

Curriculum

Blender curriculum includes but is not limited to:

  • Blender animation pipeline
  • Modeling
  • Shading
  • Key framing
  • Rendering and Compositing
  • Physics simulations
  • Sculpting
  • Scripting
  • Photogrammetry

Due to the complexity of animation software, classes will be conducted thematically, exploring one or all aspects of the curriculum at different levels of expertise for the project.

Cost

This is a free class. Donations are appreciated to help support Noisebridge and the instructor.

Noisebridge is solely supported by individual donations by its users. You can donate through PayPal on our site or in the donation bins at the front of the space. If you use Noisebridge regularly, set up a regular donation. A $10-$40 monthly subscription is a great way to ensure Noisebridge stays around. You can also become a member, which means you can take part in decisions about Noisebridge -- but you don't have to be one to use our space.

Covid Policy

Masks are mandatory indoors for this class. COVID Delta variant is spiking. To avoid another lockdown, it is preferred that visitors maintain social distance, sanitize surfaces before and after use, and are vaccinated. Please contact the instructor on Meetup in advance if special accommodations are needed.

Animation and Design community

Join #Animation-Design on the Noisebridge Slack channel. Join #Art on our Discord.

Online streaming support

Online streaming support is currently under works and is not available for the current class. Please check again later for another class.

About the instructor

Ray (he/him/they) is a digital art enthusiast who has been working with a suite of creative softwares for more than a decade. He is new to the Blender community, with only 2 years of experience, but has a knack for teaching and helping other people learn the new media, especially during a time when it is so accessible. Support/Donate

Helpful resources and links

Future projects and support needed

  • Rendering high quality animations can take a lot of resources that the average person may not have. Setting up a render farm at NB can be an incredibly useful resource to have. Get in contact to discuss on how a render farm can be established at NB.
  • Community art events for Blender and other 3D softwares once a month. Need volunteers and organizers.
  • Streaming classes from NB on 3D animation and Design.
  • Wish list for Animation stations at NB.

NB RenderFarm

What is a Render Farm and why do we need it?

"A render farm is a high-performance computer system, e.g. a computer cluster, built to render computer-generated imagery (CGI)"

A render farm can allow an animator to render, what would be an unimaginably time-consuming animation in a fraction of a time, which is proportional to the number of computers on the farm. For example, a 9000 frame 4K Cycles Render @ 30fps Animation (5 minute animation), and considering each frame would take 12 minutes to render would take 75 days of non-stop rendering from a single computer. With 20 computers in parallel, this would take 18 hours each. This is a considerable upgrade and is what makes render farms really attractive.

Why at NB? Aren't there any render farms services out there?

Short answer is yes. SheepIt is a free render farm where you approx get 4 times the time you render for someone else. However, it is more effective to rack points as a team than individual contributions. As a team, your team's projects are set as priority when you want to render. There are also many paid solutions out there.

Building a render farm at NB will create the following benefits:

  • Bring the animation community together
  • Bring in engagement and even revenue from donations
  • Allow beginners to make interesting projects that would otherwise be very difficult
  • Make animation accessible to those who can't afford good rigs
  • Make use of abandoned tech

Can we build it? Yes we can.

  • Support is built-in: Blender is a free open-source software with a built-in add on to setup and dispatch render jobs called the "Network Render".
  • Is not OS dependent: Any combination of MAC, Linux and Windows OS computers can be linked together using a local network to setup a render farm.
  • Very simple to setup: The only requirement is that the same version of Blender is installed on each machine and has the add-on enabled.
  • Basic networking: The Client will send the file to the Master machine that will send the rendering machines the part that needs to be rendered. The master and the client can be the same machine.

Next steps

  • Take note of all the machines at NB that are unused
  • Check if they work
  • Get necessary supplies
  • Connect them together
  • Install software
  • Make instruction list
  • Setup donation box
  • Start rendering

Class Archives

  • 1st Aug, 2021: Object mode. Add object (Shift+A). Scale (S), Move (G), Rotate (R). Axis based transformation (Tool shortcut key -> x (for x-axis) / y (for x-axis), z (for z-axis). Lock one axis (Tool shortcut key -> Shift + Axis )). Delete (X). Edit Mode (Tab). Vertices, Edges and Faces and individual transformations of such. Extrude (E). Inset (I). Adding lights. Adding Camera. Seeing through Camera lens (Camera icon on the right underneath viewport mode). Camera to view (Shortcut key (N) -> View -> Camera to View checkbox). Materials properties. Add new material. Base shader, metallicity, roughness, emission and emission strength. Assigning geometry a different material in Edit mode. Rendering image from Render drop down menu on the top. Viewport shading, wireframe view, x-ray view, rendered view. Meshes have geometry. Circles are N-gons. Triangles are circles with 3 vertices.

Logistics

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