Lesson 4: extrude, the king of the tools! Our 3d chair is realistic now!

Do you know Blender can work for you with the Mirror tool?
Yes sir, just design a part of an object and Blender will do the rest!
It works for specular mesh only, but this is the case, our chair can be modeled for half only, so this is the trick, use CTRL + R, move the mouse on the half of the chair till you see a violet line, confirm with a double click, do it for the back chair and the seat:

now from the front view select the left vertices, and delete them  with X:

Select all the left vertex of the remaining mesh, use Shift + S and Cursor to selected :

Press T and set origin to 3d Cursor:

From the properties panel on the right get the Mirror:

Wow, now the chair is still here but you just need to work on half of it!

Details are very important in a realistic 3d, so give it up to get a better seat, use edge loop to divide it in the Z axis:

Change mesh select mode to face with CTRL + TAB,  select the right face and extrude a little bit out with E:

Do the same with the front faces, in this case there are 2 to extrude, just select both using Shift:

Now change Mesh select mode to Edge,and select the edge of the top seat:

To obtain a smooth border there is another helpful tool: the Bevel!
CTRL + B and rotate the wheel mouse to increment of the effect:

There's a little problem due the scale we used to change misure of the initial cube, no problem we can rest it with in object mode with CTRL+ A

Now we can apply the Bevel tool:

Press T to show the transform panel on the left, click Smooth on the Shading:

Very good, but all the chair looks smooth... and we want the border only!
Very easy, another tool we will work on it, from Properties panel add the modifier Edge Split, done!

Another F12 for rendering and this is the result, always better!

Lesson 3: change shape to the chair with the edit mode

Today we will discover an incredibly powerful tool, the edit mode, to enter it just select from the low bar or with the Tab key, the object change and are visible vertex, edges and faces:

Press A to deselect vertex, and select just the top chair, use B (square selection) or C (circle selection), the four vertex should be orange like below, and scale them down on the Y axis, so use S and Y:

Deselect again, and select the lower vertex of the legs, all the 16, change view to Top with 7, change mesh select mode in Face with CTRL+Tab and from the bar the pivot point in Individual origins, scale just a little bit:

From right view with 3, select the vertex of the front legs, snap them to the seat, after do the same with the other two legs:

Select the top chair vertex again and snap to the seat:

From front view with 1, select the left lower vertex and snap to the seat, do the same with the right legs:

Done! You can change color to material for a better look:

And with a quick render this is the result, just a few clicks and the chair looks more realistics and professionally made!

Have a look to the next lesson, you'll learn other fantastic tools.

Lesson 2: about the object mode, scale, move, rotate and snap the chair

So now we have a nice chair to work on, it's time to talk about basic tools, 

you need before to know that there are two ways to model in Blender: 

 

- object mode is good to scale, rotate, move and snap the entire mesh

- edit mode  for deep transform like add vertex, edges, faces etc.

To change mode just press the Tab key.

Today we'll know the object mode, so select the chair, scale it up 5 times, press: S - 5; note the value on the lower bar, when you scale you can do it pressing S and movin the mouse, but if you want a precise amount use the numbers, can be positive or negative pressing + or -, try it:

I want to play, duplicate the chair and scale it down, the amount you want,

and move it over the big chair, remember to use the different point of view to help movements, 7 is the Top ortho, to see from high to the ground, 1 for a front view and 3 for a right view, for opposite view press at the same time with Shift !

To lay down the little one we need of another fantastic tool: the Snap, change value to Face, and from the top ortho with the little chair selected, press CTRL to snap on the seat:

Great! It's perfectly located, but we can continue to play, so rotate it of 45°, just press R,  4 and 5, I want you do what you look below, 4 chairs all rotated of 45°

Well done, a floor is missing! 

Just add a plane, and scale it up:

You can use the snap to move it precisely, even changing in Edge or vertex the snap element:

All right, we have known fundamental tools just playing a few, 

but that defaul grey color looks very terrible!

Ok I'll add a simple material, it's very easy; go to the Transform panel and click the red ball, and Add a material!

Change the color, from the rgb wheel, or the color slides:

A few better!

Add a material for the floor, select it and add a new material:

We can move the Camera, and render:

Ok it was a joke ;-) but useful to understand very used tools, 

next lesson will become to study the edit mode, a new incredible world!

Lesson 1: a simple chair builded from a cube

Now that you have installed Blender we can design our first object: a fantastic chair!
Open Blender, you'll see the monitor subdivided in several panels, main is the 3d View where to add, edit and transform the items; by default there is a cube, a Camera and a lamp, all we need for our first render, press F12 to see it!

Wow, it's very exciting at first, but not so cool to be honest, so we will edit it to obtain the seat, so press N on your keyboard to open a bar on the right, look at the Dimensions section, change them to:
X: 0.45
Y: 0.45
Z: 0.05

 

Now is the time for the legs, we need of another cube so click on:

 Add-Mesh-cube

Still from the right panel - Dimension section, change in:

X: 0.05 

Y: 0.05 

Z: 0.40

Well, the first leg is prompt, we just need to grab it in the right place, a seat corner, the Snap function is what we want, look at the low bar, change selection to Vertex as in the photo below: 

Ok we can grab it, press G for movements, and keep pressed CTRL for the magnetic snap, move the mouse near the corner to get the correct position, more precision is possible with the zoom, just rotate the wheel mouse, ok, the first is set, now we have another 3 to locate! Press the T key to open another tools panel on the left, object section, select the leg with the mouse right and press Duplicate Objects, put the second leg in another corner:

Duplicate other two times, and finish the lower part:

Very well, we just need of the seatback, add another cube and change dimensions: 

X: 0.05

Y: 0.45

Z: 0.45

Snap it over the seat to obtain our first project in Blender!

A chair made with 6 parts, should be better to join them in a unique form!

select all of them with Shift and right mouse click, or with B for a square selection tool, press CTRL and J to do it, otherwise click Join in the Edit section of the left panel, and the work is done!

Save our first project, be proud of it!

 

 Our fantastic, first Blender 3d object:

Blender, a fantastic open source 3d software for design, printing and games!

Do you know exists a professional 3d software for free?
If not it's Blender, a great tool to design 3d objects, scenes, organics etc, and is open source!
You can download your correct hardware version from the site:
www.blender.org

Looking at the features you'll see how you can do with it, but as you can expect it's a very complex software full of buttons and functions...
Don't worry, here we are, this blog will teach you how to use it as simple as possible, with easy step by step you'll be able to design very detailed objects, for hobby, work or 3d printing!

And now we need to install Blender, next post we begin to design a modern chair, let's go!