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!