www.blenderart.org

SSpprriinngg iiss SSpprruunnggBBlleennddeerr lleeaarrnniinngg mmaaddee eeaassyy......

Tree Sunset - by Bryan Tenorio.

EDITOR - Gaurav NawaniMANAGER/EDITOR - Sandra GilbertWEBSITE - Nam PhamDESIGN - Gaurav NawaniPROOFERSBrian C. TreacyBruce WestfallDaniel HandDaniel MateHenriël VeldtmannJoshua LeungJoshua ScottonKevin BraunMark WarrenNoah SummersPatrick ODonnellPhillipRonan PosnicScott HillWade BickValérie HambertWRITERSOscar BaecherAlfonso MontónClaas  Eicke  KuhnenStephen BatesArnaud CouturierSandra GilbertCOVER ARTTree Sunset -by Bryan Tenorio

www.blenderart.org Issue 32 - Spring is Sprung

Making 2D environments for the iPhone game SpiresA videogame in few logic bricksModeling an iPhone 4 with ModifiersCreating Plants Using ArraysCanTree - Online Tree GeneratorBlender 2.5 Materials and Textures CookbookWish to write for Blenderart Magazine?

Here is your chance to discuss/write about anything blender related that interests you. Do you have afavorite feature or technique that you are just dying to share with others? Or how about your super coollatest project.Well now is the time to write all about it and share it with all of us. Here are some ideas to inspire you.

* favorite feature / tool: tell us all about it, how it works, how you use it.* favorite technique or workflow* personal / commercial projects you are working on* favorite Blender book or site

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Let me just start off with, I don't enjoybeing cold. Which of course means I am

not real thrilled with winter. Winter is awhole bunch of cold, snow, wet and nastylooking skies. And lucky me, this winter weseem to be receiving record amounts ofsnow and nastiness.Now I know that even with our recordamounts, we still are getting off easycompared to the eastern United States.They are getting buried under massivewinter storms that are shutting down justabout everything. And the United Statesisn't the only one getting snowed in, Europeand other parts of the northern hemisphereare getting more than their fair share ofsnow and nasty weather this year.I am seriously looking forward to Spring andan end to all the winter unpleasantness asquickly as possible. Which I am pretty sure

isn't scheduled to arrive for some time yet.In fact, last night I went outside and it wascold but fairly clear. I then wandered outabout an hour later and there was an inchand a half of snow on the ground. Are youserious, MORE snow?Sigh...Which brings me to the topic of this issue ofBlenderart Magazine, Spring is Sprung. I betyou are all thinking that Spring isn't evenclose and you are right. But I would reallylike to get a jump start on Spring and beingwarm again.Did I mention I don't like being cold? :PSo in this issue we are going to exploresome nice “Springy” topics like plants andtrees. Nice warm growing things that makeus think warm thoughts and forget all aboutbeing cold and snowed in. So it is time foryou to settle down in your favorite readingchair and soak up some warm Blenderknowledge

"I bet you are all thinking that Springisn't even close and you are right. ButI would really like to get a jump starton Spring and being warm again"

Sandra GilbertManager/Editor

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Like anything modeled, plantscan be simple and easy or

highly detailed and considerablymore complicated. Either way,unless you are a plant modelinggenius, having a few tips cangreatly ease the process. I wentwandering around my favoritesites and spotted some rathernice plant inspired tutorials foryou to enjoy.BlenderCookie offers tutorials ona wide array of topics so it is no

surprise that they have more than a coupleof plant ones as well.TreesSetting up a manual version of the “Tree-from-Curves Plugin”Part 1Setting up a manual version of the “Tree-from-Curves Plugin”Part 2Modeling a Palm TreeLeaves : Creating a Scene of BlowingLeavesLandscapes and Environments to put yourplants and trees inSculpting a Rock Face in Blender bySketchingCreating a Simple Claymation Style Scene

And Fluffy Clouds to finish it offCreating Volumetric Cloudscgtuts+ has a 4 part video tutorial serieson creating a rocky video game terrain inBlender. It covers how to create a finishedenvironment for Blender’s Game Engine.The main focus of the series will betexturing and lighting, with the use ofsome custom 2d filters to enhance theresult.Create a Rocky Video Game Terrain inBlenderAndrew Price of BlenderGuru has beenposting some fun nature images on twitpiclately. I have noticed that anything heworks on and shares generally ends up ina tutorial or tutorial series, which mightindicate a nice collection of nature tutorialsare in our future. If not, I think we shouldall poke him until he actually does maketutorials of his images. They are very niceindeed and the techniques would be a niceaddition to the general education ofblenderheads everywhere. (oh, make sureyou poke gently please, absolutely nohurting of Blender teachers allowed. :P )Xfrog is providing 130 free sampledownloads of 3d trees and plants from itsXfrogPlants collection!You can import them into Blender usingthe OBJ format.

From their website:Download free 3d plant and tree modelsfrom each of the 30 XfrogPlants libraries!Threetonine3dplantmodelsareincludedineachofthe30speciesbelow,andbestofall,theyarecompletelyFREE!Downloadtheplants,browsetheirdocumentationPDFs,trytheminyourfavoritesoftwareandseefirsthandourhighqualitymodelingwork. Ifyoulikethem,buyanddownloadanyofthe3dlibraries,instantlyfromourshop.OurBotanicalexpertsgooutinthefieldandphotographeachplant, fortheirreferencesandtocapturefirsthandtheleafandbarktextures.TheythencomparetheplantinNature,toestablishedprintedresearchwork,andbuild3to9agesoftheplant.Thissetofagesisrequiredforecosystemwork–togiveenoughvariationforinstancingthemodelsacrossaterrain.AndifyouownXfrog3.5,youcaneasilyeditanyofthemodelsforadditionalvariations!Well that should be enough to get you onyour way. After that, wander outside andobserve the plants and vegetation allaround you (okay you might have to waitfor the snow to melt) and practicemodeling what you see

www.blenderart.org Issue 32 - Spring is Sprung

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Spires is a story-driven fantasyTower Defense game for theiPad and iPhone, soon to bereleased by Prophetic Sky Inc.It takes place in the world ofAether, a land of sprawlingand colorful landscapes. It hasbeen tamed only by Makers,

powerful sorcerers who can shape theirworld with sheer willpower andimagination. The challenge we faced atProphetic Sky: to make 2D sprites thatexpressed this creative vision, and use3D assets in Blender to make a fun,colorful environment.

The first part of this task was ourground textures. Spires maximized

performance by breaking each level’sground into tiles, which could berecombined to make a variety of maps.On our previous game, TownrsDefender, we used Photoshop tocombine two textures with variousAlpha channels  and export them via anAction. But this came with severallimitations: we couldn't output biggerversions, and all ground textures had touse the same alpha channel, resulting inrepetitive patterns. Plus, the processwas highly tedious! For Spires, werealized that Blender's texture nodeswould provide us with a much moreflexible, scalable alternative.So. What can you expect the process tobe like?1. Make an alpha channel1. Make “beauty” alpha channels2. multiply a thin black universal border3. Add the official white borders back on2. Use as a stencil between two groundtextures on a material3. Repeat 16 times4. Bake on to a 16-face plane's texture5. Render a composite to multipleoutputs

To make the alpha channels, let's firstquantify what we need. You will end uphaving 16 total textures for this firstrun, although in production you mightmake extra varieties. This covers everyway you could combine Top, Left, Right,and Bottom.For now, let's make a texture for analpha channel that tiles on the Left andBottom. Create a new image 256x512,name it alpha_l_b. A good namingconvention will prevent lots of pain; Ialways name mine based on the WHITEareas of the texture, and always in theorder of Left, Top, Right Bottom. Thus,alpha_l_b.png is white on the left andbottom. alpha_l_t_r_b.png would bepure white, and alpha_.png would bepure black. 

by - Oscar Baecher

Fig1. Spires game play screenshot.

Fig2. Do's Dont's.

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Paint alpha_l_b.png white onthe left and bottom sides,and create an organic lookingtransition between thecorners. Here we come intosome design issues: how doyou represent receding 3Dperspective, when you'reworking with squares? In a2D sprite engine, you can'tjust let 3D perspective takecare of things for you. This iswhy I start with a longtexture. Later it will get scaleddown, thus looking morehorizontal. The nature ofthings receding toward ahorizon means that they'relonger on the X axis than theyare on a Y axis, so lots of horizontal elementswill help. You can also see from my example

how I use extra horizontal lines to furtherimply this. Once you're satisfied with your texture, andit's pretty accurate on its corners, go to Image\ Pack as PNG. Do this whenever you makechanges, or else it won't get saved when yousave your .Blend file. Now do this 16 times,once for each direction!Create a new material with a new texturecalled stencil_1_8 (you're only allowed alimited number of outputs, so I split mystencils into two groups of 8), then open thetexture compositor and turn on “Use Nodes.”Add in the first eight textures you made;again, if your naming convention is solid, noproblem knowing which ones you need. Goodnews! The long images conform to the size ofthe texture, so they're now square in size.

All your stencils are tilingthe right way...exceptthat they're not tiling.Minor imperfections inthe texture edges willmake it so you haveartifacts, so next is acomplex process ofcleaning up our alphaedges. We'll fix this with twosteps: first, a thin blackborder to start fromzero, and second, awhite border on the

edges where it needs to continue. The blackborder can be created just using gradientsand color ramps to make a “square” gradient,then using another color ramp to remove themiddle and, lastly, invert. I group this to makeit less messy, and multiply it over the firstalpha we drew.To create the 16 edges, I make a diagonalblend texture and add it as an input. Why notuse a blend in the compositor? By doing it asa separate texture, we can add a ramp withBlack/White Position coordinates at exactly.499 and .501. This will end up giving us aperfect corner, with white on one side, blackon another side, and 50% gray on the singlediagonal corner pixel.Next, use a series of Add, Rotate, and Lightennodes to make versions of each texture. Foreach of these, we'll use a gradient similar to

4. Stencil composite. Fig5. Materials, plane, unwrap and baking.

Fig3. Painted alpha

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the black border texture to cut out the middle.Make this gradient slightly thicker; we want toadd over what the border just subtracted, andhave it bleed into the white.Screen this over your alpha texture. Almostdone! First, run this through a simple colorramp, and then run this into an output node.The color ramp is necessary because if a Mixnode is put into an output, it will retain thetransfer method later. Name the output,and...do it 16 more times.Now that the hard part is finished, we'll makea Stencil. On your material, load in tworepeating ground textures, such as grass anddirt, and put the stencil layer between them.Select a Stencil output, and turn on Stencil,Negative and RGB intensity. Map everything toUV, and set the two ground textures toinfluence Color, the stencil influencingnothing.

Eventually you should have 16 materials, eachusing a different stencil output to stencil thetwo textures over each other. Next, create aplane and subdivide twice, so you have 16faces. Assign a different material to each one.In the image editor, make a new 1024x1024(4x the size of each tile) and save it. Unwrapthe plane using “project from view (bounds)”and name this UV set “Bake”. Make anotherUV texture called “Material_assignment” andfor all your textures make sure this is selectedfor the Mapping/ Layer assignment. For this

one, the UV mapping istricky. You want it tohave all of the upperright hand verts in theupper right hand corner.So using another Projectfrom View (Bounds)unwrap, start snappingeach face's top right vertto the top right corner,etc.Now, with Bake UVsselected and your saved1024 texture open, go tothe Render panel andbake the textures. Dothey correspond to their labeling anddirection? Congrats! If they don't, it is likely aproblem of UVs or material assignment.

Phew. Almost done. Save this image, andopen up the rendering section of theCompositor. Here we'll make use of the FileOutput node, which will let us create a varietyof renders, each to their own specifications.Start by creating an Image input and selectyour baked texture. Connect it to a Scale nodewith Absolute X: 256, Y: 256 and set this nodeaside. Create a Translate node set to X: 384, Y:-384. This will put the upper left corner in thedirect center of the image (use a View node tocheck.) Repeat for each coordinate of thetexture until you have a representation of

each face as the middle.Next, take your first Translate node andconnect it to an Alpha Over node, with yourold Scale node as the top input. This makes itdirectly centered, but at the scale node's size.Finally, connect this node to a File Outputnode, and choose where to save it. Make surecompositing is turned on (and you've got athrowaway connected to a Composite node inthe compositor) and when you render, itshould spit out all your textures at once,named properly and ready to go!

We now have our tiles to make a 2Dlandscape that blends between dirt and grass.Now let's give it a nice two-level effect by

Fig6. Render output.

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making some cliff widgets. If you look atreference photos from enough cliffs, you'llstart to notice that they usually have adominant vertical or horizontal direction;horizontal if the sedimentary layers are highlyexposed, but vertical shearing with certaintypes of geology and environmental strain.Because this will eventually be rendered to a2D sprite, you have the luxury of laissez-fairepoly count. I did most of the modeling byselecting multiple spaced edge loops andpulling them in, creating "sheafs" runningalongside each other. Then I followed throughwith some extruded imperfections, rockysediment on the cliff edge and valley, and asubtle displacement modifier with a cloudtexture.

For the cliff material, add a cloud texture, setit to hard, and map it to Normal. Play with thescaling and normal strength but be careful.When working with sprites, it's very easy toget over-complicated. When you only have100 pixels to show detail, too much willquickly become a washy, sandy blob. Add aMusgrave texture and map it to color, and usea color ramp to create a subtly varied graylook to it. Lastly, add another cloud texture,set it to voronoi crackle, influence of colorwith Overlay as its layer mode transfer, andadd a ramp to make brown cracks over gray.This will bring more warmth into the cliffs,and also make it fit with the dirt. An importantthought for environments is tying thingstogether--what rocky material are these cliffsmade of, and how does that relate to the

surface sediment of the dirt?To further add some warmthback into the cliffs, on theMaterial settings I added aramp to the diffuse andplayed around a bit. Use AltMMB to scroll throughpulldowns, particularly foryour Blend mode. It takes 10seconds to scroll through andvisualize every possible blendmode, so why not do it? Iended up using a blue rampset to Subtract and mappedto Energy, which is notsomething I would haveexpected until I saw it in

thumbnail form versus other settings.

You need these cliffs to be placed on top ofyour ground. To accomplish this, we'll useplanes with textures of the ground, but fadingout toward transparency. In your imageeditor of choice make a texture based on yourground tiles, but fades to alpha. Create a newmaterial with this texture set to Color andAlpha, and then in the Materials setting turnTransparency on while dragging Alpha to zero.Lastly, make the material shadeless. Model aground plane that cleaves to your cliff edgebefore spreading out, and repeat for thebottom cliff edge. UV unwrap them, andposition them over the blended groundtexture so that they'll fade away as you leavethe cliff edge.This should now create a cliff render that can

Fig8. Pixel seams.Fig7. Cliff modeling, materials and texture.

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be placed on your ground tiles without avisible break from the cliff grass. It will alsocreate a swath of grass that breaks up thepattern of the ground below it--very handy forthe thin "side" cliffs.

To get cliffs for 8 directions, animate it rotatingin 360 degrees over eight frames. Because 0and 360 get interpreted the same, I insteadkey 0 degrees at frame 1 and 180 degrees atframe 2. Then go into the graph editor, selectyour Z rotation curve and set the interpolationto Linear. This will make the rotation continueindefinitely, and create your 360 degree turnover 8 frames.Render it out from an orthographic camera ata 45 degree. You've now got a cliff edge from8 different directions. But how can you getthese widgets to chain together? We still needto have the line of pixels on each cliff's leftand right edges to match up perfectly with anygiven neighbor. I found it easiest to just hand-edit this manually, so open up your imageeditor of choice. With your primary cliff wallselect the left side, along the pixels that needto be aligned, plus some buffer pixels. Copyand paste this into a new layer, flip it andmove it to the right side. Once it's lined up,gently erase the buffer pixels so that it blendssmoothly together and save it.Paste this same line of pixels (still in yourclipboard) into the next cliff edge and repeatfor all 8 cliffs. Now, they should be able to line

up seamlessly!Next up, try doing alternate cliffs, shorter cliffs(good for patching holes) and also rampedcliffs for characters to walk up.

We've got some nice groundwith a cliff edge breaking upthe landscape. But we stillneed some foliage to breakup the monotony of thissprawling meadow. Let'smake a tree widget!I started by modeling a treetrunk with a handful ofprimary branches, and gave ita wood material. For thefoliage, I first made arounded plane with a single

foliage alpha card mapped to it. Have the"trunk" end of the foliage start at the object'sorigin, as if growing outward from 0,0,0. Next,add an emitter (set to hair), set the Rendertype to Object and select your foliage alphacard. It will appear on the trunk as well, butdon't worry about that yet. Just work on thehair settings until you have a puffy foliagelook on your treetop.Next up, switch over to Particle mode andbegin erasing the hair particles on the treetrunk. Soon enough, you've got a tree with abushy top and a rooted trunk! But you're notdone yet. There's still more that needs to bedone to have this tree make sense on ourlandscape.

If you placed this tree onto the background, itwouldn't look right. No shadow, and no style.So next up we're going into the render

Fig9. Tree particles, alpha

Fig. 10 Tree composite nodes.

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compositor to add in several elements. Thiswill also deal with some scene setup. Light thescene as you see fit, but have some of thelights be ray-traced. I usually go with aprimary Sun light from above to cast adownward shadow, with two additional lightsat angled directions to cast angled shadows.Next, create a ground plane that's big enoughto reach the camera borders. Add a newmaterial to it. Keep Transparency turned OFF,but drag the Alpha down to zero. Under theRender Layers tab, turn on shadow pass.Render a frame and let's switch over to therendering compositor!

My compositing philosophy, for better orworse, evolved from a mentality of replicatinghow I'd do things in Photoshop with nodesinstead of layers. Thus, our main process willbe creating several "layers" ala Photoshop orgimp, then having them stack on top of eachother, occasionally with layer mode transfers.Imagine the layer stack as this, going from thebottom up: Shadow, cartoon outline, tree,occlusion, normal node lighting, and a finalcolor correction. No prob!If you look at the shadow pass in a viewernode, it's a white background with black forthe tree's internal shadowing, and moreimportantly the shadow it's casting on theground. Our goal is to get the black shadowwith alpha, as if it were a layer in Photoshop,so that we can put it underneath the tree.

Feed your Shadow layer into a Color Rampnode, and hook it up to a Viewer node so youcan visualize changes. On the white end of theramp's spectrum, change the color to blackand the alpha to zero. Now your viewershould show a black alpha cut-out of the treeshadow. You can adjust the alpha on the otherside of the Ramp as well. I recommend this,because we want our finished shadow to bepretty subtle.

Next up you can modify the shadow further. Ifed the ramp to two separate blur nodes. Thefirst I just made slightly less noisy (1 pixel X,Y)and the second I made blurrier, especially onthe X axis (X10, Y2) to make it feel scatteredfrom the tree leaves. Feed both of these intoan Alpha Over node (no premultiplyconversion, no convert, premultiply and factorboth at 1).

Using another AlphaOver node, compositeyour tree render over the shadow. Is theshadow too strong now? go back and furtheradjust the color ramp. Now you've got a treesprite that you can place on the grass, and itwill look like it's providing soothing shade foryour game's heroes to sit under.You can continue compositing to your heart'scontent. I also added a thin cartoon outline of

black, ambient occlusion,and some relighting viaNormal nodes to give Spiresa "Saturday Morning ActionCartoon" feel.

So what do you get whenyou combine all theseelements? An organic 2Dsprite environment whereany sense of a mechanicalgrid is well hidden. Take alook!

Spires is available now for the iPad, iPhoneand iPod Touch for the price of $1. Acts 2 and3 will soon be released as well. If you haveany feedback on the game, we'd love to hearfrom you at oscar@propheticsky.comSpires is now available for all iOS devices. Youcan download it at http://bit.ly/getspires. Ifyou have a retina device, stay tuned for SpiresHD which will include optimized graphics

Fig 11 Elements combined

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This tutorial focuses on logicbricks in Blender, the onlyprogramming tool I used forTrolechaun. I gladly made thistutorial in the hopes that this willencourage someone to makenice stuff by understanding thebasic structure of BGE poweredgames. You can download, playand see how Trolechaun wasbuilt at:

http://trolechaun.weebly.com/ if youwant to understand the structure youshould read the tutorial first, then youwould be able to get deep intoTrolechaun.For a graphic artist, logic bricks could bethe bridge to understandingprogramming of a basic videogame. Forprogrammers it would be a nicechallenge and a good exercise to justuse logic bricks.The first thing you should know is thatlogic bricks have a number oflimitations. However you must learnthat limits are fun. If they weren’t, therewouldn’t be any games.Programming a videogame issomething I always wanted to do, and Icould get into this using logic bricks. I

could watch the results at the sametime I was building Trolechaun, but I ama 3D graphic artist, not a programmer.

Limits mean Problems, but everyproblem can be solved, preferably witha creative solution. For example: when Imade Trolechaun I thought about usingmouse inputs, but I was not able tolearn how to do it in time, so I justcreated a different game. The moreskills a team has, the more solutionsexist, however if you don´t know yourteam limits and potential you will neverfinish a game.

Logic bricks can be a mess but don´tworry, you control them. Don´t forgetabout writing names for the Inputs andActions, as this will save yourself a lot ofconfusion. Don´t forget to deleteunused/unneeded logic bricks after afailed test.

Let´s say Blender logic bricks are likeother software, you can paint with themin layers, but what you are paintinghere are actions (programmed eventsand animations), you can feel like adirector telling his polygonized actorswhere you want them to move.

There are just three kinds of “layers” ina Blender gameScene Layers: which containscharacters, interactive objects, and anyFX… these layers often contain a single“level” or stage of a gameStage Layers: Use these layers to stageyour scene and actions, you decidewhat is visible when the game playshere.State System (Object LB Layers):States are a way to achieve complexlogics without cluttering your LogicButtons and having to redo alreadyexisting Logic Bricks. States are a groupof Logic Bricks which get executed at acertain time or state (hence the name)of the game.Imagine a character wandering around.There may be different materials forthe ground (e.g. ice and sand), a

by - Alfonso Montón

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different control method in water or air, etc.Without states you would now start to useProperties, Property-Sensors and Actuators tocontrol what state the actor has. With thestate system probably only one LogicBrickchanges the state and you are done. Moreinformation on States can be found here.

The first thing you should do when designingyour game prototype is to establish themechanics of your game and see what youcan do with logic bricks. Since you are notdoing a graphics showreel, characters andscenes should come after you’ve worked onthe game mechanics.

Create a cube first , then Select the cube andgo to the Panels view. Get into the Logicproperties and press ADD for these three:Sensor – Controller – Actuator.

Connect them and give the middle Location(Loc) variable for the Motion actuator brick anumber value (0.3 in this example). Nowmove your mouse over the screen, press Pand you will see your cube going forwardautomatically.

At sensors you can see there is an actuatorcalled Always. This means you are directingyour cube to go forward. Not so difficult,right? Now change this Always sensor intoKeyboard, and define UpArrow key for thissensor.

Great! Now our Cube friend is interactive.With that you can make everything movearound, and that´s your basic animationresource. You can do the same with the otherkeys if you want your Epic Cube character tomove around left, right or backwards. You canalso use this method to rotate your Cube.(adjust Rot settings instead of Loc in Actuatorpanel).You have to understand, all the actions in ourvideogame need a Sensor which leads anAction, and the connection between them arelogical connectors also called Controllers.

Now let’s try something more complicated:Crash a cube into a Wall and then reset yourposition.

Create a wall and floor – Select the Wall andadd a property to this Wall object, write Pwallas the Name of this property on the LogicPanel. Change the Physics into Static andpress Ghost (if you don´t press Ghost you willsee a problem with the reset re-position ofour Cube character)

Select your cube and change the physicsstatus Static into Dynamic (Now yourcube will be in the gravity system) andcreate two other lines of –Sensor-Controller-Actuator. This time they willbe:

Collision AND Message – Name the Collisionproperty: Pwall (there is no differencebetween the Int, Bool and Timer kind ofproperty in this case). Then name theMessage Subject: crash. With that every timeyour character crashes into a wall, a messageis sent.

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This is very important because when youmake an event, your own character receivesthe same message and resets. But you canuse this event for other stuff (lose a life forexample or creating some FX at the stage).

Message AND State - Name the MessageSensor: crash. At State you will press thesecond button. (This will change the state withthe sensor trigger – a message is sent with thisinfo)With this your character will respond when itreceives the same message sent by thecharacter collision.Now you can change the State of the Objectlogic brick at the second button and you canmake different actions for the cube, you willuse this time:Always AND Constraint (connect with threedifferent actuators: Constraints). Theseconstraints will be used to define the restartposition of your cube, change into Location X,Location Y and Location Z at the differentConstraints.

Delay AND State – This time you write someframes of delay for this action, write 60 and atthe State Actuator push the first button.Don´t forget to come back to the first stateyou already programmed.Now see what happens: Your cube crashesinto the wall goes back to the first positionand waits around one second (this alwaysdepends on the framerate, you can make atimer property but it would be not so simple)before it falls down and you control it again.

With that,you canprogramdifferentstates of yourcharacter,when yourcharactercrashes intoa wall itshould be a different state. This is why it isimportant to keep all your programming bricklines clean, because if you don’t do this, yourlogic bricks will soon be a mess. So you cannow control the layers of your character, nowis time to control layers of your scene.

When you make a game you must be tidy.When I made Trolechaun I didn´t know yet,but you have to create different layers for thestage (game environment), the character andobjects and yet another layer for specialeffects (FX).

Now that you have your Cube Characterprogrammed, we want to move it into thesecond layer. Select your Cube Character,Press M, select the second layer and yourCube will be moved to that layer of the Stage(game environment). Now you can bring yourobjects to the first layer (your main layer ofthe scene) where all the action is running.Now create an Empty object in the stagelayer. Add a Sensor-control-actuator toprogram it, then change the actuator fromEdit Object to Add Object and write down thename of your Character in the OB field. Youmust write the name of your character exactlyhow is written on your object, with caps if ithas them, otherwise the logic brick will notrecognise it.If you keep the sensor for this actuator inAlways you would not notice a difference

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when you test it. Change the sensor into akeyboard sensor and assign it a key for input.Every time you press the button you will now“receive” another character from the layerwhere the Cube character is stored.Connect a new State actuator at the samecontroller, so that when you press the keyyou’ve assigned, not only do you bring yourcharacter to the stage (game environment),but the state of the empty object changes intoan empty state (awaiting further messages tochange the state of the cube). It is easier tobring objects from other layers than to deletethem from your scene.Additionally, you use this same method whenyou want FX or ammo in your scene. You storeall the FX and AMMO objects on another layerand use Empty objects on your main stagelayer to bring them onto the stage. If they areon the same layer it is not going to work. Alsoyou can get very interesting results when youmake a chain of FX and empty objects.

Scene Layers contain information about yourstage( or game level). When you create onescene you have to think about your cameras.You can have multiple cameras, you canparent your active camera to characters, makeother static cameras, etc. You can also changethe camera when the game is running withthe actuator: Scene >> Set camera.

But here comes the most difficult part: Howdo I move all the game info like “lives left” orhow many points I have between the differentgame scenes? Without any scripting or pythonprogramming, there is still a way. You noticedthere are different properties for the Objectsin the Logic Panel: Bool, Int, Timer and theseproperties are running just for active SceneLayer. These count the lives and points, etc.

What I used in the Trolechaun options andGame info, was to use one SCENE with anEmpty object getting all the information (inthis scheme Layer0). Over this Main Emptylayer I was getting the visual information fromthe other Scene Layers with the Logic Brick:

Scene >> Add overlay scene or AddBackground.

This is really important if you want to be ableto pause your game, one scene must be activewhen you make other scene FREEZE orPAUSE. One layer (Layer 0 in this case) mustbe running.Between overlayed scenes the only thing youcan use are messages, because there is nobetter option to get information using logicbricks.To finish the Tutorial lets create a camera,change the view into this camera and place aplane with a texture saying New Game.You can make an action with a keyboardsensor and change the scene with the Sceneactuator. Make this Scene to replace it withyour previous stage Scene – (These Scenes areGame layers and they are changed by SetScene)

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But you ALWAYS have to start your Game fromthe Empty layer where you will maintain all ofyour game info because you will run the gameat this MAIN layer. This main layer is whereyou have to overlay the different Scenes wecreated before.Finally you have the Empty layer: layer0 withan empty object which stores the info likelives remaining and other useful stuff storedin the properties of this object. Similar to ourstage layer that uses the empty object to bringthe character into our scene, this empty givesthe information to the HUD which is overlayedonto the game layer. The HUD layer makesvisible the info you have on your Scene layer0. You can communicate between the layerswith messages as I showed you on thistutorial.With all these basic Logic bricks and a bit ofcuriosity you should be able to make aTrolechaun type game yourself, this is just anintroduction. Animation, illumination andshader info are things you would need tolearn if you want a very well-made game andyou have time or a big team. With logic bricksyou can easily get a good result in a fewhours.You can get more info athttp://trolechaun.weebly.com/index.html andBlender Wiki which has useful information.Also other places like Blenderartist are full ofnice game designers who can make reallyawesome stuff

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Modeling an iPhone 4 with allthe details seems to be a morechallenging task for beginnersthan it is actually in reality. Thesecret is to break down all theseemingly bigger problems intosmaller more manageableelements. Then it will becomequite evident how easily this

model can be approached.The key to success here is to start withvery simple shapes and make use ofthe modifiers such as Mirror, Solidify,Screw, Bevel, and Boolean to rapidlydevelop shapes and proportions andthen to fine tune details. This is amore parametric modeling approachborrowed from standard CADengineering applications.Step by step design decisions aremade interactively, trying to eliminatetime consuming restarts or meshadjustments by hand, saving time andmaximising design decisions.Blender 2.5 is a vast improvementover 2.49. Besides the alreadymentioned new modifiers, it alsoallows you to now place blue prints

into respective views, which eliminatesthe need to work in multiple viewports. By just switching between theviews Blender now displays thepredefined blue print. A very simplebut greatly useful feature. In additionthe new unit system and measuringadd-ons also greatly help in workingperfectly in scale.This process of using modifiers firstand at the end, making the mesh intoa tangible form ready for texturing iswhat this tutorial will focus on.In regards to detail level, it is also veryimportant to be clear about themodeling goals, thus gathering asmuch reference information aspossible is very important. One needsto know what to model and thosemodels which very often impresspeople are those which also payattention to the object details.

Before we start modeling, as a firststep it is important to set-up thescene.The units utilized in these blue printsare in Metric. In Blender 2.5 the Unitspanel is found inside the World tab. Itallows the user to select betweencommon Blender Units, the Metric orImperial system.

As a second step, it is required toplace the correct blueprint parts intothe respective views.The Background Image tab is placedinside the Properties panel and can beopened with [N] while being inside the3D View or using the main menu 3DView>>View>>Properties.The panel itself isquite selfexplanatory. Itstarts with the viewyou would like theimage to visible in.It is also possible toadjust the opacityas well as size andposition.To adjust the scaleof the image, a cube with the rightproportions can be used as anoverlay.Through the Size and X/Y sliders theimage can then be scaled andpositioned correctly.After this step the cube can bediscarded as it only functioned as ascale reference.

by - Claas Eicke Kuhnen

Another nice addition is that Blender 2.5now displays the current view name as wellas the view scaled inside the upper leftcorner of the 3D view port.

The easiest way is to start with a squareperfectly placed at the center of the iPhonefront view with the correct dimensions. Add

a circle and move it to the lower left corner.The Snap to Edge function can assist inpositioning the Circle to correctly lay on thelower left edge of the rectangle. Selectingthe circle and pressing [g] for Grab and then

[z] for a vertical movement restriction andreleasing the mouse when the circle snapsto the lower edge of the square as shown onthe left of the image. With the 3D cursorpositioned at the lower left corner of therectangle it can then be used to scale thecircle to the right size when the Pivot Point isset to the 3D cursor as shown in the right ofthe image.

The following two images show how theinitial square is being subdivided, the circlebeing joined to it and all not neededgeometry being removed. The end result willbe a perfect quarter of the iPhone mainbody.

At this point this profile can be extruded intothe required depth and by making use of themirror and solidify modifier the outerborder of the iPhone body is built. Themirror modifier can be used to replicate thequarter arc over the object’s center as visiblein the screenshot. The solidify modifier

creates a thickness to the resulting surface.Because of the surface normals facing insidethe offset value of “1” extrudes the depthtowards the center of the object.

Attention was paid to provide geometrypoints for the future display panel mesh atthis stage by using a Thickness value of “-3.4cm”.This object can be duplicated and scaledalong the depth axis to build the base meshfor constructing the rim. The solidifymodifier will again prove very useful in thissituation. By changing the Offset to “-0.5”,the modifier offsets the starting surfacebackwards, starting inside the iPhone body,and then extrudes it, by a thickness of 8mmoutwards. The reason for this is, becausecurrently Blender 2.5 does not have theweight edge feature included and thus theBevel modifier would also chamfer the edgeof the rim which lies on the iPhone body.

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To finish the basiciPhone body, itcan be duplicatedand moved toanother layer. Themirror andsolidify modifiersare applied andmissing faces arebuilt into themesh to produce a water tight body. As thescreenshot shows, the faces for the futuredisplay panel for texturing is built in.

At this stage, detail meshes can be addedinteractively with the use of the Booleanmodifier.This approach has a certain advantagecompared to hand modeling geometry suchas an opening for a button insert. Throughusing the Boolean modifier, the designer canplace the geometry which should besubtracted and the modifier will perform this

tasks automatically. Rather then redoing oradjusting the mesh by hand, there is moretime to focus on fine tuning the position,scale, rotation, and geometry of the Booleanmesh.For the Boolean modifier and others to workas desired certain restrictions have to be paidattention to. In general the first rule is theorder of tasks being performed. The followingimage shows on the far right side theadvisable order of modifiers for the rimstructure. At first is the Mirror modifier whichproduces a full thin surface, followed by theSolidify modifier which creates the thickness.If the Mirror modifier would be second, itwould also mirror inner faces created by theSolidify modifier and those bad geometryelements are often the reason why theBoolean modifier would produce bad results.It is important to add the Bevel modifier atthis stage before we start utilizing the Booleanmodifier, because only the outer edge of therim should be beveled. If the Bevel modifierwas last it would also be applied to all edgesresulting from the Boolean task. Also allBoolean meshes have Smooth Shading turnedon as well as the Rim. With the EdgeSplitmodifier at the end of the modifier list, eachobject has smooth rounded surfaces andcreased sharp edges automatically in 3D viewand at Render TimeThe orange elements are those being utilizedfor the Boolean operation. As a second rule, itis very important here to have clean and

simple mesh models without any duplicatedfaces or other issues, as they will produceproblems for the Boolean modifier as well.Water tight volumes are not needed and ascan be seen some objects are simple surfaces.However their surface normal defines thedirection the Boolean operation works - thusis it important to make sure that they alluniformly face outside when the object isbeing used as a Boolean Difference (whichsubtracts geometry). The followingcomposition explains this concept.

The concept of using the modifiers for meshmodeling lies in the interactive ability tochange position and also shape and thusrapidly fine tune the design. The following

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screenshot displays a quarter model ofBoolean object. Starting with the left, a smallmesh cross aids as a corner position for the3D cursor which can be snapped to the crossthrough the [Shift +S] Snap menu andselecting the cursor to Selection option. Theright image shows the edge geometry beingscaled with using the 3D cursor as the pivotpoint and making use of the Z axis exclusion.[s + shift + z] This method currently works verywell when corner rounding might changeduring the design process.

This set of Boolean modifiers for the rimmodel can already slow down the screenrefresh. Each time one object is modifiedBlender will recalculate the complete modifierchain which explains the increasingly longercomputation time. To speed up editing it isadvisable to only have those modifiers visiblewhich are being worked on by clicking ontothe “eye” icon. During render time theoutcome will still be visible.

The blue elements on the left are representingthe detail mesh objects, such as buttons,sliders, camera, and speakers. They are builtbased on the very same basic Boolean objects

keeping the mesh density identical toguarantee a tight fit and prevent open cracks.In the case where a button has to be smallerthan the Boolean, the profile has to be scaleddown. The Solidify modifier cannot producejust an offset surface as Blender does notoffer a Scale modifier. Also because Blender2.5 does not yet support edge weightingwhich prevents selective edge bevelingthrough the modifier, a different approachwas used to evenly build all buttons withnicely rounded edges. The new Screwmodifier is a great help to quickly producelathe / revolve like objects by only using abase profile.The following screenshot displays thedifferent application areas.

Through duplication and slight modificationdifferent buttons with altered size andproportions can be generated quickly. TheScrew modifier allows you to specify theamount of rotation which is 360 degrees forthe two right objects and 180 degrees for theleft one. Selecting the calculate check box alsomakes sure that no normals are flipped in theresulting mesh.Another very useful tool in Blender 2.5 is

Bartius Crouch’s Loft and Bridge script. Not allBlender builds include it yet and it can beinstalled through the Install Add-On functionin the User Preferences. The script can bedownloaded from the posted link in theresources section.

The previous image shows two edges beingselected. To quickly access the bridge script[ctrl + f] can be used, which opens the Facesdialog. The great thing about this script is thatit does not only do a basic linear fill betweentwo edges, but can interpolate between them,which means that the curvature can becontrolled and smooth bevels can easily beconstructed.The Cubic interpolation as shown in themiddle image has to be selected and thestrength value defines how far the createdbridge mesh will blend into the start and endgeometry. As shown, the far right imagepresents a much smoother flow from the grayfaces into the orange rounded mesh. This ismainly a function found in NURBS applicationand it is a great pleasure to see this in Blendernow.

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For rendering and scene design it is advisableto bake all geometry generating modifierssuch as Boolean, Screw, Mirror, Solidify intotouchable mesh. The are many reasons forthis. The Boolean modifier can slow down thescreen refresh. This modifier in 2.5 alsoignores the material of the subtraction object.The Boolean result can also show somesurface normal issues as visible in the leftquick rendering around the home button. Inaddition, all objects have to be moved whenrepositioning the iPhone including all Booleanmeshes. This can quickly generate a lot ofunneeded overhead.

Screw, Solidify, and Mirror modifiers also donot really allow UV texturing of those meshessince it is impossible to unwrap them. Thosemeshes are generated on the fly.

Keeping a back-up geometry set on anotherlayer might in general be a good idea, orhaving one Blend file for the modeling, andone Blend file for rendering. In this case it alsomakes sense to properly name all the objects,thus making it easier when a specific elementhas to be imported from a modeling file intothe rendering scene. For further details, thesupplied Blender file can be consulted, whichcontains the different steps separatedthrough layers.

Very often the “Blender 2.5 vs 2.4” question isasked at the Blenderartist forum. Blender 2.5possesses, compared to Blender 2.4, manyenhancements which significantly increaseproductivity. While a few tools from 2.4 arestill missing the majority of new additions fullyjustify a switch to the new architecture. Thisaffects the cleaner interface, the newcontinuously growing add-on system, themore logical workflow and efficiency possiblewith Blender 2.5.In particular can this be observed throughBlender being currently considered evenmore as a host application for open sourceprojects in the industry ranging from simplemodeling tasks to quite complex visualisationprojects such as the BlendME add-on, whichconnects Blender with the opens sourceproducts like openFOAM and others

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Apple Website for iPod, iPhone,iPadhttp://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/cases.htmlApple iPhone 4 DimensionalDrawinghttp://devimages.apple.com/programs/mfi/dimensions/iPhone-4-dimensions.pdfApple iPhone Galleryhttp://www.apple.com/iphone/gallery/#gallery01Bartius Crouch Loft BridgeScript Add-on:http://sites.google.com/site/bartiuscrouch/scripts/bridgeDemo File:Blender file with all steps spreadover the layers.

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Have you ever wondered if Array modifier can be usedto create plants, well here is how to do it.Step1. In blender delete the cube and add a Path curve,rename it to Stem_Path.Step2. Tab into edit mode rotate it -90 Degrees in Y andmove it up 2 units in Z.Step3. Tab back out of edit mode.

Step4. Now add a cylinder, set the vertices to 6, radius to .5,depth to 1 and un-tick Cap Ends.Step5. Whendone rename it toStem.Step6. Add amodifier to theStem, change FitType to Fit Curveand select theStem_Path in theCurve Field.Step7. In theRelative Offset,set X to 0 and Z to1.Step8. The stemshould now bethe length of the

Stem_Path.Step9. Now Add acurve modifier tothe Stem, set theobject toStem_Path, and theDeform Axis to Z.Step10. You shouldnow be able toselect theStem_Path and inedit mode growthe stem to thedesired length.Step11. Now selecteverything in thescene with the Akey, and press H tohide.Step12. Nowcreate a plane,Rename it to Petal,tab into edit modeand move it 2 unitsin X.Tab back intoobject mode.Step13. Create an Empty, rename to PetalArc.Step14. Select the Petal, and add an array.Step15. Set the count to 4, un-tick Relative Offset, tick Object

by - Stephen Bates

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Offset and select thePetalArc in the fieldbelow.Step16. Select thePetalArc Empty and rotatein Y -22 deg, rotate in Z 15Degrees and scale XYZ to0.9.Step17. Create anotherempty and rename it toPetalRotate and rotate it45 Deg in Z.Step18. Add an icosphere, rename it toStamen and move it toone side.Step19. Select the Petalagain, and add anotherarray, set the count to 8.Step20. Untick RelativeOffset, tick Object Offsetand select the PetalRotatebelow. In the EndCapField select the Stamen.Step21. You should nowhave a nice blossom.Step22. Hide everythingagain, and in the scenewindow (top right ) clickthe eye next to the stem

and Stem_Path to make them Visible.Step23. Select the stem, then in the stems modifier list, select theArray and set the End Cap to Petal.Step24. You should now have a Stem with a Flower, select theStem_Path, tab into edit mode and select the second vertex downfrom the top, (you dont want to select the top vertex).Step25. Now press ALT+Sand scale the vertex down,or change its radius (samething), I’ve set mine to0.012.Step26. Then select the toptwo vertices, and make theplant a little bigger bydragging up in Z.Step27. Hide everythingagain then create a cube.Step28. Tab into edit mode,hit S then type .1, this willmake the cube one-tenth ofits original size.Step29. Now hit S X 20, toscale it 20 times bigger in X,then G X 2 to move it 2 unitsacross.Step30. Hit space and typeLoop cut, and using themouse wheel, create 3 cutsso you have 4 equalsegments.

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Step31. Now select 4edges, hit E to extrude, andright click without movingthe edges.Step32. Now hit S Y toscale in Y and create theleaves.Step33. You can just applya texture with an Alpha, ormake them more leafshaped.Step34. Tab back intoObject mode, and renamethe cube to Leaf.Step35. Now createanother Empty, rename itto LeafRotation and rotateit in Z 90 degrees.Step36. Select the leafagain, and in the modifierlist add an array, set therelative offset for X and Y to0 and set Z to 10.Step37. Tick Object Offset,and select LeafRotation inthe field below, and youshould have the following.Step38. Now Hideeverything once more, andun-hide the Stem.

Step39. Select its existing array,and in the Start Cap field, selectLeaf, the plant will now haveleaves following the stem.Step40. If you want the leaves tobe bigger, select the leaf object,scale it then you need to applythe scale.Step41. You won’t see thechanges until you select thestem, tab into edit mode, thentab back out.Step42. Once you are happy withthe flower, make the stem pathVisible, select the top 2 vertices.Step43. Press CTRL+H and hookto new object, you can now goback into object mode, andanimate the plant with the newempty that the hook created.Here is one I took a bit moretime over, for the leaves, insteadof adding them to the startcap, Icreated a vertex group for thethin bit that connects the leaves,and applied a cloth modifier withthe leaf pinned to that vertex group, I then used the curve modifier,and selected the StemPath

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I am Arnaud Couturier, fromNew Caledonia, in the PacificOcean. I use the pseudonymPiiichan in the onlinecommunity. My passion lies inart, programming, and thecombination of both, such ascomputer games and digitalcontent generators.One of my latest experimentsis CanTree, a free online tree

generator. Before I go any further, youcan test it right now if you wish, simplygo to http://arnaud.ile.nc/cantree.With Cantree, you can generate 2dtrees, that look almost like 3d,because of simulated ambientocclusion. You have some degree ofcontrol on the aspect of the tree. Forexample you can easily change thesize and complexity of the tree usingsliders. You can also choose your leaftexture(s), wood texture, and flowertextures. You can even provide yourown textures, and this way you caninclude anything in your tree, such asfruits, photos of yourself, or any imageyou want.So far, there's nothing particularly newabout this tree generator, most peoplehave used at least one (possibly

excellent) tree generator at somepoint. The uniqueness of CanTree isthat the trees are generated “online”by your web browser. There is noplugin, installation or downloadrequired. It's also free, and under theMIT licence, so CanTree must be oneof the most accessible tree generatorsone can find.CanTree stands for canvas tree, I amreferring to the HTML 5 canvaselement. HTML 5 is the set ofstandards for the new web. Canvas isone of them, and one of the mostexciting, because it makes possible thedrawing of impressive 2d and 3dgraphics right inside the browser,without any plugin such as AdobeFlash. Most major web browsers,namely the latest versions of Firefox,Chrome, Safari, and Opera nowsupport canvas. Only Internet Explorer(IE) doesn't support it, so CanTreesimply won't work in IE. Opera is alsoshowing some bugs. I haven't tried thegenerator with the latest beta versionof IE 9, which as far as I know shouldsupport canvas.You can save your trees as transparentpng image files. Some people havebeen fooled by the “3D feeling” of thetrees, and have requested .obj export,but the trees are in 2d, not 3d. Theonly other possible export formatwould be a vector format, such as

SVG. It would allow a completecontrol over each part of the tree,useful for interactive animations(falling leaves, branches moving in thewind...) to be drawn in real time in aweb page. However, a tree is made oftens of thousands leaves andbranches, so redrawing themconstantly at a decent frame rate (atleast 25 frames per second) wouldrequire substantial computing power.In the future, I plan to improve thecontrol the user has over the shape ofthe tree, to allow much more variedtree shapes such as palm trees forexample. This way, you could choosethe species of your tree, choose thesize, complexity and image resolution,then get as many different trees asyou want, but only for the speciesyou're interested in. I also haveplanned forces that would alter howthe tree grows, like wind and gravity.Other possible features include theaddition of creepers and roots. I'vestarted working on these features, butI can't tell when I'll be done, sinceCanTree is developed during my freetime, as a hobby.So, grab your web browser and have alook at http://arnaud.ile.nc/cantree.Keep in mind that Internet Explorercan not run the generator, and thatOpera is still buggy

by - Arnaud Couturier

Psst, hey you... come here… I havea secret... closer.... closer.... Too

Close! Back up.Okay now that I have your attention...

I know, we should all know that bynow, but just because we know itdoesn't mean we can successfullyapply it. Great materials can bedifficult. First you have to understandall the unique properties of thematerial you are trying to create. Thenyou have to figure out how to make itor even fake it in Blender. Blender hasa powerful set of material andtexturing tools and options. With suchpower of course comes more than afair share of confusion on just how touse those tools effectively.Colin Litster has taken on thechallenge of explaining Blender'smaterial and texturing system in hisnew book, Blender 2.5 Materials andTextures Cookbook.Using a cookbook style format, Colinprovides a “recipe” of clear stepsneeded to create each material. Afterthe “recipe”, Colin then provides aneasy to understand explanation of thematerial. He covers why each optionand setting was used and how it

contributed to the overall material.The Blender 2.5 Materials andTextures Cookbook contains ninechapters that cover a nice selection ofboth natural and man made materialsas well as some nice special effectsand animated materials.In addition to creating materials, Colindevotes an entire chapter to managingall those materials. He covers setting adefault scene for material creationthrough naming conventions andappending/linking. All of which areimportant aspects to maintaining adynamic personal database of blendermaterials.

Colin has created an invaluableresource for anyone seeking toimprove their knowledge andunderstanding of Blender's Materialsand Texture system

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by - Sandra Gilbert

- Tutorials explaining Blender features, 3dconcepts,techniques or articles based on the focused themeof the issue.- Reports on useful Blender events throughout theworld.- Cartoons related to blender world.

- Send us a notification on what you want to writeand we can follow up from there.

- Images should be properly cut and represent thetext appropriately.- Images should be provided seperately in a foldernamed (images, img or pictures).- Images should be named/labled likewise (image1or img1 etc).- Provide proper captions for images if and whenneeded.- Image format prefered is PNG but good quality JPGcan also do.- You can submit inline images in documents likeDOC or Openoffice ODT etc but make sure theimages were properly names before importing themin docs.

- Images inside a PDF are a strict no, but a pdfdocument with images if provided to show how theauthor wants the formating of doc will beappreciated.- Make sure that screenshots are clear and readableand the renders should be at least 800px, but not- Text should be in either ODT, DOC, TXT or HTML.

- Please include the following in your email:- Name: This can be your full name or blenderartistavtar.- Photograph: As PNG and maximum width of 256Px.(Only if submitting the article for the first time )- About yourself: Max 25 words .- Website: (optional)

Note: All the approved submissions can be placed inthe final issue or subsequent issue if deemed fit. Allsubmissions will be cropped/modified if necessary.For more details see the blenderart website.BA takes no responsibility fo the material in any formand the submission will automatically mean thatyou have agreed to the blenderart terms andconditions for submission for more informationplease do read the disclaimer.

Here is how Disclaimer

www.blenderart.org Issue 32 - Spring is Sprung

www.blenderart.org Issue 32 - Spring is Sprung

www.blenderart.org Issue 32 - Spring is Sprung

www.blenderart.org Issue 32 - Spring is Sprung