Beginning with Blender

Blender is a free tool you can download that lets you make 3D models. It also lets you animate them and work in 2D. With Blender, we can take the character model we've drawn and create a 3D object out of it, then create animations for it to use in any video game project we might be making. Blender is often the place game devs make the models they're going to use in their games.

Seeing how I'm a complete novice with this kind of thing, I've started off by just learning to navigate around the scene and using some basic modelling tools.

Open Blender and this is the first thing that will show up. "General" is highlighted, which is just the basic default template for making 3D models, so we'll just select that mode for now.

The Blender layout will look quite familiar to those who've used Unity or Godot. It too has four main segments in its workspace:

• The viewport is the big screen in the middle with the cube in, and is where you'll do most of your modelling.
• The "Outliner" is in the top-right, and lists all the objects currently in your Blender scene (just like the Unity hierarchy and the Godot Scene Menu).
• The properties menu is in the bottom-right underneath the outliner, and lets you edit the properties of the currently-selected object (like the inspector in Unity and Godot).
• The animation timeline is at the bottom, and is used for creating animations - animation in Blender works by putting your object in a certain pose, saving that pose at a point on the timeline, then going up to another point on the timeline, changing the pose and then saving it again.

When you click-and-drag in Blender, you drag out a field that selects anything inside of it (you can also hold down the B key for "box select" to do the same).

If you want to move around the Blender scene, you have to hold down the middle-mouse button, or click-and-drag on the axis compass in the top-right of the viewport. If you click on one of the letters on the compass, you snap your view immediately to look down that axis.

While moving with the middle-mouse button, hold down Shift to pan from left to right, and hold down Ctrl to quickly zoom in and out. 

Moving Objects

If you click on an object, its outline will turn orange and you can edit its properties. However, you won't be able to move it (unless you drag around its "Transform" properties in the properties menu).

If you want to move it by clicking and dragging, we can either go to the viewport's side menu and press the Move button (the one with the four arrows), or we can press "G" for grab, and the object will just follow where our mouse is.

What if you only want to move the object along a certain axis? While you're moving the object around with the G key, press the X key, the Y key or the Z key to lock the object to the X, Y or Z axis respectively.

You can also rotate and resize your object using the same principle. To rotate an object, select it and press "R" for rotate, and to resize an object, press "S" for scale. You can also select these options from the viewport's side menu.

 

As with moving the object, if you press X, Y or Z while rotating or scaling an object, you'll rotate or scale it on that axis alone.

If, while you're moving, rotating or scaling an object, you change your mind and don't want to move/rotate/scale it after all, press the right-mouse button to send it back to where it was before you moved it.

Adding New Objects

If you want to get rid of an object, you can right-click it and go down to "Delete", or you can hit the X key to delete any selected object straight away.

To add in a new object, we need to open up the "add" menu. This can be found in the top-left of the viewport where it says "Add", but you can also press Shift+A on your keyboard to bring it up instantly.

There's a lot of things you can add here, but for now we'll just add another cube. Like in Unity and Godot, 3D shapes are called "meshes" here. Go down to "Mesh" then click on "Cube" to spawn in a cube mesh.

The 3D Cursor

Every time you create a new object, it will spawn in right in the middle of your scene. This is because the 3D cursor is located there. The 3D cursor is the red-and-white hula-hoop icon that you see in the middle, and can be selected in the viewport side menu if you want to move it around.

While in cursor mode, click and drag around the scene to move the 3D cursor into that location. Now whenever you create new objects, this is where they'll spawn.

Now, this 3D cursor can be kind of finicky to move around. Luckily, while clicking-and-dragging, you can press the X, Y or Z keys to lock its movement to that axis, just like with moving a mesh.

If you want to move the 3D cursor back into the middle where it started off, hit Shift+C to do so.

Edit Mode

Currently, we are in Object Mode. This is the mode where me move around and position all our objects in the scene. But what if we want to change what the object looks like? Then, with the object we want to change selected, we need to enter Edit Mode. We can do this by going into the top-left corner where it says Object Mode and switching it to Edit Mode, or we can press TAB to change between Object and Edit mode on the fly.

In Edit Mode, the shape that we're editing will be highlighted in orange. When we edit a shape, we can move around its faces, its edges and its vertices to turn it into a new custom shape.

• Faces are the flat sides of the object
• Edges are the lines that separate the faces from each other
• Vertices are what Blender calls the corners of the shape

In the top-left, right beside the Mode Select tab we just used, there will be three icons. You can use these to switch between editing vertices, edges and faces. Right now, vertices is the selected mode, which is why the corners of the shape all have dots on them.

If you click on one of these dots, you can move that part of the shape around in the same way we moved things around in Object Mode - by pressing G for grab, that part of the shape will follow around our mouse.

Again, if we press the X, Y and Z keys while moving a part of the shape, we can lock it to the X, Y or Z axis.

By changing between face, edge and vertices mode in the top-left, we can move, scale and rotate the individual pieces of the shape just like we did with the whole shape in Object Mode.

Extruding, Indenting and Bevelling

While in face mode, if you select a face and then press "E" for extrude, you can drag out a whole new limb for that shape. Extruding a shape is something you'll be doing a lot while creating models.

Still in face mode, press "I" for inset, and a new face will be created for the shape right on top of the old face.

Now in edge mode, press Ctrl+B for bevel, to make a new face out of that edge.

While bevelling, scroll the mousewheel to add more segments to the bevelled area, which will smooth out the area and turn it into a curve.

Loop Cuts

Another thing you'll be doing a lot while modelling is creating loop cuts or "subdivisions" - this will create a new editable edge along that shape. Hit Ctrl+R to create a new loop cut. Where the loop cut will go depends on where you move your mouse.

If you scroll your mousewheel while making the cut, you can increase the amount of cuts you'll make.

Once you're happy with the amount of cuts you're making, click to make the cut. Your mouse cursor will now turn into two arrows - this means you can move the cut along the shape to decide where it will go. Click again to put the cut down where you want it. If you right-click, the cut will go right back to the center of the shape.

Loop cuts add new geometry to the shape that can be moved around.

Press K for knife to bring up the knife tool. This will let you cut edges into your shape manually. Click on the points you want to cut and press enter to make it.

Seeing Through the Model

While you're making a complex model, it can be tiring to have to keep turning it around every time you want to edit another side of it. Fortunately, there are two ways in Blender you can use to see and edit all the edges, faces and vertices of a shape at once.

One way is to change into wireframe mode. Press Z to bring up the shading mode menu, which lets us change the way our object shows up in Blender. The one we want to use is wireframe mode, so select that option.

Wireframe mode will make the shape completely see-through, so that only the outsides can be seen.

Another method is to turn on X-ray mode by pressing Alt+Z. This will have a similar effect, allowing you to see and select parts of the shape on the side you're not facing.

Modifiers

In the inspector menu, there'll be a blue wrench icon somewhere down the left-hand side. This brings up the modifiers menu. Modifiers add special effects to the whole shape at once.

There are lots of modifiers you can use, but one I find myself using a lot is the Mirror modifier. This reflects one side of the model to the other side, and is invaluable in creating symmetrical models.

For example, here I've added a vertical loop cut going straight down the middle of the cube. Then, I selected all the vertices on one side of the cube and deleted them, leaving only half of the cube behind.

If I go into the modifiers menu and create a new mirror modifier, then change its Axis setting from X to Y, the one half of the cube will be reflected over to the other side of that axis.

That means not only will the cube be whole again, but if I move around one side of it, it will move around the other side as well.

Smoothing out the Mesh

Using just what we've learned above, I've made a kind-of-sort-of person shape.

If we go back into Object Mode, we can see that the model looks kind of jagged and blocky. To smooth it out, we can right-click and select "Shade Smooth".

 

The result might look... still kind of weird and jagged. This is because Shade Smooth is actually a trick of the light, making it so the light shines on every adjacent face on the model as is it were one big face. Shade Flat, where the light highlights every individual face, is the option we just switched from, and we can switch between the two by right-clicking in Object Mode.

To smooth it out more, we can use another modifier, the Subdivision Surface modifier, to double the amount of vertices on the object.

Where it says "Levels Viewport", you can increase the amount of doubled vertices the modifier will produce... though in our case I think just the two is plenty. Ideally you don't want to add too many of these levels to your mesh to avoid clogging it up with unnecessary geometry. From what I've seen, it rarely goes above 2 levels.

You'll often have to "apply" modifiers in order for them to show up in the final project. To do this, click on the little drop-down arrow at the top-right of the modifier and select "Apply". You can't do this in edit mode - you have to go into object mode to apply them. Make sure you've absolutely happy with the changes the modifier is making before you press apply, because the modifier will disappear from the inspector once it's applied.

You can see from the above if you want to make any edits to the mesh, you'll want to do it before you apply the Subdivision Surface modifier. Blender lets you see what the modifier will look like before you apply it, so don't rush to apply your modifiers right away.

Proportional Editing

We've talked about how we can grab edges, faces and vertices in Edit Mode and drag them around to change our shape, but what if you've got a lot of edges/faces/vertices and there's just no time to select them all one-by-one? Well, there's a button at the top of the viewport that looks like one circle inside of another. Click on it, or press the "O" key on your keyboard, to go into proportional editing mode.

If you use G to grab one of the vertices in Edit Mode, you'll see a big circle around your cursor. When you drag around that vertex, not only will it move around, but all the other vertices in the circle will move around with it. This works the same when rotating with R and scaling with S.

You can scroll on the mousewheel to change the size of this circle. The bigger the circle, the more geometry will move with your selection.

And again, if you press the X, Y and Z keys, you can lock the movement to the X, Y and Z axes. Remember to turn proportional editing off with O again once you're done with it.

Shrinking and Fattening

While editing your model, be it proportionally or one vertex at a time, you can press Alt+S to activate the Shrink/Fatten tool. This is like scaling, except it will make the selected part of the object bulkier or skinnier rather than big or smaller.

Separating and Joining Parts of an Object

If you select a piece of geometry and press "P", you can separate it from the rest of the mesh. This will turn that part of the mesh into its own separate object.

You'll have to go into Object Mode if you want to move around or edit that part of the object again.

If you select two separate objects by shift-clicking, then right-click, you can join the two of them together into a single object by selecting "Join" (or alternatively by hitting Ctrl+J).

You can even join together objects separated by space. Of course, you might want to go into Edit Mode to close all the gaps up.

We can connect individual vertices together using the merge tool. Either right-click and go down to Merge or press "M" for merge - a series of options will show up allowing you to fuse the selected vertices into one big vertex.

Of course, it won't actually bring parts of the mesh closer together...

If you've got a bunch of vertices around one edge and you want them to fuse with the vertices of another nearby edge, you might want to select Merge by Distance. A box will pop up in the bottom left that will let you change the merge distance. It should be small enough that one vertex merges only with the other it's closest to (so you should move the edges as close to each other as you can when doing this).

This bottom-left box actually shows up every time you add something to the scene. It contains some extra options you may want to use, and will stay there until you click on something else.

Materials

Just like with Unity and Godot, you add a new material to a mesh if you want to change its color. In the properties menu on the bottom-right, the materials tab can be found second from last (it looks kind of like a red beach ball).

A whole bunch of options come up that can change the way the object looks. For now, we just want to change its color, so we'd select "Base Color" and pick something from the color wheel that we like.

Once you've done that... nothing will happen. Unless, of course, you press Z and go into either Material Preview mode or Rendered mode, then you'll see that it has worked and the object has changed color.

While Material Preview mode generally shows you what color the object is, Rendered mode takes into account where the lighting is in the scene for a more realistic effect.

Rendering

When you've finished an object, you can render it to basically take a picture of the scene. You can go up to the top toolbar where it says "Render" and select "Render Image" to do so, or you can press F12 to do it right away.

...uh, you might want to move around the camera object in your scene to get it pointing somewhere more cinematic. There's a little camera icon to the side of the viewport you can press to look through the eye of your camera, and if you press G while looking through it you can move the camera around while looking down it.

Want to know how to make a model in Blender then transport it into a game engine? So would I! When we next come back to Blender I think I might look at taking a character drawing and turning it into a model (you can add pictures from your documents into the Blender scene by clicking-and-dragging them from your documents into the viewport, and from there you can use them as a reference for your modelling). We also might look at adding bones to our model and begin trying to animate it.