When we left off in the last post (here) we had created the Jack-o-Lantern model for the scene, and or 3D printing. In this tutorial we'll go through simple scene setup including lighting and camera placement.
So hopefully everyone saved their work from the tutorial before. If not you can still follow along, just pretend your cube is a pumpkin.
Step 1
Along with Top,Front,and Side views the Numpad can be used to jump to the camera view. By hitting the Numpad 0 you can see from the camera's view. In blender, as with most 3D programs, the camera is what the computer uses to know what to render to the final video or image. Below is what my setup looks like before I move the camera.
The box in the center of the view port is what will be rendered. If you hit F12 on your keyboard OR if you go to the camera icon on the right hand side of the screen and hit "Render"
Not all that exciting yet is it?
Hit ESC to get back to the 3D view.
Step 2
The camera object is treated like any other object in the blender and can be moved, scaled, rotated using the same keys as anything else in the view port. Though sometimes this is the best way to achieve the effect you are going for there is another way to move the camera which in my view is a far more intuitive way. Here's how
- Switch to Camera view by hitting NumPad 0
- Look for and click on the + symbol near the top-right edge of your view port. This should bring up yet another tool bar.
- In this tool bar you should see, and you my have to hunt for it, a check box labeled "Lock camera to view"
Now you when you move the view port by holding down the middle mouse button on your mouse (the scroll wheel is usually a button too) OR by holding down the left and right mouse buttons simultaneously you should be able to freely move the camera to where you want it. Letting go the mouse button will stop the movement.
You can also use the 4,6,8,2 buttons on your Numpad they will move the view incrementally in the direction that corresponds to their placement on the Numpad.
Note as amazing as this tool is, you need to be sure to turn it off once you have found that sweet spot or you risk accidentally moving your camera when your're just trying to do standard operations.
That's better, but they are just hanging out in space. Lets fix that real quick.
Step 3
Go into Top Ortho view ( NumPad 7) and add a plane. In the first tutorial we went over how to use the create menu on the left hand side of the screen, but this time we're going to use the search function.
- With your cursor anywhere in the view port hit the space bar
- Type Add Plane and you should see two options. One for a surface plane and one for a Mesh.
- Select the mesh option
Now we have a plane created at the exact point our 3D cursor is on the screen (that's the red and white circle). Move and resize the plane so it sits just under the pumpkin.
The move or translate key is G (for grab) and the S Key is for scale. Like the face on the pumpkins this is really up to you on how big it will be but I do suggest placing it just under the pumpkins. Remember Numpad 1 and 3 will give you a front and side view respectively so that you can place the plane.
Now lets set the mood a little bit. Go to the world options found in the buttons on the right hand area of the screen. It should look like a little globe and should say "World" a few places within the option pane.
If you see an option that says "Use Nodes" Click on it to convert the background color into a node based setup which is used by the Cycles Renderer.
Now click on the gray box labeled Color and slide it down to black.
When we hit F12 again we should see something similar to this. Much spookier, don't you agree? We can still do better though.
Side step
When we have the cycles render enabled (see first lesson) we have the option to render out the scene in almost real time. Giving us a better idea what our final product will look like when finished. To enable this rendering features we click on the circle next to the box that says "Object Mode" and change it to Rendered.
From the image above I can see that my pumpkins are indeed spooky but not really ready for Halloween. If you are following along switch out of Rendered mode and switch to Wireframe for the next step.
Step 4
Lights in blender are called lamps and every default scene in blender has one. When you rendered out your pumpkins earlier you can see the effect of the lamp as it illuminates a small portion of our scene. With that in mind lets add a few more lamps.
- Hit SpaceBar and type "Add Lamp"
- Select Point from the next pop up menu
- Position the lamp inside the pumpkin
- Hit F12 , click the render button, or change it to Rendered mode to see the effect.
Now we're talking.
After that you can experiment with all the various lighting settings you have available to you. With the lamp selected you can quickly change how much light it produces along with what kind of lamp it is by going to the lamp options over in the menu on the right. If you feel like this is the first time you've seen these options you would be right as each object has its own tab for things only it can do that others can not.
Somethings you might have fun with.
Ambient Occlusion : Found in the world settings you can toggle this on and off. Ambient Occlusion is the way light bounces off of things and illuminates others. With it on and set to full strength your image will look something like this
Any value below 1.00 will change the amount of light that bounces around and can create a very moody scene.
Depth of Field (DOF) : All the rage in video games these days "Depth of Field" is the term we use for how a camera handles things outside of its main focus or before and after a certain point. If you've every seen a shot where someone is in sharp focus but everything else is blurry, you have an idea of what DOF does.
DOF is found under your camera settings in the right hand side of the window. First find and click on the camera to make the options show up then play around with the settings to see how they affect the picture.
In this image I'm using depth of field and telling the camera to focus on the three Jack-o-lanterns (named jacks1). IF you look closely you can see that the hard edge of the plan is now fuzzy because it s beyond the DOF range.
The best way to see the effect of DOF is to switch to camera mode (Numpad 0) and go into Rendered mode. Anything you do will be shown in the view port after a short delay. This way you know what you'll get in the final version.
Final Step
Once you are happy with your scene and have rendered it out via F12 or the render button you will need to save the image. This is one of those pain point in the blender interface as its not the unified file button we're used to.
On the screen that shows up when you are rendering you will see several options along the bottom of this window. There you should see the word "Image". By clicking Image a menu will appear giving you an option to save the image. If the save image option is disabled "Save As" should still work. Then the rest of the interface is rather straight forward. You may look at the image below to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Hope you've found this useful, as before I'd love to see what you all come up with if you follow the tutorials. Follow me or 
So as promised here are some 3D printed versions of the Jack-o-Lanterns both the three I've shown and two from my two students (aged 8 and 9)
The squatty one on the left with the green stem was done by Seamus, and the one on the right with 3 eyes was done by Liam.
And here they are at night, with over bright LED's in them.
These are micro versions of the original 3 none of which are larger than an inch.
Please forgive the low quality of the pictures my phone isn't really designed for such things... or much for that matter