*Modeling a Die Tutorial
Table of Contents
[i] How to create a cube?
[ii] Subdividing the cube mesh
[iii] Extruding the pips
[iv] Adding a Subsurf Modifier
[v] Making the mesh smooth
[vi] Assigning Materials & Colors
» What is it about?
The tutorial will cover the modeling part, the usage of materials and finally the render part of a simple scene with the die.
Step 1 : Creating a Cube
First delete the default objects when you first start blender. Use Ctrl X to clear the default scene.
A preview of the Blender default scene
Switch to the top-down view by pressing NumPad 7 on the numpad or by selecting view » Top from the menu.
Hit Space (or select Add from the menu) and select Add » Mesh » Cube from the popup menu.
Step 2 : Subdividing the cube mesh
While in the Object Mode, select the cube with a single RMB click
Hit W and select Subdivide Multi (or press W+2) Now you are asked to enter the number of cuts. Change it to 4 and click Ok or hit Enter.
You should see this upon having done the steps above.
Step 3 : Extruding the pips
Change the 'select mode' to Face select mode by clicking the icon with the little triangle on it (or you can hit Ctrl TAB and select Faces).
Next we select all faces that should become the pips of the cube.
Deselect all faces by pressing A (or over the menu again) until nothing is selected.
Now hold Shift and select all faces with the RMB.
You can rotate the 3D view by press & hold the MMB (or Ctrl LMB ) and move the mouse.
You can also use the numpad keys NumPad 4,NumPad 8,NumPad 6 and NumPad 2 to rotate in steps.
You will get this when you have selected the pips.
Finally we need to extrude the faces inward to make the 'half sphere' look possible in the finished model.
Press E (or press Space » Edit » Extrude) and select Individual Faces from the popup menu. The faces will now move inward or outward (along their normals) depending on where you drag your mouse. Click RMB to confirm.
1 Left: Extrude Individual Faces.
2 Center: Pips extruded inwards.
3 Right: The cube in Object Mode so far.
Step 4 : Adding a Subsurf Modifier
The thing you produced in the previous step does not look quite like a ´real´ dice does it? Now the magic of the Subsurf modifier comes into play.
On the panel below, you will find a tab called Modifiers. Click Add Modifier. Select Subsurf
Note: Make sure only your cube is selected.
Change the Levels value to 2. This is the Subsurf value that is displayed in the 3D view when in Object Mode.
Change the Render Levels value to 3.
The Subsurf dialog with default settings
Step 5 : Making the mesh smooth
You'll notice now that the mesh is a lot more dense than the one we modeled. But it does not yet look as smooth as it should.
-We will now change the faces of the die to Smooth so they look more like one mesh. To do this follow these steps:
-Make sure only the die is selected. ( RMB )
-Click on the Set Smooth button in the Link and Materials tab of the Editing context buttons.
This makes quite a difference, doesn't it? :D
Set Smooth Button.
Smoothed Cube …After Results
You are almost done… =)
Step 6 : Assigning Materials & Colors
The cube looks fine so far, but you will notice that there aren't any colors aside of grey. So our next big step will be to create and assign some Materials that give the mesh its color.
The first thing will be to separate the areas for the different colors. We only have one mesh, but we want two different colors for some parts of it. One for the pips and one for the die itself.
We will do this by creating two different 'groups' of faces that get their own material/color.
-Select the cube and enter Edit Mode
-Select only the bottom faces of all of the pips with the combination of Shift and the RMB
-Hit the Ctrl and NumPad + keys on the numpad (or select (Space ») Select » More) to 'grow' the selection by one face. This will effectively select all of the faces (5 for each pip).
We now create a new material for the pips and then assign it to their faces.
Click on the New button in the Material section of the Link and Materials panel.
You'll notice that the two numbers changed from 1 Mat 1 to 2 Mat 2. the first number is the total number of materials of this object (the die) and the second number is the currently selected one (2).
Now we assign the second material (the one we just created) to the pip-faces by clicking on the Assign button.
The other faces already have the first material assigned to them (default for newly created objects), so we do not need to assign it at all …
Yes, you don't need to follow these steps to get the same results, but for the sake of learning blender i advise to do so anyway ;)
