Blender 3.6 Beginner Tutorial - Part 2: Sword

in this introduction to 3D modeling for 100 absolute beginners we are going to build out this fantasy sword model we will start with the practice run getting you up to speed with the most common 3D modeling tools then we will learn the essentials of 3D primitive modeling techniques and build out the sword step by step then in part three we'll learn about geometry nodes and build the fire effects on the blade and build out the environment and will end with a bonus character integration if this tutorial looks intimidating for you I encourage you to keep going like many have said in the past the steps are broken down in our simple and practical for an absolute beginner to follow all you need is to complete part one of the series and the link is in the description so let's take it out with me to learn the most common 3D modeling tools coming up [Applause] [Music] foreign of the series we primarily worked by manually clicking on the viewport tools although this is a fine way to work when we first start over time clicking on each one of these can really slow us down as we need to rotate between them a lot and our goal for this chapter is to begin to integrate some more hotkeys into the workflow step number one is to download the hakichi sheet click the link in the description labeled downloads and then you will see the download content that we'll be using for starters download the haki cheat sheet and keep that handy while you work at the top of our hotkey cheat sheet we'll have our viewport and navigation controls this is what we learned in part one during our Minecraft Project now we're going to focus on integrating the viewport tools specifically the grns hotkeys and step number two we'll start with the G which is our move and grab tool once we hit G on the keyboard you will notice that the cube starts to move around all we have to do is simply move around the mouse and then click anywhere to drop it back into our scene now if I hit G again you'll notice that it just starts floating around a bit and we want to snap it to a specific axis and we can do so with the X Y and Z snapping keys after you hit G to enter move we can then hit X Y or Z to snap the movement to a specific Direction X is going to be the red axis Y is going to be the green axis and then Z is going to be the blue axis step number three is R for rotation once we hit R you'll see that we start to move around our Mouse and we can control the rotation then all we have to do is click the mouse again to drop it back into our scene in Step number four we have S for scale hit s and then we can drag our Mouse around moving it out to scale up and down our Cube and then click to drop it back into our scene then if we want to snap our scale or rotation tools we can then use the same X Y and Z snapping hotkeys while we're in the middle of our scale or rotate tool this snapping method can be a little bit tedious and this is where I see a lot of people that are new to blender get really stuck and this is was really tricky for me as well now if you have used blender a lot in the past this is totally a fine way to work and we're going to take a look at an alternative in much simpler way in the next chapter and the final hotkey is our selection tool which is W now there's a big blender gotchi here with this selection tool as you hit w a few times you will notice that your selection tool begins to toggle through different selection types this is a very problematic area of blender to change this click and hold the select icon to go down to box select throughout the entire course we're going to use box drag selection so go ahead and set that now if you haven't done also already and just remember that if you hit W too many times this is going to automatically change and not be box track selection anymore and in the next chapter I'll share with you a way of locking the selection with the add-on that we're going to talk about that's going to make all of this a lot simpler so how do we simplify the grns hotkeys the way I like to work and the way most people end up following along with me is by using the lazy viewport add-on this is an add-on that we made that is free to use I'll show you how to install this after this example you'll see what this does is after I enable the lazyviewport add-on my gr and S hockeys now are working with the viewport tools the same viewport tools that we used during The Minecraft Project for me and then thousands of people I've heard from about this add-on this makes it drastically easier to use the GRS hotkeys as they are much more visual they are way less Technical and then we don't really have to predict which access we want to be on with the XYZ hotkeys so how do you start working with the lazyviewport add-on in Step number six click the downloads again in the description and then right next to where we downloaded the blender hockey cheat sheet we have our lazy viewport button click that and it's going to route you over to GitHub which is where the add-on is located and then from there we have a green button at the top right click that and then click select download zip once you have that downloaded right click and extract the file then go back into blender go to the edit menu and go all the way down to preferences in our preferences we want to select add-ons in the left side of the panel then we're going to click install then we just navigate to our lazy viewport file that we just extracted we do not want the zip file we want the dot py file so navigating to that directory file and you'll see the python file which is in our add-on and then select it and then click install from here we need to enable it simply search The Lazy viewport using the search menu then click enable if you're not seeing anything after you use the search results you may have attempted to install the zip file so be sure to install the extracted dot py file now if you're already used to the built-in XYZ hotkeys you're not obligated to use the lazy viewport at all both methods work just fine there's no right or wrong way to move things around in blender however if you are new to blender and specifically if you were coming from The Minecraft Project I highly advise you to download The Lazy viewport and take on full advantage of it the default XYZ snapping hotkeys tend to be very very problematic for beginners in the lazy viewport on the other hand makes it a much smoother process now the final step is our practice round just like if I were to teach you how to do a push-up it doesn't magically make you strong you have to practice at it to get strong right click on your Cube duplicate objects hit escape to drop it just like we did in Minecraft hit G to move it over then hit R to rotate it and then hit s to scale it and then a very special note here for the scale tool we're only going to use the white handle the white handles what we're primarily going to be using throughout the course I'll repeat that again right click duplicate object hit escape to drop it g to move it over R to rotate it around and then s to scale it on the white handle now you want to do this drill 5 to 10 times yes that sounds tedious but is much less painful than struggling the rest of the way throughout the course the key to learning 3D software early on is repetition knowing this information doesn't help you if you cannot effectively apply it efficiently and being able to move with these hotkeys effectively and efficiently along with other tools is crucial for you to access moving forward so get your five to ten practice tries in and we'll continue in the next chapter the goal for this chapter is to get to know edit mode by clicking on the object mode drop down menu so what is the difference between object mode and then edit mode object mode is going to be for doing basic things like layout and animation and lighting edit mode is where we enter the world of 3D polygon modeling for example in this project for the sword we'll turn a cube into a blade and then we're going to turn a cylinder into the guard and then we're going to use another cylinder to create the handle and then another cylinder to then create the pommel for step number one we want to practice jumping in and out of edit mode in object mode using the tab hockey I'll start an object mode then first we need to Define our selection I'll select one of my cubes and I'm going to hit the tab hotkey on my keyboard which will automatically switch us from object mode into edit mode and then back again into object mode I'll hit tab to jump back out into object mode then I'll select another object I'll hit tab again to then go into edit mode and then you want to repeat this process over and over at least five times tab into edit mode tap out to object mode and then select another one tab into edit mode then tab back out to object mode now a really big blender trap to fall into is attempting to select other objects while you're in edit mode be sure to bring your eyes back to the video for this one once you're in edit mode you're in edit mode for one object you can only select sections of that object now and you cannot select any other objects until you jump back out to object mode very tricky and continue practicing now as you jump in and out of object mode and edit mode you'll notice that there starts to be a lot of stuff that changes inside a blender so let's break it down exactly what's changing here and why for starters on the left we have our modeling toolbar and we're going to be learning a lot about these as we go then at the top here we'll also have our modeling menu which we'll be diving to more in a bit as well for now all we need to know is that our viewport tools and menus are now changing whenever we toggle back before between object mode and edit mode so we can only do things in one mode or the other in edit mode the three most important items to get to know first is our edit mode selections at the top left right next store it says edit mode we have three different selection modes for vertices edges and faces so what are our vertex edges and faces with any 3D object that we're going to be working with generally speaking it's going to be made up of polygons and a polygon is made up of four different verts four different edges and then one polygon face this is our vertex Edge and face selection mode and for step number two we're going to use the edit mode selection tools to begin modifying our mesh after I'm in edit mode on one of my cubes I'll jump into verse selection mode by hitting number one on my keyboard we can also select these with our Mouse but get some practice then using the hotkeys and now you'll notice that once we select our move tool we can select each individual vertex and move it individually so play around with vertex a bit and then for step number three we're gonna have our edges so hit the number two key on my keyboard to jump in Edge mode we'll select any edges and then we can start to move those as well very very very easy and then for step number four we'll jump into face selection mode by hitting number three on the keyboard and then from here we can select each individual a polygon face and then move those as well very very easy so go ahead and play around with the selection for a bit and we're going to get to know some modeling operations in the next chapter our goal for these next few chapters is to get to know the most common edit mode tools and we're going to start building the sword after these couple chapters so this is your chance to get dirty and make mistakes we're just going to practice a couple tools and with these edit mode tools the number one problem I see from beginners and this was a huge problem I had as well was not understanding the difference between destructive and non-destructive workflows in 3D doing basic move rotate and scale operations this is a non-destructive workflow meaning no matter how much we distort the original mesh we can always get back to the original mesh by resetting it to its default values this is a non-destructive workflow we can always go back in time and with destructive workflows they are the complete opposite very similar to cutting a piece of paper with some scissors once we cut it that's it it's done we can't magically uncut the piece of paper this is a destructive workflow and most of the tools that we use in edit mode are going to be a destructive workflow which as a beginner can be very problem dramatic as every action that we do is completely dependent on the action that we do before it making it a very linear process so a simple workflow that we can do to help with this is number one navigating to position number two select the mesh number three select the edit mode tool number four perform the action number five undo if necessary and number six repeat all of these steps and the key process here is that number five undo if we need to because once we repeat these steps over and over and over we can very quickly get to a point of no return and then the undo button of course will not save us then so how do we apply this before we get going let's both reset our scenes so we're both working on the same page go to the file menu go to the new and then select the general preset to jump into a new scene go ahead and hit don't save and now we'll get going so first let's try the extrude tool so step number one I'm going to navigate into position I'm going to select my default Cube that I'm going to go up to the view menu hit frame selected or you can hit the number pad period key to jump into place and we want to be using frame selected a lot as we work then I'll orbit around so we can clearly see the top of our mesh now the reason why this step is so important is that because if you're looking at this object from a distance it's very similar to cutting a piece of paper with a tiny pair of scissors which is very difficult and very unnecessary and so step number two we're going to select the mesh I'll jump into edit mode by hitting tab I'm going to jump into face selection mode by hitting three then I'm going to select the top polygon of our default Cube great and now that was step number two selecting our mesh and now for step number three we need to select our edit mode tool in this case our extrude tool which is the very first modeling operation on the left modeling edit mode toolbar then as soon as we select that we see that we get a new handle this new handle is how we move on to step number four which is perform the action whenever we enable this tool nothing has happened yet and so to be able to extrude this we're just going to click and drag upwards on this handle now we can see editing this mesh is like working with a normal sized pair of Scissors because these modeling operations happen in our screen space the bigger our editing area is the more control we have and we're going to practice doing this a couple different times extrude once extrude twice now as you work what you want to do is continue to navigate into place and we're primarily going to use a shift and middle Mouse button to these micro navigation movements number two our selection is already made number three our edit mode tool is already selected as well so that we can jump straight to perform the action so click and drag and then navigate into place click and drag navigate into place continue to do this a few more times to get that practice in then we'll do another selection by selecting the side face to extrude that out sideways I'll select the polygon face get into position and then continue to extrude that out now as I work you'll notice I'm constantly navigating into position before and after every single action every single every single action that I do I get closer and closer to my working area so that I'm not working with those tiny scissors and I got more control great and we'll continue with our practice round in the next chapter great now we'll do this again and this time we're going to use our inset tool for stem number one we'll just navigate into place we'll get comfortable in our viewport now's a good time to go ahead and go up to your view menu and then select frame selected again or hit or hit the period key on your notepad orbit around to get into perspective and then step number two we need to set the selection which is already done for us at this point and then step number three we need to select the edit mode tool so I'm going to select my inset tool which is directly under my extrude tool then as soon as we do we see that we get a new circular shaped handle now before I perform this action I want you to pay very close attention and bring your eyes back to the video now on this handle I'm going to click and drag now while I'm still dragging this while I'm still in drag mode I have all the control I want to to be able to move this wherever I want but then as soon as I let it go the operation is then performed just like cutting a piece of paper we want to be very patient and slow with these operations so that we get them just right and then I'll let go of my mouse to complete that action and then now we're going to go ahead and practice stepping 5 which is undoing this so I'm going to go up to my edit menu hit the undo button and there we go now we can redo this but if we were to continue on with this we may not be able to get back that far now we can perform that action again I'll click and drag on my handle being very patient as I get into place releasing to confirm that action great now I'm going to switch back to my extrude tool and extrude this inwards I'll select the extrude tool which is directly above the inset tool once again and then I'm going to click and drag on that handle to extrude that in and as you can see here with just these two tools alone we can start to create some very complex shapes and then the next tool we're going to get to know is the merge tool so first I'll select my select tool and now we'll deactivate the extrude tool that we were currently on so step number one I'm going to get into position I'm going to rotate around and get on the side of our extrusions then step number two we need to do our selection I'm going to jump into vert selection mode by hitting number one on my keyboard and then I'm going to select the one of the vertices and then I'm going to use the shift on my keyboard to select the second vertices Direct next to it now in this case step number three which is select the edit mode tool and step number four which is perform the action or the same button so I'm going to go up to my mesh menu I'm going to go down to merge and then I'm going to choose merge at Center and then after we hit that button we should then see that our vertices are now one vertices this is our merge tool we don't have much control over it just kind of does what it does now try the merge tool one more time but instead of using the minimum we're going to use a hotkey I'll select the bottom right here and then I'm going to use a shift on my keyboard to select the second vertices directly next to it and then we're going to use the hockey M to jump into our merge menu and then there we see our menu merge at Center just like we did before and the next tool is our Loop cut tool what this does is it adds a new Edge that wraps around the existing edges on your surface use Ctrl R to activate your Loop cut hover your mouse over to find an edge Center this step is a bit tricky as you have your mouse around you'll notice that this can be a bit hard to find the preview Edge starts to jump around a bit so bring your mouse back to the very center of an edge to stabilize it once you find it click to enter the loop cut slide then immediately hit escape to drop it which will create a new Loop cut and then directly in the middle of the two edges there are other ways to use this Loop cut tool as well but for this complete beginner's course we're going to keep it very simple and that's the only way we're going to use it throughout the entire course and we'll continue in the next chapter our goal right now is to transform a cube into the very tip of the blade using edit mode and the very first step to do that is to block in a low res version of the mesh then we're going to add details in as we go for step number one we're going to reset the scene be sure to do this now this new file is going to be the one that we're going to carry through through the remainder of the course and we want to start fresh here so that we're both going to be on the same page and then step number two I'm going to set the initial vet scale values for the tip of the blade I'm going to start with the default Cube I'll select that I'll jump into my object properties then our scale values to value of 0.231 and then 0.06 and that is going to be our scale X Y and Z then after you apply those values what we should start to see now is we have a rectangular shape and how did I get these values these are all from when I prep the lecture normally I would eye this up in the viewport but let's both start here so we're setting this ourselves up for our success then step number three we need to add more resolution to the mesh I'll hit tab to jump into editor mode then you'll notice that everything is selected by default the first time we jump into edit mode that's what we want if yours isn't selected go up to the select menu in the very top select all then continue in edit mode I'm going to right click on our top option and hit the subdivide button click that and what you should then see is that we now have more edges to work with which makes this as a destructive workflow so that we can modify it in edit mode then step number four we're going to use our merge tool and we're going to do so with the help of the same modeling workflow we did on our practice rounds so step number one we're going to navigate into place I'll go up to the view menu I'll hit frame selected while I have everything selected on my mesh so super important that we do this now these next few chapters we're going to be working very closely in the mesh and we want greater control and again we don't want to be working with that tiny pair of scissors then afterwards super close step number three we need to select our mesh for our working area I'm going to hit one on my keyboard to jump into vert selection mode and I'm going to box drag select the very tip of the cube and note here I have nine verts selected I'm going to rotate around to confirm that I got them all and a very special note here the vertices that we've selected should be on the negative y-axis which basically means the green handle that does not have the y letter on the 3D axis should be pointing towards us not away from us and the reason why is that's just going to help us stay on the same page throughout the course and then step number three and step number four select the tool and perform the action with our merge tool is it going to be the same action again M hotkey to get our merge menu and then I'm going to choose merge at Center and then what you do you should start to see that we now have a tip starting to happen we're starting to get it somewhere now we're going to repeat this for the side I'm going to select three different parts this time on the side making sure I've deselected the original selection hit M and then merge at Center then I'll select the three more in the back hit M merger Center great and now we have one side done and starting to feel like a blade I'm going to rotate around to the other side select the reverts M for merge Center then repeat once more for the back and a super very special note here we're not going to merge these verts all the way in the back here in the back Center we're going to use that for the thickness great and that was our merge tool block it in the low poly version of the blade and this is how we usually start modeling starting low resolution then slowly layering details onto the mesh as we work towards the final result and we'll continue in the next chapter our goal now is to set up blender's backup system as you move forward you're going to be making a lot of mistakes and you're going to need to redo sections this is how we all start as beginners so step number one let's set up our blender project directory on your computer makeup directory called CG Fast Track and we'll throw everything inside of there then inside of there save your sword into a sword Dublin file inside a blender inside of that directory then you'll want to create a downloads folder as well and throw all the downloadable content from this course inside of that directory this will help you stay a bit more organized blender often works with relative pass meaning later on when we make connection to textures this becomes much much more forgiving and then we can move our CG Fast Track directory around our hard drive with more flexibility so how do we get backups going sub number two you want to make sure that your auto save is on I'll go up to my edit menu I'll go down to preferences then down to save and load and we want to make sure that auto save checkbox is turned on and what this will do for us is every two minutes it'll automatically save our file this is most useful if blender accidentally crashes on us then we recover our Auto saves under the file menu then recover then we have recover auto save very very very useful flash session is also useful this opens the last date of your blender blender file whenever you quit out blender last time and then step number three we need our save versions all we need to do is set the save versions here to a value of 20. and what this is going to do is automatically make incremental backups of our blender file each and every time we hit our manual save file helps us when we make a mistake and say our bevel tool for example goes into chaos mode and you can always get to a backup where that issue wasn't present and this really works well because with the CG FasTrack format where we break everything down into bite-sized chapters so worst case scenario you only have a few minutes to redo rather than a three hour course now opening these backup files are a bit tricky so step number four let's practice opening these up go ahead and save your file with save as if you need to and then hit save a few times and each time we do that we'll get a new backup snapshot going and we can open these up if we go into our file open menu but the problem is here whenever we look at this we don't actually see them by default so what's going on here we need to adjust our file filters and then we need to turn on dot blend files now we should start to see that each and every time we save we can now open these back up in our file open Button very very easily all right and once you have your backup system going we'll continue in the next chapter our goal right now is to take the block in of our blade and add in a center Groove using our bevel tool and for step number one what I'm going to do is just rotate the viewport around so I can easily see the the base of my blade that's just going to allow us to make the selection a little bit easier and then step number two we just need to make the selection so I'm going to hit 2 to go into Edge mode on my keyboard and then I'm going to select the center edge right here and now we want to do is select all the way around the back so I'm going to shift select this back two edges right here and then I'm going to shift select that bottom one right there so now we have a total of four edges selected and just to note here I do not have the tip selected so we do not want to have the tip selected right here once we have those four edges selected I'm going to jump into my bevel tool but before we try this on the blade bring your eyes back to the video there's a couple blender traps to check out first so let's go over the do's and don'ts of the bevel tool number one being overly aggressive a little bit goes a very long way number two being zoomed out this also makes the tool work more aggressively number three dragging on the handle in the wrong direction makes it unstable and then number four accidentally clicking on the bevel tool twice you only want to touch this once and what we do want to do is number one be very gentle number two drag in the direction of the handle regardless of the direction of the handle looks like it's going the wrong way drag in the direction it's going anyway okay now it's your turn and after we have our edges selected and we've selected the bevel tool and we want to be very gentle with this and I'm just going to click and drag on that and I'm roughly going to go about 30 percent of the way yours does not have to be perfect it doesn't have to match mine exactly but somewhere in that ballpark should be good and then step number four we need to add a loop cut directly down the center of the mesh I'll hit Ctrl R to enter the loop cut mode I'm going to hover my mouse over to find the center of the edge and then once I find it I'm going to click once but now instead of dragging and dropping it what I'm going to do is hit the Escape key on my keyboard and what this is going to do is drop it perfectly into place at the center of the mesh so Escape mid Loop cut drops it at the center very good and then for step number five I'll scale this inward I'll hit s to jump into my scale tool and then super special note here we're only going to be scaling on the blue handle downward and then after we have that scaled inwards we'll see that we now have our groove blocked in at this point it's a good idea just to rotate around look at the top look at the bottom make sure that everything's looking good and then after that we'll go ahead and start adding some more details in the next chapter at this point in our model if it's something feels off something is missing so our goal right now is to add in a slight roundness to the edge to add a bit of realism into our blade we're going to do this with the help of our subdivision surface modifier our sub D modeling workflow and step number one is to add in our subdivision surface modifier we'll go to our modifier panel the wrench icon we'll go up to add modifier and then in the second column all the way to the bottom the fifth one from the bottom we're going to choose subdivision surface and then once you click that what you'll see that is now we get our cage mesh we have our cage mesh and we have our final subdivided mesh so now we are officially in sub D modeling mode and then step number two we'll set our sub D settings the first one is levels and viewport and we're going to want to change that to B2 and what that's going to do is just guarantee us that our viewport which is what we're looking at right now is going to be the same as our render and we'll talk more about rendering in a bit and that's basically just so we don't get any unpredictable results later on in the second setting we want to get to know is our modifier display settings over here and by default we can see the modifier in edit mode object mode and rendered mode we are going to turn off visibility and edit mode the second icon to the left disable that and it'll turn gray and then we can see we can no longer see it in our viewport while we're in edit mode if we want to see the the final mesh we can Tab out back into object mode so we can tab back and forth to see our cage mesh and to see our final subdivided mesh why are we doing this this is going to allow us to be able to to see it a little bit easier after you get used to sub D modeling you can go ahead and turn that back on and play around with that now we have one more problem that we're seeing here and that is the surface of it feels rough it doesn't really feel smooth yet so in Step number three we're going to fix that with our shade smooth setting so do that we need to be in object mode this does not work in edit mode so once you're in object mode we'll right click on the object and then we'll go to shade smooth which is all the way at the top shade smooth and then we'll see all of a sudden we got a very smooth surface going now obviously this isn't looking good at this point this is what we want it's a little too round at this point so we'll go ahead and start fixing that in the next chapter our goal now is to fix the cage mesh so that our subdivision modifier can function correctly for step number one we need to delete the entire back faces while I'm in object mode I'm going to select my blade and hit tab to jump into edit mode I'm going to hit 3 to jump into face selection mode and now we need to select the back faces I'll jump into my select tool I'll select one of the backs faces and then I will shift-click the remaining of the back faces great and then once we have all them selected we can then perform or delete so I'll hit X on my keyboard to jump into the delete menu then we'll choose delete faces then once we have that you'll notice that if you jump back out into object mode you'll notice that the back Edge is now fixed we have our cage mesh fixed for that area but the rest of it is still too smooth so how do we fix that for step number two we need to add some resolution to our mesh I'll jump back into edit mode by hitting Tab and currently we are too low poly this isn't enough polygons for our subdivision modifier to work correctly I'll go to my select menu I'll do select auth very top option and then after we have the entire selected I'm going to right click and then choose subdivide the very top option just like we did it when we blocked in the blade once you have that if you start to tab in and out of object mode in edit mode you'll start to see the matches now holding its shape a lot more this is what we're after but it's still not enough it still feels too round so how do we solve this there are a few different ways we're going to get into in this course to be able to do this such as Edge creases and there's also holding edges which is adding more Loop Cuts but we're going to keep things super basic for this example for step number three we have a basic solution for this problem which is our simple smoothing in our subdivision modifier I'll go back to my subdivision modifier that'll change the option from camel Clark over to simple so what is all this doing very similar to when we right click and subdivided our mesh and edit mode this simply adds more resolution to our mesh without adding a smoothing operation now the question you might be asking is why wouldn't we just do another subdivision in our edit mode this is because our subdivision modifier is non-destructive which means we can always just adjust this later on as we continue and extend our mesh out to be its full length and so step number four we need to add a new subdivision modifier to get our smoothing back I'm going to go to my ADD modifier go to the second column and then the fifth one to the bottom we're going to choose subdivision surface modifier again I'm going to add that and then for my values I'm going to see here I'm going to disable visibility and edit mode then I'm going to turn the levels in both the viewport and rendered mode to one and one and then I'm going to leave the camel Clark setting on which of course is just a fancy word for smoothing the object now if I tab back out into object mode we should now see that our blade is starting to feel a lot more hard surface this is starting to feel like what we want okay so that's a wrap for this chapter but a few bonus tips here we can control how sharp this is by controlling the first subdivision modifier I'm going to leave off with a value of 2 but if I lower this to a value of one you'll notice that the tip becomes rounder and if I raise this up to three it gets sharper it's because we have more resolution for our subdivision modifier to work now for rendering purposes I'm going to leave off with a value of two this is so that later on in the course the light will catch the Edge a little bit better and although that's not as realistic it's going to feel a lot more realistic in the end and we'll continue in the next chapter the goal now is to extend the blade to its full length for step number one we need to make our selection which is the back edges of our blade an object mode I'll select my blade I hit tab to jump into edit mode again then I'll hit two on my keyboard to jump into Edge selection mode first I'm going to show you what not to do so bring your eyes back to the video for this one in blender if you try to perform a selection from the wrong angle you might accidentally miss a selection blender's 3D viewport by default only selects what is visible it doesn't select through an object okay now it's your turn so rotate your 3D view around and dig it into position and then box drag select the entire back edge of the blade and then rotate around and just make sure you have everything selected and then for step number two we need to do our Extrusion I'm going to select my Extrusion tool and now we have another blender got you here so bring your eyes back again to the video if I quickly make an extrusion you'll notice that I get this magic little pop-up panel at the bottom left of my 3D view this is our last action operator panel this is historically problematic because if you click anywhere or activate any tool you immediately after doing this the man who disappears it goes away and it's hard to get back The Last Action operator panel is only displayed in your last action and if you click anything or activate another tool that is technically another action in blender so I'll undo my Extrusion and now it's your turn I'll click and drag to perform the Extrusion now before clicking anywhere you want to go down and find your last action operator panel then click to expand it and if you accidentally don't get this just go ahead and undo out of the Extrusion and do it again and here we can perform some additional settings to The Last Action that we just did in this case I'll set the move to 4.8 in the z-axis then the default value of 0 in both X and Y now where did I get the value of 4.8 those are NRL for my when I prep the lecture this will make a little bit more sense in a couple chapters then there we go so now we should now see that we have the full length of the blade and if I tab back out in object mode the subdivision settings that are all non-destructive are automatically applied to that new part of the mesh and we're all set and we'll continue the next chapter the goal now is to add a slight taper effect to the blade so it's going to be wider at the base and then Slimmer at the tip for step number one we need to add a simple deformer modifier while I'm still in object mode I'm going to go to my modifiers panel select add modifier and then in the third column about halfway down we have the simple deformer modifier and then after that you should start to see something starting to happen to the mesh so what's going on in Step number two we need to apply our settings first I'm going to collapse the first two subdivision modifiers to make a bit more space to work then we have our third simple deformer modifier that's going to be expanded first I'm going to disable visibility and edit mode on the simple deform modifier so that we can easily see the cage mesh if we go back to edit mode then I'm going to select the taper operation and then I'm going to select the y-axis we need the y-axis because if we see the top left of the 3D view this is the direction that the blade is going so that's the direction that we wanted a deformity to go now to test this out if we click and drag on the factor setting going left and right we can start to see that the taper effect has started to be expanded and contracted depending on the values that we set here I'm going to manually set this to a value of 0.35 and the factor that's just going to give a very very very slight tapering effect and a special updating note from our frequently asked questions if your taper effect is getting smaller at the base this happens because technically your blade is rotated in a different direction as mine so if you're having this issue rotate the blade 180 degrees then hit apply rotation this should fix the taper Direction issue a special note here you only want to do this if the taper direction is going the wrong way now back to the video now technically this is making our blade bigger overall which is not what we want we wanted the tip to taper in not the base to be expanded out so we can compensate for this with the scaling operation and so step number three we need to adjust the scale of our object I'm going to go back to my object properties panel making sure my blade is still selected then in scale X I'm going to scale this down to a value of 0.18 and by scaling this down overall the blade is still going to be the same width it's just getting a little bit smaller towards the tip and that was tapering the blade and we'll continue in the next chapter our goal right now is to block in the rest of the mesh objects using the Primitive shapes and then in the future chapters we'll begin modeling and shaping them out for step number one I'm going to create our cylinder primitive shape first we'll go to our object mode and then we'll go over to our add menu and then we'll find the sub menu which is mesh a quick tip here the add menu is technically available in both object and edit mode but since we're creating an entirely new object we want to make sure that we're in object mode and not edit mode before creating these new objects in our mesh sub new we'll find a lot of different primitive shapes that we can start to work with these are generally speaking how we're going to start our modeling process with one of these primitive shapes then we'll go down a cylinder this is what we'll be using for the remaining shapes for step number two immediately after clicking the cylinder before doing anything else we want to go to our last action operator panel this is going to be labeled add cylinder if you do not see this panel it's most likely because you perform some action you click something and it disappear this is a very common thing to have happen so if you need to get this back you can always use the hotkey F9 or you can just delete the cylinder and create it again just know that you don't want to click anything if you want to access this menu after you perform an action we can expand the operator panel by clicking on it and there we'll see all the default values that create our cylinder we want to change the vertices to a value of 10. so why are we changing this to a value of 10. this is going to make our cylinder a bit more low polygon generally speaking while we're modeling we want to start low poly and then add details onto it which would then will become our higher resolution polygon mesh and then our final step in here we want to change the cap fill Type To None this will give us an empty space at the top of our cylinder which we're not going to use later on down the road so we'll go ahead and get rid of that now now we need to move the cylinder into position for the guard I'll go over back over to my object properties and then under location y values we're going to use the value of 5.82 and then we're going to rotate it 90 degrees in the x value in this special note here if your blade is not going in the right direction the solution for that is to rotate the sword 180 degrees in the z-axis and then I'll set the scale x to 0.275 the scale y to 0.13 and then scale Z to 0.1 so where am I getting all these values again this is all from when I prep the lecture usually I would just eye this up in the viewport but to help us stay on the same page let's manually set these numbers so that all the parameters and everything will sync up down the road now before we move on this is a very good time for us to frame selected since we have our guard in place so that'll bring us super close and be ready to work and then this object will eventually become our guard and then for step number three we're going to duplicate the cylinder a couple different times and then set the value for the handle the Pomo base and the Pomo tip I'm going to right click duplicate objects hit escape to drop it and then while my duplicate is still selected I can easily set my values then I'll set my location y value to 6.54 and then my scale values to 0.12 0.12 and 0.62 and then we just repeat this process over and over so bonus tip here if you want to be able to jump through these settings quickly while you have your parameter selected you can easily jump to the next parameter by hitting your tab key on your hotkey and if I move in too fast for you here I'll have all the scale values on my screen at the end of the chapter for you to easily check them next we're going to need the base of the Pummel so I'll right click and duplicate objects one more time then while my duplicate is still selected I'm going to set my location y value to 7.3 and then my scale values to 0.095 and then 0.095 once more and then 0.15 for the last scale and then that's going to end up being the base of our pommel and then now we need one more and that's going to be the Pomo tip so right click duplicate objects set my location y to 7.58 and then the scale values to 0.13 0.13 and 0.13 and then one curveball setting our rotation X on the last one we're going to set to a value of zero because that's going to be pointing straight up and that was a lot to digest here so I'm going to then display all my value use for every single object on my screen and you want to have all these the closest perfect as possible as this is going to be setting this up for the remainder of the course and then we'll continue in the next chapter the goal now is to bring in our reference image and we're going to use the quad view to help model out the guard step number one be sure to grab the downloads links down below the video then put those inside of your project directory that we set up earlier then step number two we're going to bring in the reference image I'll go up to my file menu then we'll go down to append this append button is how we import other blender files into our current blender file after we hit a pen we should then see project directory and then we want to navigate to our downloads directory and then make sure you have everything extracted blender doesn't work with zip files and then we're going to jump into our sword reference.blend file once I dive into that we are now actually technically inside of that blender file and we can grab specific objects I'll navigate to collections we'll talk more about collections in a bit and then we'll see our sword reference that's what we want I'll select that and I'm going to hit append so what's happening here we don't see anything different just yet and that's going to bring us to step number three which is setting up our quad view I'll go up to the view menu and then the last option at the very bottom area Sub menu which then will choose toggle quad view then what we should then see after we hit that button is that blender now has four different views inside of the one 3D view now this can all be here very intimidating at first so let's break this down the bottom two views we're going to completely ignore we're not going to be using them for this example in our top right we have our 3D view the same view that we have been working with then our top left view we have our top orthographic view so we're looking at the objects from top down in this perspective and orthographic is just a fancy word that we use for viewing things without three-dimensional perspective in that top orthographic view we can navigate around using our navigation tools I'll shift middle Mouse button click and drag around just like the normal 3D view to pan around and then we can also zoom in and out use the middle Mouse scroll just like we did in our 3D view the only difference here now is that we can actually orbit in the top orthographic view because this is only two dimensional we cannot orbit around okay but as we navigate around we can still see that the reference image it's still hard to see this brings us to step number four which is setting up our wireframe mode at the top right of my 3D view our 3D view menu same place to our object in edit mode is we want to go all the way to the right until we find our viewport shading options and a quick bonus tip here if you do not see this menu you may need to Middle Mouse scroll back and forth while your mouse is hovering over it and this technique that I'm using is compatible with any area in blender so if you need to scroll in the top tabs and then middle Mouse scroll in the properties panels or the outliner you can basically scroll on any blender menu so what is our viewport shading menu by default we are on the solid view that's what we currently have and that's what we currently see and on the left we have our wireframe mode we're going to turn on the wireframe mode and we'll talk about what the other two options are in the later in the course now after turning on wireframe mode we now see that we can see through the object this is our wireframe mode so you can think of this as tracing through a piece of paper very simple and another bonus tip here on your future projects if you want to bring in your own reference you can do so with the add menu then the image Sub menu and then click on reference note that we're not going to do this now because ours is already set up for us why did I already set this one up for us just to make it a little bit simpler so that we're guaranteed to both be working with the same values as we move forward with the project and that was our wireframe shading mode and we'll go ahead and continue in the next chapter the goal now is to extrude out the guard using our Extrusion tool and in this chapter we're going to start with blocking in the extrusions first reminder to do a manual save starting with this chapter just in case we need to open up a backup this is where we're starting to get to you might want to redo a couple chapters here and there now for step number one we're going to navigate into place first I'm going to zoom out I'm going to make sure that I'm in object mode and I'm going to select my little tiny guard cylinder right above my blade and then we're going to snap to this I'm going to go up to my view menu and then we're going to go down to frame selected but this time we're going to choose the frame selected with our quad view which will snap all of our quad views into place now is the perfect time to be doing the frame selector because we're going to be working with the guard for the next several chapters then before we do anything else in our top orthographic view we just want to zoom out a little bit so that we can see just the left side of the Guard we don't need to see the right one we're going to end up mirroring this to the other side in a couple chapters then step number two we're going to make our selection I'll hit tab to go into edit mode while my guard is selected I'm going to hit 3 to jump into my face selection mode and then I'm going to orbit around and select the side face a special note here while we're in wireframe it's a bit hard to see the faces but we have these little tiny Dots here in the middle of each polygon we want to select that and then we'll get the highlighted face for the side then step number three we're going to do our horizontal extrusions now this is the distance we want to go one Extrusion to match the first vertical Edge then another Extrusion to match the second Edge whenever we're extruding horizontally we want to match the vertical edges whenever we're extruding vertically we want to match the horizontal edges I'm going to select my Extrusion tool and then I'm going to extrude out now after I get into position immediately after I'm going to hit the g hot key to jump into my move tool then tweak from here a common habit that we all all have when we first start is that we want to keep tweaking but then use the Extrusion tool to tweak which will of course create more extrusions so we want to get in the habit extrude out hit the move tool and then tweak from there and I'm only using the horizontal move tool the red axis here then I'll jump back into my Extrusion tool to do the second one I'll extrude out and then immediately jump into G to do the final tweaks and then tweak it on the right Axis and then that was our horizontal Extrusion so now we have step number four which is to do our vertical extrusions I'll start by selecting my extrusion's bottom face with face selection mode on and now I'm going to be lining up the first one to the left Edge and then the second one to the right Edge this one is a little tricky I'll grab my extrude tool again extrude down to match the first one on the left hit G to do any tweaks only move it on the green axis to do the vertical movement and then do my extrude tool again extrude out to match the bottom one hit G to do any tweaks and there we go and once we have the vertical extrusions now step number five we're going to do our final Extrusion there's one Extrusion left I'm going to select the side face on my new Extrusion extrude that out all the way hit G to tweak if needed and there we go that's going to be our block in for our Extrusion now of course this is looking super blocky so we'll continue matching the reference in the next chapter the goal now is to move our verts into position matching the reference I'll start by hitting one on my keyboard to jump into first selection mode now for this chapter I want you to keep your eyes on the video and watch this technique I'm going to use the steps and context of the buttons and software is fairly straightforward but it's the technique that's going to make this simpler and so first I'll show you what not to do what not to do number one is Select individual vertices just with a single click if you do that you'll immediately notice that as you move that you start to get a triangular shape in your wireframe mode this means that we did not select the back side so each and every time we select here we always always want to be doing box track selection that is how we avoid this issue the second one not to do is moving things one section at a time this is going to lead to a lot of dents in your mesh and this is a hard surface mesh so we want to be as precise in the way we move things around as possible when I undo out of all of that now here's the technique that we want to be doing and remember to keep your eyes on the video for this one I'm going to select each row vertically first then I'm going to move the entire row vertically into place then after that I get the top vert into place I'll then deselect and then select the bottom three so I'm going to be working with the whole row at first and then working my way down that'll match up the second one then I'll deselect then I'll repeat them for the two lining up in this case on the bottom one and then I take that exact concept and bring it to the next row so I'll select the entire row match the top Edge and super special note here again this is our cage mesh so you'll notice here that my mesh is actually slightly bigger than what I referenced this here so that way when we apply our subdivision later it'll collapse and hold its shape a little bit better I'll deselect those select three more move that out now I'm going to be matching the horizontal Edge to the right I'll deselect that again select two of them then move it up matching The Edge again then select the bottom one continuing to use box drag selection as I move it up then we have the last two on the end so I'll select them line them up and then select the bottom and then just move it up vertically so I'm going to be focusing on moving things one directional as much as possible and then just a general note after you have everything blocked in these two areas are going to be the most problematic these are going to be your toughest ones to do that is because these three verts on each side need to be perfectly sharp but I've built these things 10 plus times now so I'm going to be making it look easy for you you might get halfway through and want to start this thing completely over and that's totally fine and a reminder if you ever need to get your backups go to the file open menu go to your filters select backup.blend and then you can get your backup there and then you can just sort by date go back a few minutes ago and then try again no big deal and that's that and then we'll continue in the next chapter our goal for this chapter is to taper the side of the Guard right now you can see it feels very blocky and square and we're going to taper it in and make it a bit sharper and we're going to do so with the help of proportional editing a normal edit looks like this we only move what we currently have selected but with proportional editing it acts that the mesh is rubber and sticky and it'll move everything around your currently selected vertices for step number one we want to get out of quad view we will not be using this for quite some time and we want our edit mode tools as we use them to have as much screen space as possible and then we're done with wireframe mode as well so I'll switch back to my solid View and we're ready to get working then for step number two we're going to apply a proportional editing I'll navigate around to find the tip of the mesh I'm going to hit three on my keyboard to jump into face selection mode and then I'll select the very tip of the Guard once we have that selected we can then activate proportional editing which is the circular shaped icon at the top of the center of our viewport once we have the activity you'll notice nothing really changes at first but from here what we're going to do is hit s on the keyboard to jump into the scale tool and then scale down on the blue axis and now you will see that a lot more of the Guard is now going to be start to be affected by this the closer it is the more it's getting affected and the further away the vertices are the less it gets affected and that's it we just bring it down just a little bit and then we're good to go and that's it for this chapter and as a bonus if we want to go into our last operator panel we can adjust how much is being affected if we click and drag on the proportional size we are now affecting more or less mesh based on the distance that we set so the higher the value the more it's going to affect further away vertices the default value is a value of one which is perfectly fine for this example and there we go we'll continue in the next chapter the goal for this chapter is to mirror the left side of the Guard over to the right side and we're going to do this with the help of the mirror modifier for step number one we're going to make sure to turn off proportional editing accidentally forgetting to turn this off is a very very common mistake that we all do and I saw this a lot in the in the original release so be sure to keep an eye on that we'll turn that off for now step number two is to delete the second half of the Guard I'll get into positions so that we can work a little easier I hit three on the keyboard to jump into face selection mode and then I'm going to box drag select all five of the polygons on the right side of the Guard so we should only have five selected total then I'll orbit around to make sure that we have them selected I'll hit X and then we're going to select delete faces once you do that we should then have only half the guard and we're ready for the mirror modifier First Step number three We'll add the mirror modifier first I'll go down to my blue wrench icon and then we'll go to add modifier and then in the second column towards the middle we'll find our mirror modifier and then once you see that we should now see that we have the second half of the Guard done automatically and the great thing about this is the modifier system is non-destructive right so any edits that we do to the left side from here on out will automatically be applied to the right side pretty awesome a few bonus tips generally speaking the mirror modifier is fairly straightforward a few tips it'll mirror based off the wherever the origin is which is this orange dot in the center of our object and then the only attributes in this that I usually tweak are going to be the axis attributes by default this value should work for us but sometimes I find myself changing from X to Y to Z depending on the original layout of my model we'll leave everything the default values and we have two chapters left with the guard the problem we're trying to solve in this chapter is where this big empty space in the middle of our guard and we're going to solve it with the help of our Bridge Edge Loop tool for step number one we're going to jump into local view by going up to the view menu and then down to local View and then we're going to do toggle local View and what this is going to do is allow us to isolate one object at a time and that's basically just going to give us a little bit more space for us to work and then we can always get out of local view by going back up to that same button and then step number two we need to fill in the center of the guard and we're going to do that with the help of the bridge and loot Edge Loops tool I'll jump into edger selection mode by hitting two and then I'm going to shift select the bottom two edges then in that same order I'll select the top two edges note that we need to select these in order so whatever edges you selected first on the bottom we also need to select that edge first at the top giving us a total of four selected edges then I'll go up to the edge menu and then I'll select Bridge Edge Loops that's going to be the third button from the top and what this is going to do is connect the two rows filling and the polygon faces needed for our holding edges which is coming up in the next chapter great and then step number three we simply just repeat this process for the other side I'm going to orbit around and get into position and then we'll deselect by clicking anywhere off of the object I'll shift select the top two edges then in same order I'll shift select the bottom two edges then I'll go up to our Edge menu again then Bridge Edge loops and then that's going to be the third button from the top great and then once we have that we're all ready to go I'll do a quick orbit around to make sure that's all looking good and we'll go ahead and finish the guard in the next chapter the goal now is to take our base guard mesh and smooth it using our subdivision modifier and we're going to do so with the help of our Edge creases tool and what Edge creases do is allow us to control the smoothing operation that happens within our subdivision modifier for step number one we'll add our subdivision modifier I'll make sure that I'm in object mode by hitting tab I'll make sure my guard is selected and then in the modifiers panel add modifier then the second column fifth one to the bottom will select subdivision surface and we'll set the similar default values that we've been working with we're going to disable visibility in edit mode then we're going to set the levels of the viewport and the render to a value of three usually I don't go much higher than two with our subdivisions but since our mesh is very low res we're going to start with the value of three here double notice the guard looks rough so we'll fix that with our shade smooth while we're in object mode right click shade smooth all the way at the top and super special note we need to be in object mode to be able to perform the section it's happening on the object level then for step number two we need to make our Edge selection for our Edge creases I'll hit tab to jump into edit mode I hit two to jump into Edge selection mode and then I'm going to go to my select menu and then select the very first option at the top and then after you hit that we should then see everything is then highlighted now before we apply our Edge creases we need to deselect eight of the edges that are on the cylinder note that we want the edges we do not want the curved part and what we do not want to do is while we have everything selected single click on this first Edge to deselect it this will make everything else become deactivated we want to immediately shift-click to deactivate the first Edge and then continue on with the rest of the edges and then shift select the second and then I'm going to go over all the way around shift selecting two on each side until we have a total of eight deselected again we want the ones on the sides those are going to be creased those are going to be hard and the ones that we're deselecting are going to be smooth then once we have our selection step number three we need to perform our Edge crease I'll go up to my Edge menu down in the middle I'll select Edge crease now this is a two-step operation so as soon as you click on this don't click on anything after you do this after you click on edge crease you'll notice that in the top left of your viewport there's a crease value you want to move your mouse up without clicking on anything until you see the value start to rise and keep going up until you see a value of one then once you see that reach a value of one click anywhere on your 3D view to confirm that action now if you've done that in the 3D view our edges should now look bright pinkish purplish that is how we know our edges are creased and after we see that if we tap out to object mode so we can see our subdivision modifier we can now see that it's keeping its shape around those edges and super special note here our cylinder is still round that's the key Point here the cylinders round but the edges are creased but something's wrong here something feels a bit bit weird and we noticed that there are some dents in the mesh overall doesn't feel quite right so step number four we're going to fix this by adding another subdivision modifier without the edge crease to be able to smooth this currently our edges are too sharp so I'm going to go up to my ADD modifier then second column fifth one to the bottom we'll select our subdivision surface modifier then after I add that to be able to make a bit more space to work I'm going to collapse my mirror collapse the first subdivision modifier then our default values that we're going to set here are going to be disabled visibility in edit mode then we're going to set the value to one and one now we're setting this lower because we already are doing three different subdivision values which is fairly high and we don't want to go much more than this if your computer's starting to slow down you can always go lower on that so instead of setting them to three you can set them to two now we still don't see much change here so what's happening here so we need to go into under the advanced menu in the second modifier and we're going to disable Edge creases and all of a sudden it starts to feel a lot better so what's happening here now the first subdivision modifier this is adding resolution and it's whole holding the edges and smoothing out the cylinder then the second subdivision modifier is ignoring those creases allowing the mesh to then be smooth and have a rounded finish which is what we want great now as we orbit around we just start to see the mesh starts to feel very nice starts to feel a lot more hard surface we shouldn't see any dents or anything it should look all very smooth and will continue in the next chapter our goal for these next few chapters is to model out the handle of our sword first we'll need to get out of local modes so that we can see all of our objects again I'll go up to the view menu and then about halfway down go to the local view Sub menu and then choose toggle local view the top option then after you click that you should see all of your meshes are back and we are ready to work we're going to be in object mode now it's object mode I'll select the handle then we'll go up to the view menu and then go down to frame selected this is where we're going to be working for the next few chapters and then for step number one we need to make our oval shape on the handle so while my handle is selected I'll hit s on my keyboard and then I'm going to scale down on my blue axis now an oval shape is fine here you don't have to have my exact values but to give you my exact values I'll go into my object properties then under the scale we're going to have 0.14.07 again it doesn't have to be exact but if you want to get the exact same result I have go ahead and set those values then for step number two we need to taper back on the handle so the top Edge is going to be wide and then it's going to taper down and get smaller towards the pommel I'll hit tab to go into edit mode then I'll hit 2 to enter Edge mode then I'm going to select one of those back edges and then I'm going to go up to my select menu then go down to select the loops and then select the top option select Edge loops and that'll just guarantee and make sure that we have the entire back Loop selected and then once we have that selected I'll go ahead and hit s to jump into my scale tool again then I'm going to scale it in on the red axis to match the width of the pommel and then after we have that scaled in we should start to now see that we have a taper effect happening larger on the guard smaller towards the Pummel then for step number three we need to add in our Loop cuts and then scale them in to block in the shape of the handle so while I'm still in edit mode I'm going to hit Ctrl R to enter Loop cut mode I'm going to hover my mouse over the center of the handle until I can find my preview Edge then click to enter the loop cut mode then hit escape to drop it on it and that's going to perfectly drop it into the center of the handle now we're going to repeat this but then this time in between the Center Loop cut and the guard when hit control R to enter Loop cut mode hover my mouse over to find the edge Center click on the edge to enter Loop cut mode hit escape to drop it and then there we go and then immediately we want to hit s on the keyboard to scale the same then this time we're going to use the white handle our uniform scale I'll scale that inwards to create that shape for the first grip we're creating a two-handed grip here for this giant gray sword then we repeat that again this time in between the center and the Pummel I hit Ctrl R to enter Loop cut mode hover my mouse over the edge find the preview Edge click to enter Loop cut mode hit escape to drop it to drop it in the center hit s to jump into my scale then scale it down with a white uniform scale and then that will be the second handle and there we go there we have our basic block in for our handle and we'll continue with this in the next chapter to finish off our handle we need to add in our Edge crease and our subdivision surface to smoothen it out and while I'm still in edit mode for step number one we'll make our selection which is the center edge when I hit two on my keyboard to jump into Edge selection mode I'm going to select one of the edges in the very center of the blade then I'll go up to my select menu select the loops and then select Edge loops and I'll just make sure we have everything selected on that Loop then after that we should see that we have the edge going all the way around selected then step number two we need to add in our Edge crease the same way we did it for the guard so go up to my Edge menu and I'll go about halfway down and then select Edge crease and then again immediately after don't click anything we need to move our Mouse upwards to increase the strength of the edge crease and you'll see that in the top left of your viewport move your mouse until you see the top left value reach the value of one or your edges have turned completely purple and after that we should then just click on our Mouse to drop that in now we should see that our edges are now purple in the center then for step number three we need to add in our subdivision surface modifier go to the wrench icon go to the modifier panel we'll select add modifiers then second column fifth one from the bottom select subdivision surface same workflow that we've been known and then I'll disable an edit mode and then I'm going to set both my viewport levels and my render levels to a value of two and that's that and then I'll just jump make sure I'm back in object mode to be able to see this and we can see of course the surface still looks bumpy so we need to shade smooth so I'll right click shade smooth all the way to the top and again to be able to shade smooth we need to do this in object mode not edit mode great and that's a wrap for the block end of the handle and we'll continue in the next chapter the goal for this chapter is add a tour shapes that will add the final details for our handle and so step number one we'll add our Taurus primitive shapes and whenever creating new objects generally speak we want to start back in object mode and then we'll go to our add menu we'll go to the mesh Sub menu and then we'll choose our Taurus shape and there we go at this end of the world will be our now giant Taurus so before clicking anywhere we now want to jump into our last action operator panel and friendly reminder if you don't see this uh you might have clicked off it already if you might performed another Last Action so to get about just select your tours and then hit F9 now I'm going to set my major segments to 20 minor segments to 10 minor radius to 0.15 and then I'm going to set my rotation value of x into 90 degrees so what what is all this stuff where did I get all those values from the major segments are just a fancy word for how many polygons going around the Taurus the minor segments are how many polygons go around the other way the thickness of the Taurus the minor radius is how round the torse is going to be not how big it is but how thick the overall shape is going to be and again the major segments and the miter segments these are more just to start a bit more low polygon and then we can always add more polygons in as we go and then the rotation of course just to get it the initial direction that we want to go and then our final step of this will just be our shade smooth so I'll right click and then we'll go to our shade smooth at the top of the right click menu and then that of course will again make it help it feel less polygonal and more smooth all right and then step number two is to set our location and scale settings I'll hit G and then use my move grab tool to move it down in a rough approximated area then I'm going to scale it down using S I'm going to start with the uniform scale and just get the width looking good and friendly reminder this is a good time for us to do our frame selected so that we can work a bit easier and then after I have my width set I'm going to go ahead and then grab the blue z-axis and then I'll start making the overall oval shape so it starts to wrap around the handle a bit tighter and super special note here we want the Taurus embedded into the handle now on top of the handle so half of the inner part of the torus is not going to be visible at all it's going to be inside the handle all right and then step number three is just to duplicate these and make out the other two Taurus shapes so I'll right click go to duplicate objects I'll hit escape to drop it in place and then again I'll move it down in a rough approximated area where that thickness of the handle is most thick I'll scale in a little bit as needed and then we'll duplicate one more time so right click duplicate objects escape to drop it and then I'll move it down to the base of the handle now for the final step we have a a minor shape to adjust at the bottom of our handle you'll notice where the handle meets the Pummel there's a gap and we want to scale up the handle so that it morphs from an oval shape into a circular shape so I'll select my Taurus and then I'll scale up with the blue access until I reach that circular shape that we're looking for next we'll need to scale up the handle so I'll select the handle jump back into edit mode now I'll need to select all the verts at the very base so I'll go ahead and jump back into wireframe mode so that I can do this selection a little bit easier again wireframe allows us to select through an object so we make sure we get everything then after I have my selection I'll jump back into solid mode I'll then scale it up with the blue z-axis until I meet that Taurus circular shape that we wanted great and then that's going to end up being a wrap for the hand also we'll go ahead and start working on the pommel in the next chapter foreign I'll start back in object mode I'll select my pommel base and then we'll go up to the view menu select frames selected to be able to get into position and work a little bit easier then for step number one we're going to add the subdivision modifier to smoothen it out I'll add the modifier then I'll go all the way down to subdivision modifier and then we'll use the same default values that we've been working with we'll turn display and edit mode off and then we'll set the levels within the V port to a value of two and then we'll right click shade smooth on the object and again that is all the same values that we've been working up into those point and then for step number two we're going to insert a loop cut directly in the middle of the cylinder and adjust it I'll jump back into edit mode I'm going to hit Ctrl R to enter Loop cut mode hover my mouse over to find the edge Center click on the edge to enter Loop cut mode hit escape to drop it and then there we go and then immediately we want to hit s on the keyboard to scale this in and then I'll scale inwards using the white handle or uniform scale and what we're after here is we're trying to get a little u-shape going adding a bit of a curve now for step number three we're going to add a star-shaped tip to this object to do so I'm going to jump invert selection mode by hitting one on the keyboard and then I'm going to shift select every other vertices on the very end of the cylinder so I'll shift select then I'll go around skipping in every other vert and then after I've completed the selection I'll orbit around and confirm that I have all the right points selected and then I'll scale inward with s using the white handle again our uniform scale now a quick bonus tip it's a bit hard to see at this point what we're doing we can't really see the star-shaped ending and we could go into wireframe mode but even then sometimes wireframe mode can be difficult to see as well to left a wireframe we have our x-ray view we can toggle this on and off I'm going to leave it on for now and now if I orbit around in my perspective view we can now see through objects and be able to make decisions a little bit easier and there we go now I can clearly say this is a good star-shaped tip and I'll just go back and turn off my x-ray View and I'll check everything out see how everything's going everything's looking good I'll make my final tweaks from here and then for step number four we'll duplicate the Taurus and then move it into place back into object mode I'll select a tour shape I'm going to right click duplicate object hit escape to drop it and then immediately hit my G to enter my move tool and then move it into place then after I have have that in a rough position I'll go ahead and start scaling in with s and I'm going to want this to be scaled down so it's covering the entire star shape tip and then once we have that that'll be a wrap for this chapter and we'll continue with the pommel in the next chapter our goal now is to model at the very tip of the pommel and we're going to start with blocking in the circular shape in the metal and friendly reminder to frame selected one last time during this modeling section if you haven't done so already we're going to need to have those Precision controls here for the final steps for step number one we need to scale the cylinder to match the very end of the base that we just modeled out we want it to match the Taurus so we're going to start an object mode so I'll jump into my scale tool I'll grab the blue z-axis and then I'll scale inwards to match the height maybe leaving it just a little tiny bit bigger and then for step number two we need to add in some Loop cut then I'm going to jump back to edit mode I'm going to hit Ctrl R to enter Loop cut mode then I'm going to insert one Loop cut directly in the middle so hover my mouse over to find the edge Center click on the edge to enter Loop cut mode hit escape to drop it right there in the middle and then we're going to add another one in between this new Loop cut and the top so I'll select right there to add my second Loop cut and then we do not want to do the bottom because we're going to delete those faces later to do the mirror modifier and then for step number three we need to add in a mesh fill to fill in the top of the cylinder so that we can then start modeling it out I'm going to hit W and then I'm going to click and drag on the top edge of the cylinder grabbing that top Edge there now we need to actually insert the mesh fill and we can do so by going up to the divert menu and then near the top we're going to go to New Edge from faces and vertices or you can just use the hotkey F to fill that in great and now we should see that we now have the new face directly in the middle of our cylinder and once we have that for step number four we need to actually shape this out using an inset and extrusions first I'm going to hit s for scale and then I'm going to scale inwards just a little bit not too much but just a little bit then from here I'm going to grab my inset tool I'm going to create one inset on the top so I'll click and drag on the handle to create that and now you can see that we now have a edge Loop going around the center there now we're going to extrude downwards so I'll grab my extrude tool and immediately after selecting the Extrusion tool we want to change our handle from the yellow handle which is our normal Extrusion tool to the XYZ handle which will give us three different axes to work with that we'll be using in the coming chapters I'll click and drag on the blue axis to create That Base shape and there we go now we have the shape blocked in but we need to add a little bit more to finish this off so we're going to go back to our inset tool I'm going to click on drag on that to create the interior so now we have another loop going around the center there and I'm going to do that a second time so now we're going to have two insets on this bottom interior and then while my second Edge while my second inset is still active I want to merge those together so we'll select the m hotkey to jump into our merge menu and then I'm going to select merge as Center and there we go now what that's going to do is just going to create us a triangle fan which is just the terminology we use to create to describe that where circular shape is connected by all triangles all right and now the bulk of the work is done and we're going to continue shaping this out in the next chapter our goal now is to delete the bottom half we're going to scale it into an oval shape and then we're going to extrude out the very tip of the pommel for step number one we're going to delete the bottom half so I'm going to jump into face selection mode by hitting three and then I'll rotate under the cylinder to get into view and then I'm going to box drag select the bottom half of the polygons and then once I got my selection confirmed I'm going to jump into X for delete and then select delete faces and then again we're going to mirror that over in the next chapter great now we're ready for step number two which is to shape out the tip into an oval shape now I want to jump back into object mode so I can scale the entire object together so when hit tab to jump in object mode I'm going to grab my scale tool by hitting s and then I'm going to scale up using the Y green axis and then I'm going to scale it up just to get a rough estimate of the oval shape matching the reference and for step number three we're going to extrude out the tip so I'm going to go back into edit mode I'll make sure I have my face selection on by hitting three on the keyboard and then I'm going to select the top two polygon faces I'll grab my extrude tool I'll use the green axis to extrude upwards then I'll jump into my scale tool by hitting s and then I'm going to scale inwards with the red x-axis and then our final step for this chapter step number four we're going to taper down the Extrusion I'm going to hit 2 on my keyboard to jump into Edge selection mode and then I'm going to shift select the two edges at the top of the Extrusion hit G for our move tool and then I'll go ahead and move the two edges down to create that taper effect great and there we go then before we wrap this up we'll just orbit around make sure everything is looking good and then we're going to finish off the Palm on the next chapter the goal now is to mirror the bottom half and then going to apply your subdivision and are holding edges to finish off the pommel for step number one I'm going to add the mirror modifier I'll select add modifier and then in the second column towards the middle we're going to select the mirror modifier now we can see that the default values this time are not exactly correct we don't actually see the mirror Happening by default the mirror access is set to X which is not what we want so we're going to change this from a value of x we're going to turn it off and then we're going to turn on the Z axis and there we go now we should see the bottom half of the pommel shown up and then for step number two we're going to add in our subdivision modifier I'll do add modifier select subdivision surface all the way at the bottom and then we're going to go ahead and set our default values here disable display in edit mode and then we're going to set the levels of viewport to two and then the last step here we're going to just select the object right click and then shade smooth to smoothen out the normals and don't forget we need to be in object mode to be able to shade smooth now if we take a look around we're going to notice is that we start to actually have a problem the tip of the pommel is now having this very weird black Edge to it what is happening here and so step number three we're going to fix this and we're going to talk about a few troubleshooting techniques and these things come up with your modeling and oftentimes they are not so obvious so a few tips to help troubleshoot these issues is that we want to try to remove all the variables as possible and reverse engineer what is happening so I'm going to do this by toggling off visibility of our modifiers because we weren't actually seeing this before we actually added the mirror in the subdivision the monitor icon in the modifier display can help us do that this is our viewport display we have edit mode which is what we've been using and then the monitor icon to the right of that is going to disable the visibility in the entire viewport so we can't see it in edit mode or object mode I'll try toggling the monitor icon for visibility in the viewport on the subdivision surface first and you can see it's still kind of sort of there then I'll try toggling off the monitor icon for the mirror modifier and then if we rotate around there we can now start to see see we still have that issue on the bottom we have some polygons on the back side of this from where we did our Extrusion before so these kind of things come up and that's a good way to kind of reverse engineer it and figure out what's happening there so I'll jump into edit mode I'll jump into face selection by hitting three I'll select the two polygons I'll hit X for delete and then I'll delete faces and there we go now the entire bottom half is deleted that I'll make sure my visibility for my mirror modifier is back on I'll make sure the mirror modifier or the subdivision modifier the monitor icon is on as well and there we go we'll continue in the next chapter the goal now is to add in Edge creases to turn our pommel into a hard surface mesh and step number one we'll make our selection so I'll go into Edge mode by adding two on my keyboard while I'm in edit mode then I'll start by selecting the six top edges that are around the Extrusion of the pommel I'll select one and then I'll shift select around all of them on top for a total of six edges then after that we have four more edges to select Each corner Edge going around I'm going to shift select the three visible edges from the exterior and then once I have those I'll have nine selected and then don't forget that we have one in the middle or over it around and then select that tenth Edge now we have 10 total edges selected now we need to select the loop so I'll go up to my select menu go down to select the loops and then select Edge loops and now we should see we now have all the edges going around we're ready to do our Edge crease so step number two we need to do our Edge crease I'll go up to the edge menu halfway down and I'll choose Edge creases and then once you click that of course don't click anywhere of course after that move your mouse while the tool is still active all the way up until you reach a value of one and you can see that at the top left of your viewport again once you have that click to confirm now we should see all of our edges have turned purple now we can go ahead and hit tab to jump back in object mode and now we should see that the mesh is now looking very hard surface and everything's looking great I'll rotate around see how that's looking and we'll continue in the next chapter our goal now to take our model from this grayscale look and create our materials and we're going to do so with the help of the shading tab now if you have struggled in the past with the shading tab no worries I remember what it felt like building my first Shader Network so we're going to really break things down moving forward for step number one we're going to go from the layout tab and we're going to open up the shading tab now for this next step you don't have to do this but for me to help with the recording I'm going to go ahead and expand the two sides so that we can focus on the 3D View and the Shader editor this is all we're going to be using for these next few chapters now this next step you will want to do and this will help us moving forward I'm going to frame selected on my guard I'll make sure that I'm in object mode I'm going to select the guard and then I'm going to go up to my view menu and then frame selected and then that's of course going to snap us to our guard and now we can go ahead and orbit around and now we're going to be able to select any of our objects very easily to be able to test things out and now for step number three we're going to set up the blade material I'm going to select the blade object in my 3D view now after you select your blade object you should see the Shader Network pop up and if you do not see this you may need to click the new button at the top of the Shader editor click that and you should be good to go if you already see these two nodes in our Shader editor you're good to go and now for step number four we're going to get to know the four material properties that we're going to be working with primarily throughout the rest of the course now we know about base color from our Minecraft Project right this is where we change the color of the material the next one we're going to get to know is the metallic property and we can adjust this by clicking and dragging on the parameter left and right the higher the value is the more metallic it's going to be and then the lower the value that is the less metallic it's going to be and then I'm going to leave this to a value of one for my for my metallic properties now we may not see much yet and this is because the metallic parameter Works alongside the roughness parameter which is the third parameter we're going to be using and if I click on drag all my roughness we can now see it start to move and you can start to see we can think of the the roughness parameter as how blurry the reflections are going to be so as I go go higher the reflections get more blurry that as I go lower the reflections are going to be a lot more clear and then I'm going to leave this on a value of somewhere around 0.1 so very low again that's 0.1 great and now we can orbit around and we can see that our blade is now feeling much much more believable it's feeling much much more metallic and then the last parameter we're going to get to know is the mission and we're going to get to know the emission a bit later when we start working on our runes and that's the initial setup and we're going to continue to build out our Network in the next chapter the question now becomes how do we go from a basic metallic Shader to our complex knit Shader network with all the scratches the gluing runes and all the fancy stuff happening our Shader Network right now looks something like this just two nodes very simple and by the time we're done we're going to end up with a much larger Shader Network which can be a bit intimidating at first so what is all this stuff and how do we get there and that brings us to our goal for this chapter which is demystifying Shader networks this chapter will be an explanation so sit back and relax and we'll get hands on again in the next chapter we can break down a Shader Network into three parts nodes properties and connections our nodes are similar to objects when we model they're just starting points for what we're creating our properties are how we modify those nodes so instead of edit mode for our objects while we're modeling we have parameters to adjust within our nodes then we have connections to be able to connect all of them together to do a lot of really creative stuff but the question then becomes what do we connect to what what works with what generally speaking we have three different categories when we're talking about different Shader nodes the first one is our output and that's going to be our easiest one all we need to know about the output nodes is that this is how we tell blender what node is going to be the last node within our Shader Network this is the node that connects to the actual object in our 3D view next we have our Shader nodes these are the nodes that have parameters for controlling things like color reflectivity whether or not it looks like metal whether or not it looks like glass these are our Shader properties the last category we have are Shader input nodes now what all can we do with our Shader input nodes the most important one is generally speaking is going to be the image texture node which is an image that we bring from outside of blender usually we get these from an online resource such as textures.com 3D textures.me polyhaven.com all of these are great resources to find image textures these are the two textures that we're going to be working with to build this Shader Network we have one for our scratches and then the other one to create the runes then we have our mapping nodes mapping nodes are how we control properties such as location and scale of that image texture that we bring in onto the object we can think of this as very similar to our move rotating scale tool that we used in our 3D view but the mapping nodes are for image textures within our Shader nodes then we have things like color ramps color amps are really good for taking image textures and then control and then controller whether how bright it is how dark it is and overall crunching the values then we have our mix RGB node which is very similar to our color ramp but this is good for combining textures it overall colorizing different textures then we have our texture coordinate nodes which I'll explain more in a bit in the next chapter all this is going to seem intimidating at first but just like modeling as we use these nodes over and over and over they'll slowly start to click and they're going to make a lot more sense and we'll start building this in the next chapter foreign scratches texture onto our blade and we're going to do so with the help of using image projections for step number one we're going to import our scratches texture and again downloads are below the video we'll jump into our textures folder and then we're going to locate our scratches image texture then while my blade is still selected I'll drag and drop the scratches image structure into my Shader editor and once I have that into my Shader I'm going to bypass the principle bstf and I'll click and drag on my color parameter and I'll drop that into my Surface parameter of my material output so I can see it in my 3D viewport on top of the object now we'll notice that the scratches on the blade look very stretched and sort of distorted so why is this happening and how do we fix it by default blender uses UVS to apply the image texture to the object UVS are usually done in the UV editing Tab and ours is currently broken so what are UVS similar to this chocolate wrapper UVS are a flat two-dimensional version of the object that we usually create in the UV editing tab now UVS are usually where a lot of beginners tend to hit a wall in and UV editing is a very important process to get to know but there's another way that's a little bit easier for us to get started and that's going to be using image projections image projections are way inside of our Shader editor without using the UV editing tab to be able to apply image textures to our objects using simple XYZ coordinates they won't work for every case but they are a good way for us to apply basic images to our 3D model and then we'll learn more about UV editing in a later course and for step number two we're going to create our nodes inside of our Shader editor I'm going to select the add menu and at the very top we're going to see our search option and we can search for all the new nodes that we're going to create using this toolbar I'll select search then I'm going to type in mapping to be able to find our mapping node once we see mapping show up I'll hit enter to confirm and then there we see we get the new node attached to our cursor and then I'm going to click next to the scratches images to the left to drop it into our Shader editor then we're going to repeat this process to create our texture coordinate node I'll go to my ADD menu I'll select search and then I'm going to type in texture coordinate and then once we see that show up I'll click enter to confirm and then I'll click just to the left of our mapping node to drop it in then for step number three we're going to make our connections we'll start with our texture coordinate node and we'll find our object parameter directly in the middle we'll click and drag this object parameter into our Vector input of our mapping node then I'm going to find my Vector output of the mapping node and then click and drag it into the vector input of our scratches image texture and if we look back at our object we'll notice that our stretching is now mostly gone great okay so what is all this stuff our texture coordinate node is how we tell blender what source we're going to apply the image structure to the object if you're using UV editing you simply use the UV output if you're using an image projection like we are now we're going to use the object output the other options are a bit more complicated that I generally never use so we'll skip over those and then step number four we need to set up our mapping node top of our mapping node we have our type we want to change this to a texture the second option to the top this just tells blender that all of the parameters are below that will be working with an image texture then we're going to set up scale value to a value of 3 and X Y and Z great and there we go now we see that our scratches are much much more visible now the scratches still aren't quite right they're still stretched a little bit and for step number five we need to apply scale on our blade object if our scale value is not uniform our object parameter on our texture coordinate node is also not going to be uniform it's going to be slightly stretched this is of course from when we scaled earlier with during the modeling process so to fix this I'll select my blade I'll go up to the object menu go down to apply and then I'm going to select apply scale and then after that we'll see that the scale values are all reset they're now going to they're now going to all be a value of one and now we'll see our texture is perfectly square and everything is good to go okay so all of that is going to feel like it's a bit hard to digest the first time you do that this is a lot of new information but generally speaking we only need to build this once and then for the next few chapters we're just going to duplicate and tweak these as we go it's the same setup for all of our shaders and we'll continue that and the next chapter our goal now is to take the scratches texture inside of our roughness and create some believability within our metallic blade Shader and we're going to do this with the help of the color ramp node and the color wrap node is going to give us a bit more control between our scratches and our roughness Shader to be able to control the blurriness of the reflections for step number one I'll create the color ramp node I'll go up to the add menu select search and then type in color ramp and note that this is all one word color ramp one word once I see that I'll hit enter to confirm and then the color ramp node is attached to my cursor I'll hover over in between my scratches image texture and my connection of my material output and you'll notice that connection then becomes highlight and then I can just click on that to automatically insert that color ramp node and now we should see that we have our scratches color output connected to the factor of our ramp and then the color ramp out color is then connected to this surface parameter node in our material output for step number two I'll adjust my color Ram settings I'll click and drag on the white values and then you'll notice that we can now start to adjust how much white values of this image that we're seeing this is sort of like a levels tool if you're coming from a Photoshop background now this is very important because this is how you control how much blurriness that we're going to see within a reflection now step number three is to play our color amp into our Shader input out color of our ramp into the roughness parameter then I'll drag the bsdf parameter from our principled Shader into the surface input of our material output now if I orbit around the 3D view we can start to see that we start to have some kind of scratches happening within the reflections but it's not enough and then step number four final tweaks move the white handle down then I'll drag the white value to the left a little bit and I'll do that until I start to notice that we get some roughness happening within our reflection this is very similar to when we adjusted the roughness parameter earlier in the Shader itself to make it more blurry but now we have the ability to do this with our scratches texture adding more white simply means we're pushing it more towards a value of one and a value of one means more roughness great and so this is where I'm going to leave off and you'll notice a little bit of tweaking goes a very long way it's very very common technique that I find myself doing to nearly all of my metallic shaders and we're going to continue building our shaders out in the next chapter the goal now is to duplicate our blade Shader down to the guard and we're going to implement a new image projection type called box projections for step number one I'm going to rename our material I'll make sure I have my blade selected I'll click where it says material materials are default name that blender gives us for our material highlight that and then change that to Blade great and now we're going to be ready to start duplicating this onto the guard I'll select my guard and then we should see the Shader editor goes blank I'll select my material browser and then I'm going to choose blade material so we're assigning the same material we're going to use it as a preset for this material great and now we're going to see in our viewport that the material is now assigned then I'll click the duplicate material button to the right of our material name three buttons over it's going to be the double stacked paper icon once we click that we can now see our material name was automatically renamed to blade.001 that's how we know the material has been duplicated and now all these edits that we're going to apply inside of this material is not going to be affected on the original blade material then I'll just rename this to guard and then we're ready to start Define our material now we notice that we have a problem the Shader doesn't appear to be working on the guard right the scratches are now broken they look stretched on the sides they look okay on the top and the bottom of the Guard but not on the side what is going on here well as we learned earlier our image projection setup works by projecting an image onto an object within our material as we can see in this demonstration that the sides of the checkerboard are stretched this is because it's a 2D image projection so what is going on here the default projection type within blender is a flat projection type meaning it only attempts to project from one angle this is a parameter on our image texture that we imported in blender and this works okay for our sword because our sword is a very two-dimensional object there isn't much depth happening here and we see the stretch running happening on the sphere object but we cannot see the stretching happening on the blade because again the blade is very flat and for the guard we're going to need a different projection type if we change our image projection type to box we can now project not from one angle but from three different angles which gives us a great solution for objects that have a lot more depth to them as we can see here flat breaks down on a three-dimensional sphere and the Box projection type is holding up just fine which is what we're going to be working with on our guard now as a quick bonus tip here the image texture node is a bit confusing because it has a bunch of different parameters but we only see the values and not the parameter name of which those values belong to which is terribly terribly confusing if we hover over our Mouse on any parameter or any tool within blender we will get the documentation for this so both the parameter name and the definition for that parameter which is incredibly useful and I use this a lot now I'm going to select where it says flat and then I'm going to change this parameter to box which is our box image projection type that will change the direction from one directional to three directional great and as soon as we apply that we should now see that there's no more stretching on the side of the Guard now it's still not quite right so step number four we need to apply our scale we'll go to my object properties and we can see that again we have a non-uniform scale which means our object parameter and our Tech extra coordinate node is also going to be non-uniform meaning it is going to be stretched so I'll just repeat the process we did in the last chapter I'll go up to the object menu down to apply and then I'm going to apply scale while I have my guard selected once we do that we can then go back to our object properties and now we should see that we have a scale value of 1 1 1 making our scale value now a uniform scale a scale that is consistent in X Y and Z and for step number five we'll adjust the base color parameter go inside my principled bstf I'll click on my base color parameter and then I should get my color wheel pop up the value I'm going to use is a value of 0.08 in the Hue 0.6 in the saturation and then 0.3 in the value again all these values came from when I prepped a lecture if you'd like to set these manually using the color wheel feel free but the end result is just a brownish goldish shade and then for our final step number six we'll adjust the scale of our mapping node as we can see that the size of the scratches on the guard make it feel a bit low res so we can change the scale values to a value of 2 on our mapping node and X Y and Z coordinates and there we go we should Mission now see that the scratch texture looks a lot more high resolution and then we'll continue working on our shaders in the next chapter our goal now is to build out the handle material and finish off the base materials for the sword for step number one we'll assign and duplicate our blade material onto the handle I'll start by selecting the handle I'll go to my material browser then I'll select the blade material then we should see our blade materials now signed on our handle in the 3D view then after that we need to duplicate and rename this material so I'll click the double stacked paper icon third button to the right of the name click that and once we see the new material name is blade.001 I'll then rename this to handle now we are free to customize this material without interfering with the original blade material then step number two we need to reset a few of the parameters that we are no longer going to use within the Shader I'm going to delete the image texture and the color ramp node first I'll select both of those then I'll hit X for delete then on our principled bsdf we're now going to set the metallic value back to a value of 0 to make it non-metallic then I'm going to bring the specular value down to a value of zero this will completely turn off the reflections from our Shader great and once we have that we're ready for step number three and that's going to be to bring in our leather cord to image texture and assign that I'll go back to the downloads the same downloads we've been working with and then I'll go into my textures directory and then locate the leather cord image texture I'll drag and drop that into my Shader and place it in between our mapping node and our principled bsdf I'll then connect the out Vector of our mapping node into the vector of our image texture then the out color of our image structure into the base color of our parameter of our principled bsdf and there we go now we should start to see that we're starting to get something happening on our material now for step number four we need to set up the rotation settings of our mapping node to orient the texture in the right direction but at this point when we look at these values which XYZ value on the rotation are we supposed to actually use and if you're looking at this and you think you have no idea that is perfectly normal before we do anything we first we just want to apply the scale and the rotation values in our object properties you'll see that the rotation value is currently set to 90 degrees and this is not inherently bad but it does make the rotation within our mapping node much much more confusing since we're now going to be trying to rotate on top of an already existing rotate value which is just terribly confusing so I'll select my handle I'll go back up to my object menu I'll go down to apply and then I'm going to apply rotation and just a general note here in this specific example we're going to apply rotation not apply scale like we've been using and there we go now our rotation values should be set all to a value of 0 and x y and z now we're going to do the same for this scale as well so we'll go up to object menu go back to apply and then apply scale and then once you do that we should now see that our scale value is now again a uniform scale one one one so we're not going to have any unwanted stretching happening now which rotation value do we want to adjust a good tip that I like to do in these cases and jump into my rotation tool inside of my 3D viewport here I can test out rotation and figure out which direction I want to go in this case you'll notice if I rotate using the blue handle I am now mimicking the direction I want my texture to rotate I'm going to undo out of that and then if we look up into our XYZ axis at the top right of our viewport we'll see that the blue axis is the z-axis so blue handle blue access and there we go we have our axis that we wanted to rotate which is the z-axis now if I click and drag on the z-axis of the mapping node we now start to rotate it around in that same direction we were in our viewport with our object so it's a much much more intuitive way of figuring out which direction we want to go with this then I'm going to set the z-axis to a value of 90 degrees exactly and there we go now we can see it's rotated in the right way and now we can set our scale values I'm going to move these back to a value of 1 and X Y and Z and that's it that's a wrap for our handle material and as a bonus tip we will be using the flat image projection again so in the guard we change this to box in this specific case we're going to leave it flat and the reason for this is although you'll notice on the spear looks stretched because the sphere has enough depth for us to see this but the handle is a much much more oval shape so it's much much flatter combine that along with the fact that the texture has a horizontal pattern this makes the perfect solution for creating a seamless pattern that's going to go all the way around the handle and then our final step number five we're just going to finish the base materials off by assigning the guard material to the remaining objects of the handle I'll start by selecting our Taurus object go to the material browser and then select guard material and we don't need to rename we do not need to duplicate we can just simply assign this and then we're done with these I'll repeat this for the remaining objects we have a total of six assignments that we have to do so I'll select another Taurus material browser select guard and then I'm just going to repeat this process for the remaining objects and then that's it that's going to be a wrap for our basement Heroes and next up we're going to get into the runes and we're going to continue that in the next chapter the goal now is to apply the runes to the blade and we're going to do so with the help of our emission parameter step number one needed duplicate our texture coordinate and our mapping node first I need to select my blade and jump into the Shader editor I'll select both of them our texture coordinate and our mapping node and then I'm going to go up to my node menu and then I'm going to select duplicate and once we hit duplicate then we'll see that we have two nodes attached to my cursor I'm going to move these down below and then click to drop them back into my Shader editor now step number two is to import the runes texture I'll go back to my downloads go into the textures directory and then we're going to locate the runes.jpg and then I'm just going to click and drag them into my Shader editor now for step number three we need to make our connection so I'm going to plug the Mappy nodes out Vector into the invector of the image texture node then I would take my runes out color and then I'm going to plug them into the emissions slot of the principled bstf Shader Now by default we may or may not be seeing anything and that's because we need to set the emission value to a value of one if it's set to a value of zero that means it's turned off so be sure to turn that on to Value one now for step number for we still do not quite see what we're expecting to see so I'm going to go through some steps on how I figure out on how to set my mapping values so keep your eyes on the video for a bit and then after I'll give you my values to make it a little bit easier on you first the object parameter in our texture coordinate node the zero location the zero rotation in the in the scale values start at the origin of the object so what is the origin of the object in the layout tab we'll see that we have a little orange dot on the object this is the origin is what blender thinks is the center of the object this is what the texture coordinate nodes object parameter starts at so this is a value of zero zero zero on the texture coordinate location node first I'm going to set the scale value so if I shift click and drag on the scale and move this in X and Y until I get something in the ballpark shift click and drag is how we move a parameter with Precision control next I'll need to disable the repeating texture I'm going to set this to clip so that we're only going to see one of them next I'll need to find the center I could easily move these values manually to figure out where it is but since this texture starts at this Center where the origin is I want my runes to be in the center so I can just offset this half of whatever my scale value is so these are all the values I ended up with my scale value is going to be a 0.1 and scale x value of 7 in scale Y and then and then Z doesn't technically do anything here so I'll just leave it at a value of one and then I'll do the location of being of negative 0.05 which is half of my scale X and there we go now it's all going to be centered and working with the Bobby node can take some time to get used to it can be a bit confusing at first but after you get some practice you'll you'll notice that eventually you'll start to feel like you have some control with this and that is our runes and we'll continue in the next chapter the goal now is to add the color and the bloom effect to our runes for stamp number one I'm going to boost the emission strength I'm going to set the value to a value of 100 which will make it very bright and easy to see but this doesn't quite feel right something's missing right and that's and that leads us to step number two which is to set up our render properties I'll go up to my render properties panel and we're going to turn on ambient inclusion In Bloom I'll start with the ambient occlusion settings I'll set the distances 2 and then the factor of 2 as well this is going to help exaggerate the contact shadows and that's going to be most visible where our blade connects with the guard just giving us a much more believable Shadow area then I'm going to turn on Bloom I'm going to turn my threshold to 5 and that's basically going to tell blender to only do the really hot areas which is which is just isolating our runes to be the only thing that's going to Glow then I'm going to change the radius to 5 as well it's going to lower so we don't get such a widespread glow and then I'm going to change the intensity value to value of 0.2 and that's just going to overall make the bloom a lot brighter and then for step number three we're we're going to set up the color using the mix RGB node back in our Shader editor I'll go up to the add menu and I'm going to use the search once again and then I'm going to search for mix RGB and for a general note here mix RGB is one word not two once I find that I'll enter to confirm then that's going to create the node it's going to attach it to my cursor and then I'm going to hover over the connection between our image texture and our emission parameter until I see the highlight and then once I do I'm going to click to drop it to automatically connect those up and now we should see our out color of our runes going into the color one of our mix RGB node and then the out color of our mix RGB going into our mission parameter of our principled bsdf Shader okay so what's happening here we lost our runes things are getting really bright how do we control this a bit better with the mix RGB node is currently doing is it's mixing between color one and color two if I click and drag on the factor parameter you'll see that we get more or less of the color to parameter being mixed in overall the color one is the main parameter and then color two is what gets put on top of color color 1 and we control how much of that with our Factor value the first value we're going to set set the factor to 1. so we're going to colorize the color 2 parameter I'm going to click on that and then we'll see a color wheel pop up and then if I just click and drag around on this you'll see that we start to colorize our glow that we're getting very simple I'm going to set my values manually and I'm going to use .03 in the Hue 1 in the saturation and then one in the value that's just going to make it a very vibrant orange color and now we want to bring the runes texture back into this currently we're overriding all that so go up to my mix parameter and then we'll see if we get a big list of stuff these are our blending modes and if you're coming from a Photoshop background or another image editor these might be very familiar for you if not that's okay the only two parameters that I really find myself using a lot is multiply and add in this case I'm going to use the multiply parameter so I'll change that to multiply now it's working we're getting our runes but what exactly is happening here and basically what multiply is doing for us is it's taking the black values from our roon image and using that to remove the orange values going into the emission and we'll get more into the mix RGB node a lot in the later courses I use this node a lot and that's going to be a wrap for our blade and we'll do the final Shader in the next chapter the goal now for the final chapter of our shaders is set up the pommel Shader for step number one we're just going to duplicate the pommel Shader I'll select my pommel I'll immediately duplicate it with the double stock paper icon and then I'm going to rename it to pommel so the base Shader is all set up for us and then for step number two we just need to copy the Rune nodes over I'm going to select my blade again and then I'm going to select the texture coordinate node and then shift select the mapping node and then multiply mix RGB node and then once we have those three nodes selected I'll go up to my node menu and then select copy and this will allow us to paste it over into the pommel Shader I'll select my pommel go to node menu then click paste then after that we should see that we have our three nodes set up and step number three we need to import the roon Solo image texture located in the downloads inside the textures directory I'll grab my Rune solo I'm going to drag and drop it into my Shader Network next I'm going to make those connections Mappy node into the vector of the image texture and then image texture color into the color one slot of our mix RGB multiply and I'll plug that mix RGB multiply it into the emission now we don't see anything just yet so what's going on here well step number four we we need to set up our parameters and I'm going to put my emission strength all the way up to value of 100 the same value that we used with our blade material and then we should start to see something but our mapping and our tiling and our repeats are not set up correctly so first I'll show you how I get these values and then after I'm done I'll share with you the exact the exact values again first I'm going to reset all my parameters to the default values on the mapping node 0 for location and rotation and then one for scale I'm going to disable the repeating texture set it by setting it to clip so we only see one and so now I'm going to adjust my location X and Y and so I can get those lined up and I'm using shift click and drag to be able to Precision control this and note here that I'm not trying to do the Z because this is a flat image projection not a box it's going to go right through the pommel and we're going to set this to negative 0.5 in location X and Y then scale for one in all directions now your values may end up being slightly different this is a very organic process small just discrepancies should be expected and now that's going to be arrived for the pommel Shader and the rest of her shaders for our sword time to check out what we're going to do in part three of the series but before that I encourage you to click the link in the description to learn more about our premium membership this is where you will unlock the blender track which is the ultimate beginner to Advanced transformation this is where you'll find the rest of the Fast Track Army leveling up and climbing the mountain of mastering blunder seeing everyone's progress every day is a huge motivator I hope to see your progress in the Discord then in part 3 we'll learn about geometry nodes and build the fire effects on the blade and build out the environment and will end with a bonus character integration and so stick it out with me and jump to part three right here on YouTube foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: CG Fast Track

Views: 306,639

Keywords: Blender Tutorial

Id: e3GCEEUnHPs

Length: 105min 8sec (6308 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 19 2022