Blender Tutorial For Beginners: Cloth Napkin

in this video I'll be demonstrating how to use blender to make this image of a cloth napkin draped over a glass cup for this video i'll be using blender version 2.6 8a before you start you should make sure that you have the cycles render engine to check this come over here to this drop-down menu and verify that one of the selections of cycles render if you don't have it then you can go to blender org to download the latest version of blender let's start by creating a new project so go to the file menu and select new and then click on reload startup file I'll expand this panel on the right by dragging the edge for people who are brand new to blender I'll quickly cover a few basics if you want to select an object then click your right mouse button on it for example this is the camera and I can select it by right-clicking on it this is a light source and I can select it by right clicking to rotate the view press and hold the middle mouse button while you drag the mouse if you press and hold the shift key and then press and hold the middle mouse button you can pan the view you can also zoom by using the scroll wheel on your mouse this is the default scene with a single cube object we don't need the cube so I'm going to delete it to do that right-click on the cube to select it then press the X key and then select delete by the way if you ever make a mistake and want to undo your last operation just press control Z now let's add a sphere in blender when you add an object it will be added at the location of the 3d cursor this symbol right here is the 3d cursor you can move the 3d cursor to a new location by clicking the left mouse button so to add the sphere click on the add menu and select mesh and then UV sphere let's zoom in to see this better remember to zoom you can use the scroll wheel next we're going to cut off the top of the sphere so that we can change it into a sin glass cup so click here and select edit mode then click here and select wireframe to make this easier to work with I'm going to switch to orthographic projection if you look here you can see that we're currently in perspective projection to switch to orthographic click on the View menu and select view perspective orthographic now if you look here you can see that we're in orthographic projection now let's view the sphere directly from the front so click on the View menu here we have selections for left-right back front bottom and top if you're interested in learning the hotkeys for these operations they are listed here on the right now I want to switch to front view so I'll click on front while in edit mode everything that is selected is highlighted with an orange color if you press the a key it will toggle between deselecting everything and selecting everything we want to deselect everything now we're going to select the top area of the sphere so press the B key this will allow us to select vertices by drawing a box around them so position the cursor about right here and then press and hold the left mouse button and draw a selection box around these vertices then release the button now press the X key to delete and then select vertices now we're going to flatten the bottom of the cup so press the B key and draw a selection box around these vertices then click on the scale button now press the z key to restrict the scaling operation to the z-axis then type 0 followed by the enter key now switch from wireframe to solid and also switch from edit mode to object mode if you rotate the view you'll notice that the top edge of the cup doesn't have any thickness so we're going to add a solidify modifier to do that click on the object modifiers button that looks like a wrench then click on add modifier and select solidify then set the thickness value 2.07 you can see that the top edge now has a thickness now we're going to smooth out the surface of the cup so we'll first shrink down the size of the flat faces that make up the surface and then apply smoothing so to shrink the flat faces we'll add a subdivision surface modifier so click on add modifier and select subdivision surface the view value sets the number of subdivisions for the view that you see here and the render value sets the number of subdivisions that will be used in the final render set both of these values to 2 now to finish smoothing the surface come over here and click on the smooth button now we can set the material for the cup so click on the material button right here and then click on the new button this is what the material panel looks like when using blender render we're going to use cycles render so come up here and click on this menu and then select cycles render now click on the use nodes button then click here to set the surface type and then select glass next we're going to create a surface for the cup to sit on so from the add menu select mesh and then plane let's make this bigger so click on the scale button then type 5 followed by the Enter key now switch to front view by clicking on the View menu and select front then grab the blue arrow and drag the plane down until it's just below the bottom of the cup now let's set the material for the plane so click on the new button I'm just going to keep the default values which are a diffused surface with a white color now is a good time to save what we have so far so from the file menu select save as here you can specify a directory and this is the file name I'm going to name this cloth dot blend blend is the extension that blender uses then click the save as blender file button now let's make the cloth napkin so from the add menu select mesh and then plane then click on the scale button and type three followed by the Enter key you can rotate the view to get a better look I'll also zoom out next rotate the plane by clicking on the rotate button then restrict the rotation to the z-axis by pressing the Z key then type 45 followed by the Enter key this will rotate it by 45 degrees now click on the rotate button again this time press the X key to restrict the rotation to the x axis then type 70 followed by the Enter key now we're going to position the napkin over the cup so switch to front view I'll Pan the view down some now drag the blue arrow up until the bottom of the napkin is just above the top of the cup now switch to the right side view by clicking on the View menu and select right then drag the green arrow until the bottom of the napkin is a little bit to the right side of the cup edge we're going to be doing a cloth simulation where the napkin will be falling and we want the bottom of the napkin to fall inside the cup I'll rotate the view so you can get a better view of what we have so far next we're going to set the material for the napkin so click on the new button for the surface type select glossy then enter a value of 1 for the roughness to set the color click here you can drag this little round cursor to choose a color I'm going to use a blue color this is the color that will be used for the final render you can also set a color for the current view by opening the settings section then click here and set a color the next thing that we need to do is to subdivide the napkins so that it will be able to bend like cloth so switch to edit mode by clicking down here make sure the whole napkin is selected by pressing the a key once or twice until the outline of the napkin turns orange then click on the subdivide button down here for the number of cuts enter a value of 50 and then press the Enter key now switch back to object mode now we're going to add some modifiers to the napkin so click on the object modifiers button will be adding three modifiers and the order that the modifiers occur is important to add the first modifier click on the add modifier button and select cloth will be setting the options for this modifier a little later then click the add modifier button again and select solidify this modifier will give our napkin of thickness I'm going to keep the default thickness value of point zero one then click the add modifiers button again to add the last modifier and this time select subdivision surface set both the view and render values to two this will help smooth out the surface of the napkin now come over here to the left and click on the smooth button now we're ready to set the options for the cloth modifier so click on the physics button if you don't see this button on the right you may need to expand the panel by dragging this edge here we have some cloth presets that we can choose from I'm going to select cotton then set the number of quality steps to 10 during the cloth simulation while the napkin is falling we want the napkin to interact with the cup and also with the surface that the cup is setting on so come down here and make sure that there is a check mark next to cloth collision then open this section and also place a checkmark next to self collisions so that the napkin will interact with itself now right-click on the cup to select it then click on the collision button this will allow the cup to interact with the napkin now do the same thing for the surface that the cup is sitting on first right click on it to select it then click on the collision button now we can start the cloth simulation I'm going to pan and zoom the view for a better look to start the simulation come down here and click on the play button during the simulation multiple images are being generated and we should see the napkin fall into the cup and also over the side down here is the timeline and this green line is the time cursor which shows the current frame number the current frame number is also shown here well I'm going to let this run just a little bit longer this looks good here so I'll stop the simulation by clicking on the pause button you can step back to previous frames by clicking here so I'm going to step through these until I find the image that I want to use you can also step forward by clicking here this looks good so I'm going to use this image the next thing that we need to do is to set up the light source so zoom out until you see the lamp and then right click on it to select it now switch to front view then drag the red arrow to Center the lamp over the cup then drag the blue arrow to move it down some now switch to right side view then drag the green arrow until the lamp is in front of the cup now let's set some options for the lamp so click on the object data button we're going to use the point lamp which is already selected I'm going to change the size to 5 then click on the use nodes button the strength value sets the intensity of the light you might want to experiment with this value but I'm going to set it to 2,000 now let's set the background color to do that click on the world button then click here to set the color I'm going to use black and so I'll move the slider all the way down to the bottom I'll rotate the view now so that I can see the scene better now I'd like this surface that the cup is sitting on to fade to black in the background to achieve this we just need to make the surface very big so right click on it to select it then click on the scale button and type 20 followed by the Enter key now let's set up the camera view start by going to the View menu and select camera this is the view looking through the camera and it's the view that you will see when the image is rendered I'm going to zoom in a little bit in order to be able to rotate and pan the view while looking through the camera we need to make a change to the view properties so click on the View menu and select properties then add a check next to lock camera to view then to hide this panel click on the View menu and select properties again now we can rotate zoom and pan the view while looking through the camera to position the view I'll start by zooming in now I'm going to rotate the view until the back edge of the surface that the cup is sitting on is within the camera's view then I'll pan the view to move the image into its final position now we're ready to render the image but I'm going to save the project first it's a good idea to save your project before rendering in case something goes wrong during the rendering process so from the file menu select save now click on the render button that looks like a camera for now keep all of the default values and just press the render button this is a quick render that will look grainy because it isn't rendered with very many samples but it's a good way to check our image if you want to switch back to the previous view click on this menu down here and select 3d view to return to the rendered image select UV image editor well everything looks good with this image so now we're ready to render the final image with more samples so come down here and open the sampling section this section is called integrator in some older versions of blender this value sets the number of render samples that would be used I'm going to increase the value to 2000 the larger this number is the better the final image will look but the longer it will take to render now let's render the final image so come back up here and click on the render button if you want to abort the rendering before it's finished then press the Escape key this image is going to take a while to render so I'll pause the video until it's done rendering is finished and this is the final image this took my computer about 21 minutes to render to save the image make sure that your cursor is over the image and press the f3 key specify a directory here and a file name here I'm going to name this image cloth PNG then press the save as image button well that concludes this video thanks for watching and please subscribe and leave a comment

Channel: tutor4u

Views: 1,407,954

Keywords: blender, cloth, napkin, glass, 3d, cycles, cycles render, blender version 2.68a, how to, tutorial, tutorials, 2.68a, tips, tricks, beginners

Id: 2zd1AI198I8

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 08 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Oscarfromparis]

Wow, great tutorial! But would adding ambient occlusion have done a difference in render ? Keep up the good work!

[u/Patriffery]

I have the newst version of blender but there is no glassy surface option. Any ideas why?