BLOCKBENCH for BEGINNERS - The Interface & All Basics

hello I am Arts by Kev are you ready to become a blockbench artist and learn how to use this 3D software to make models for Minecraft and other games then you will be happy to hear that it's very easy to get started and as if that wasn't enough I will also be holding your hand throughout this entire series my hopes are that I will be able to both showcase and also give you a lot of tips on our journey together if you open up a web browser and head to blockbench Donnet you will be greeted by this main page here we can choose to download blockbench and install it on our PC or we can open up the web app opening up the web app will take us to this blockbench editor and you can use the blockbench web app on any device that has a browser such as for example your phone and your tablet I am personally not the biggest fan of blockbench on my phone but I do sometimes use it when I'm out traveling at its very core blockbench is often referred to as a pixel art low poly 3D modeling software it is the most versatile software for creating Minecraft assets yes Mojang also work with blocken and I can guarantee it's safe to use with blockbench now installed or open in your browser we will Begin by getting ourselves acquainted with the interface and how to navigate in the 3D space for this exercise we will create a new product from the first product type in the list a generic product each project type comes with its own configurations and we will visit other projects in separate videos if you are insecure about what a project type is for all the information you need is listed when you click on it in the list if we click on a Java / block item project type we are presented with a different set of information relevant to making 3D items and blocks for Java Minecraft the generic format gives us the most creative Liberty over our 3D designs making it a great starting point when you begin learning blockbench so let's create a new model whenever you create a new project you will be greeted by this interface this box holds different information depending on what the project is for and in this case there is nothing we will immediately touch in this interface for now you can click on confirm cancel or the x button to close this window or simply outside of it welcome to the workspace first let's explore the viewport that is the big open field here in the middle we can rotate the camera of our viewports by clicking and holding the left Mouse button like this up and down we can move the camera of our viewports by clicking and holding our right Mouse button and do this you zoom in and out of the viewports by scroll scrolling on the scroll wheel I say viods because there is an option to enable more camera angles head to the view section up here click on split screens and here you can select to Show additional windows in your workspace such as this one as you notice I can zoom in and out in all of these different spaces and move them around to my own content I say try some of them out and see what fits you the best I will generally only work with a single view in order to keep things easy to follow and if you by any means happen to get stuck in a view only seeing the model from One Direction you can rightclick go down to angles and go up and click on initial angle that should bring it back to this view this can also be done if you go to the number pad on your keyboard and press one and that should have you covered with the basics next let's create our first cube in order to add new cubes we need to be working in the edit tab which we can tell by this underline and here on the sides we have panels the panels change depending on what tab you're in since each tab is for a different task you can also move these panels around and put them where you prefer to have them when you work I will leave mine like it is so that it matches the default settings when you open blockbench this panel down here is called the outliner it is where we find the list of all cubes bones and meshes that we have AC AC in this project and here in the menu Above This Square icon with a plus symbol is where we add new cubes to the 3D workspace let's create one as you notice the cube is now listed here in the outliner and it's here in our 3D viewport new cubes will always be created at the center of the grid you see here in the workspace this grid can be hidden by going to view and UNT taking the show grids checkbox and the same to show it again modeling is all about creating a pile of Cubes that looks like something when we are done to start modeling here's the tools panel by default we got a move a scale a rotate a pivot and a vertis snap tool first let's start out with the three basic ones with the move tool when you have selected a cube you get these three arrows hold and drag on one to move the cube in the direction that you're pulling the resize to tool or scale tool as I refer to it has these six lines with Cubes at the ends hold and drag on one of these to scale the cube from that side in the direction of your movement if you reach zero it will normally come to a stop if you go into settings under file preferences and settings snapping and selecting negative size you see that it says allow the resize tool to use negative sizes normally you do want to avoid using this but if you are looking to make inverted cubes this is the way to do it so I would normally recommend that you take this box and leave it active let's close that now if I take this side again and pull out and pull towards the screen you notice that it continues scaling on this end but wait if we zoom in it has this weird jittery surface to it that is because the cube has been inverted and if we look at the size of this Cube over here under the element X and Y are two 216 of a block thick and this axis is minus5 because it's scaling negatively from the central point and to get it back we need to pull on the same side that originally gave us that negative value so be careful when you're using this tool and to get back to this view again right click angles initial angle or press one on your number pad and then the rotate tool the rotate tool is signified by these circles as you notice there are thicker areas on the circles they are meant for us to grab onto and it is generally easier to click where it is thicker and then all you need to do is to hold and drag to rotate the cube in the direction of your movement let's say I've ended up with a Q block D and I don't know how to reset it there are a few ways to go about this the first one could be this element menu set the rotation to zero in all of these squares that has now returned our Cube to where it was but you can also go up into the edit tab click undo and as you notice next to undo and redo it also shows us the keyboard shortcuts contrl Z to undo and contrl Y to redo but if you undo and rotate it in a different way and then try to redo the previous redo is now gone since redo will only ever care about the things that took you to where you are right now so if you undo and then do something new from there that is now what you will be able to redo think around with that in a project like this one to get used to how it works so now when we have moved scaled and rotated a bit let's look at the pivot tool the pivot tool gives us what looks like the move tool but as opposed to the move tool this tool does not move the cube this moves the cubes pivot so hold on for a second what is a pivot the pivot is also known as the models origin especially if you since previously are familiar with other 3D softwares it is the very position where the 3D world thinks the cube is located you would maybe think that the center Mass would be where that was but this is digital 3D and here anything is possible if I would want my Pivot to instead be over here I will simply click and drag it to this position now in a sense this cube is located here but it's also here but the cube is actually connected to the world over here but there is a lot more to the pivot tool than you may understand at first glance and mastering the pivot position is the difference between a good and a great modeler see over here is a very important setting that I get asked about a lot and one that beginners must learn to use properly any modeler should get comfortable changing this over and over while they work to achieve different results this is known as the transform space and to try and describe briefly what it does before showing you you you can set it to local Global and Bone generally you only work with local and Global local space means that you only move the cube but not the pivot and we can tell because clicking on the pivot tool you will notice that it appears down here instead as opposed to where the cube is local space also means that when you rotate a cube you rotate around its own axis and as you may notice these circles change direction because I've been rotating the cube keep that in mind as we jump over to check out the global settings Global space means that when you move the cube you also move the pivot did you notice that something followed the cube as we moved it up let's take a look at the pivot tool ah it's connected at the bottom of our Cube which is the same position that it had in correlation to the cube before we moved it and Global space also means that when you rotate you rotate around the axis in this 3D space and not around the cubes axis so if I rotate the cube a little now you notice that this doesn't change and I now rotate according to what these coordinates say as opposed to what the Cube's actual directions are and if I go back into local mode on the rotation you notice that instead we follow the orientation of the cube I heavily recommend you spend some time testing and getting used to moving the pivot moving and rotating in the different spaces of local and Global when I made my first blockbench tutorial series back in 2020 the space was set to Global by default nowadays however it is set to local so keep that in mind when you're in the local space and you move a cube around and you then rotate it it may end up somewhere completely different to what you imagined this is why it's important to keep a track on where the pivot is located I recommend that you always double check your pivots on all of your cubes as you're moving them around and also that you at regular intervals double check whether you are working in a global or local space also be aware that local space can be applied to rotation while you're working in the global space on movement invite vice versa and mastering these tools will not only speed up your modeling process it will also make complex modeling a breeze down the lane and then there is the vertic snap tool the default setting for this tool is move and that is pretty much the only setting you will ever use for this tool but in order to Showcase properly what the vertic snap tool does I will first have to show you something else this is a different Cube we've made and if you want to create a cube directly at the same place and with the same size as another Cube you can simply duplicate it by selecting it in the viewport or by selecting it in the outliner panel by clicking on it right click and then duplicate now there should be two of these cubes in your workspace and you can also use the keyboard short command by holding down control and pressing D to then deselect any cubes left click anywhere where this empty space here in the outliner now is also a good time to mention that you can name your your cubes in the outliner that way they are easier to locate double click on the cube or right click and select rename then type the new name and when you are done simply press enter or simply just click elsewhere to apply the new name now this cube is known as name and this cube is known as cube another way to keep them separated is by right clicking on one of the cubes going down to mark color and changing it to a different color so that when we are working with our model we can tell them apart by these color codes of course when you have a bigger and more complex model you will still be better off making sure that you know what cube is what by having a good naming convention so this vertic snap tool is a very Nifty tool to know about in this scene I have two cubes I want to put the green one on top of my pink one if I select one of the cubes with the vertic snap tool you'll you will notice that we get these small dots at the corners of our Cube these are the vertice points of our Cube model and if this Cube had been created as a mesh using this tool instead as opposed to the add Cube one also only available for generic projects we could have clicked on one of these corners and pulled them to change the cube into something else but when using the vertic snap toll what we can do is to align a corner of one of the cubes with a corner of another Cube so first I need to select the model that I want to move by clicking on it then I will select the corner that I want to align with the corner of another Cube and I'm going to use the one here down at the very bottom you'll notice that I have a small Arrow next to my regular cursor now then I will click on the other Cube and select the corner I want my first Cube to move to so select the cube and then I want that corner to go to this corner and there we are now my cube is resting nicely on top of the other Cube this is an extra useful tool if you want to align a cube with something that is sitting at an angle in this case I could click on this bottom corner here click on this Cube and then select this corner instead now we get a nice and flush Outer Edge this thing right here is called C fighting it happens because these cubes are equally thick and blockbench and any other game this asset would be put into simply does not know which of these two cubes to render first in this area where they both exist at the same time to solve this issue we can add the inflate tool and that is done by going up to one of these toolbars where you see these three dots we'll select one here to the left and go to customize when clicking on it and in this search bar type inflate this is the inflate tool and we add it by clicking on it and as you notice it appears hidden it isn't actually hidden it's just that since we have no Cube selected there is nothing for us to inflate but the moment I select one of these cubes the inflate tool will appear up here in the top menu so selecting the green Cube we now see inflate here at the top and I can take inflate and Shrink this Cube by a tiny amount typing minus o 001 and then enter now this cube is just as slight bit tinier than the pink Cube below it so when we rotate around the pink Cube will always be the one that shows in this area and this is one of the best ways to solve the problem with SE fighting in a simple and fast way what is also great about inflate is that it doesn't damage our textures and that is a topic we will return to in the upcoming project videos you may also notice as I have selected this Cube called name that the pivot is located out here we can actually also move the pivot with the ver snap tool if you click on the pivot and then on any corner of your Cube it will snap under that corner just beware if I now want to select this corner of the cube that is going to be a bit of a hassle cuz the pivot and the vertice is in the same location making it very difficult for blockbench to tell which one to select for you when you click on them but that's an issue that can be resolved in a lot of different ways the fastest and simplest way is to just go into the pivot tool and and move it away from the corner now you can work with it freely again oh look at the time well luckily we've just covered the basics and from this moment on the fun awaits the biggest difference with this new tutorial series as opposed to the one I made back in 2020 is that now we will work on different projects and try to make these things together an example of such a project could be this adventure sign prop that is animated but I'm also thinking of models such as this one more intricate things where we need to think about the texture before we start working on the model itself oh and this this is the memory note for me to tell you that if this sounds interesting don't forget to leave a like And subscribe and I'll see you around in the next video

Channel: MoreByKev

Views: 42,495

Keywords: artsbykev, blockbench, tutorial, models, beginner blockbench, entity wizard, item wizard, minecraft live, artsbykev animation, blockbench tutorial video, minecraft 3d model, add mobs to minecraft, custom minecraft mod, make minecraft mod, blockbench for beginners, morebykev tutorial, morebykev is artsbykev, terashd, who taught terashd blockbench, how to become good at blockbench, become a minecraft marketplace partner, famous minecraft youtuber, blockbench 2023, blockbench 2024

Id: dsax5p4brN8

Length: 17min 5sec (1025 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 14 2023