Modelling a lightsaber with the free ND addon for Blender

greetings hobbyist this is artsand of all and in this video we're going to have a look at the ND add-on which is amazingly free so in this video I'm going to do a modeling example using the ND add-on I'm not going to be able to cover all of the functions here because there's a lot of them like more than 50 but this is an incredibly impressive tool set something akin to what you'd normally find on a paid for ad unlike hardops now I'm not saying it's got every function hardops has it really doesn't what it has got is absolutely amazing so let's start with where we can get this now now if you're using blender 4.1 you can get this from gumroad it is free all you do is type in zero and you'll get it free though I would suggest maybe adding an amount here to give some money to huge Menace whove obviously done a huge amount of work on this and then you'll install it as normal I'll also say I'm not doing a tutorial on this for every single function because they've got a really really good set of videos going through all the functions I'll put a link to the first one in the description of this video but honestly they're great now if you're use blender 4.2 it's even less effort than that go to edit and preferences come down to your extensions make sure you're on add-ons and just type in ND and then you'll have this now you'll have to click install it'll install itself and then you can click this tick box to activate it now while doing this there are a few settings that you probably want to look at now most of this will set up fine but I'm going to do a couple of things different I normally wouldn't do this but some of these shortcuts just don't work work for me and that is to use the fast menu which is just here and it sort of predicts what you're likely to be doing is normally just F now I have f as the Focus key for using machine tools so I've changed that to shift F and then you also want to do the same thing for object mode so you can use it in both I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with that shift F I might go for something like w cuz I don't really use the W key very much in the future but that's probably the one that you're going to want to look at is if you're going to do F the other thing is to bring up the whole menu is just shift and two and again that feels slightly long-winded but still it's definitely a benefit to have everything there where your left hand normally is so we're going to make a sort of lightsaber thing so I'm just going to delete that out you can see what I'm pressing in the bottom right hand corner and we're just going to start with actually tracing the outline of this now you don't have to start like this you could easily just do this with a normal shift and a and bring in some sort of shape but I'm going to press shift and F to bring up this predictive option and that will add things like add a cube or add a plane or if you want something more complex you've got other options here I'm going to click a single vertex and it's automatically gone into edit mode so I can just let's say extrude this out let's go to about there let's e and then Z that up so it's nice and flat we could also hold C control and just right click so up to you what you want to do but I'm just going to do something like I don't know there there and then there and then just to make sure these are all lined up I'm going to press alt and a and use the Align feature from machine now looking at this actually let's just G and Z that up so this is going to be the basic outline of My lightsaber and first thing we need to do is we need to actually sort this out because it's not going to be a manifold object so shift and F and it's predicted that we want to make this manifold there we go it's now a manifold object great let's go into object mode we've got this basic outline okay let's carry on with predictive let's see how well it can do do note that you've got shift and two if you want all of the menus here but let's shift and F and yep we want to add a screw modifier so let's add a screw modifier and you can see we get this menu now I can use this by moving left and right scrolling up and down and you can see that you've got several options here and a underneath tell you what you're going to be doing for example we can use an angle so it doesn't go all the way around we can do offsets affect the axes and things like that I'm not going to bother with any of these I just want to up my segments and I'm actually going to go for 256 and you'll notice I can just type that in because I'm working on the segments that will work and you can note that you can press X to reset I'm going to hit enter and we've got the started by lightsaber now if we want to we could come and edit some of these so let's go into vertex mode I am using machine tools for this I should also say that here we can see that this is added a modify and because we didn't use the offset we've kind of got this blank offset I kind of wish it' delete that but that's fine fine I'm guessing it's part of the function so let's go into vertex mode I'm actually going to hide this so we can just see this and I'm going to click that vertex let's shift and F and oh look we can bevel our vertex so I can change the width and if I want to change the segments this is one thing that I don't quite like I'd like to just be able to scroll up and it changes the segments whereas this is going to scroll up and change the width because it's on the width function but we do just click the alt button to then up our segments and then let go of it and it stops doing it and moves back to the width so it's just something to get used to I do like the fact that this doesn't have a lot of weird shortcuts they generally try to be the alt shift or control buttons it would be nice if there was a way and I don't know if there is you have to hold down alt to keep it on to alt or hold down control to keep it on profile it might be nice if there was a way just to press it once and then it stays on it and then you press shift to go back into width maybe you can do that in the options I need to have a look at that anyway click confirm let's do the same thing here so shift F we want to vertex bevel that one as well and again here's another thing that I'd like it would be cool if it kept with what the previous settings were that you just used and then if you pressed X it got rid of them that would be really nice but it doesn't at this point maybe that'll be something that will come so I'm just going to Al and then again up that 32 so really smooth probably smoother than we need and then we can just drag that to about there and then let's go into object mode and you can see that this has added bevel modifiers to our object so this is still a nondestructive workflow uh obviously probably should have said this in the beginning but I'm pretty sure that's what ND stands for so I can change the amount still if I want to on that vertex so this is all things that we can edit let's bring that screw modifier back so we've got our lightsaber now this might be not long enough so let's go into vertex mode just select those and then G and Z up so we've got that with a little bit more length not sure how long this needs to be we can fidd around with that and then let's add some detailing now we actually have quite a large panel here so let's just do something with that let's add a little bit of maybe an extra armor plate so we're just going to go to shift and F and we want to make a panel now this gets really cool let's have a look at this so panel you'll notice we've instantly gone into edit mode all of the modifiers have disappeared and I can't actually get to the modifier panel while I'm doing this but you'll notice they're all gone and they seem to have effectively taken effect we can still zoom in and out notice you can't use the scroll because well it might be used for something in the function so control and then move in and out and we can select all of these faces so I'm going to click there and then just control click round and go to somewhere about there don't know let's go go with that for now maybe I'll actually go a little bit further so let's shift and then control click to there and then I'm going to zoom out and we'll see what we're doing so I'm going to press space to confirm then I can change my offset now this is going to have a bit of a weird functionality you can see that here because of the last point so maybe I don't want to do this I'm just going to stick to there and then I'm going to press space again and we start adding some thickness so I'm going to go to about there I think so got that and now this is a new object and importantly if we come back to our main object you can see it didn't permanently apply those modifiers everything is still non-destructive so let's just s and Z that to make it not the entirety of the object I think this might be a little bit thick so let's change the thickness we'll go there you'll also notice that this does a thickness in both directions you can select options to change that but I really like that because for boing it's going to make sure that we've got an overlap which is always a useful thing so I'm quite happy with this though I think if we go from the top down that maybe this should have gone a bit further so let's shift an f and let's add in a mirror now notice if I hold over it it will say what we can do with the mirror and then we can control where some of these bits are so actually what I want to do is I want to make this work off of this object's origin so let's click shift click and then we're going to shift F and because I've got this object selected when I click mirror it's going to mirror it across the selected object so now we've got a mirror modifier here not a mirror modifier there so this is going to look much better it's going to be symmetrical well mirrored so we've got this outer shell let's make a bit more of an interesting shape so let's shift an F again let's add a single vert now that is going to be all the way down there so let's G to move that up and then do what I don't know let's do something at the top so let's just go there e to there let's put that in x-ray mode e to there and then shift F and then we're going to make manifold cool then we need to come to object mode shift and F let's solidify that in both directions good and then we can click shift click and then control and minus to add in a cut so that's going to be a bit more interesting so let's just come to that now because we've been doing this in ND if I come on this and press G you'll notice it has automatically parented that cutter to the object that was being cut so it means that I can move this up and down and it's less likely to cause some problems you'll also notice that it is added in a collection called utils and it says ball ND sketch and then we've got that modifier there so really quite useful that we can see that and if we get rid of that in something that's very reminiscent of hard Ops if I shift an f and click cycle I can cycle through the different utility functions and we think of a Boolean as a utility function to bring that back so I don't have to come up here and worry about what's what who we're doing very very well here huge Menace this is absolutely amazing so that's looking pretty good for now I want to have something around the bottom so let's do something a little bit more interesting here so I'm going to do a similar thing I'm going to press shift and F let's bring in a panel and then I'm going to select there to Let's in fact yeah I guess I can do it this way let's shift there let's control click to there and then once gain space don't want to change the offset space let's make it a bit thicker to about there but this is too thick so I'm just going to S and Zed to make that much smaller and then G and Zed to bring that down now let's add in a bit of detailing so I'm going to click and then I'm going to shift click shift and F and I want to have a circular array so we just Ed the basic function so want to array in a circular way now this actually just looks like it's a normal array but if I scroll up you can see we're creating a circular array oh look at that so we can either move left and right or scroll up and down now what's cool about this is that we don't have to do this all the way around as well if I hold down alt you'll notice that there is a let's come here and scroll scroll down so it's a bit clearer you'll notice that there is a angle function so if I hold down alt I can actually change how far this rotates around so let's go to there we want actually a minus 190 so I'm just going to type in minus 190 so we've got that there why am I typing 190 I'm mad 180 it's been a long day I apologize take my finger off of that and then I can change the count to something so let's go with there cool so we've got a little bit done there but we don't have it around all sides I think that's a little bit more interesting and again that circular array is just a great function now I think we want to cut a bit out of this maybe so let's just shift F I'm going to bring a cube move that to there let's s and Zed there and then let's have a look at where that is let's s and then X to make that bigger okay so we're going to make something a little bit more interesting here so let's go to there I think yep and then gain shift and F and I want to an array so we're going to have an array with a count of three notice this is going in that direction so let's just press a to change the axis to about there now the way this works I should explain this is this is going to do multiple arrays you can see we've automatically got three so it'll do it on every angle so let's just press a to go back to X and then we'd want one and then we're going to press a to go to zed and we want many more so so somewhere about there we've also got the offset which is currently set as two let's go one more so I'm going to hold down control drag that to about there let's have a look at that side on yeah that looks pretty good but again if it wasn't we can change this over here and we've got this all working off a relative amount now the other thing I should mention if I press shift and F now I can click array and it just goes back to modifying the original array it doesn't add more arrays or get confused I could also if I press D change this from relative to constant so if I go to constant and click okay notice it will do it for just one axis so at the moment I'm on the X I don't want that so let's a to get into the Zed we've got an offset of 1.85 if I press D it's going to change it to constant now I do need to start moving this with it so I'm going to have to control again and move this up I kind of wish it would automatically calculate where it was but again that's getting quite complex in function so there we go but what's great about this is it means I can have on one axis it to be constant on one axis it to be relative there's so much we can do with this right now let's do something else so we're going to shift there and I'm going to press shift and F and we're going to do a Boolean and again I haven't come off of this fast predictive method it's got everything I've wanted every single time I want to do an inser so at the moment we've got this inset going on and if I move backwards and forwards I can change the thickness of this now this is a little bit now this is a little bit laggy it isn't the end of the world I do think that hard Ops and box cutter is a bit less laggy than this so I just want to mention that um just because well at some point there's going to be some just generic comparison between these two add-ons and I might actually do a video on that if people are interested in it let's just click to confirm that and then we've got this so that's H to hide that we've got well just a bit more of an interesting texture okay what else do we need I think we need our version of a switch for this light saber in fact this looks a bit boring as well so let's just do something here so I'm going to shift an A and then I'm just going to bring in a cube so we can just do this normally and then that's s and then y or no X to bring it more in the X that's G to there s and Z to actually no let's go with that I think that looks okay I'm going to control and a to apply the scale and then just going to go to this edge here and let's shift an f and do a bevel here so I'm going to click Edge bevel and just drag that across and again we've got loads of options if we want to use them I can change this if I hold down alt to change the segments like I said I do wish the scroll was automatically just the segments on this I wonder if there's a way to set that up in the preferences so let's go to there and we've got that confirmed and it's automatically put in a bevel it's also put in a world model modifier which is quite useful for solving certain problems so they're really coming up with some really nice Solutions here let me just explain why that's so cool so if I'm just bring in a cube again let's just bring that here and let's just shift and D so I can show you this so if I go to a normal Edge Let's select those two edges controll and B and I'm going to press C to clamp overlap and scroll up that was not using ND if I come to this one go into Edge mode select that edge that edge shift and F and I'm going to use an edge bevel and go here I can still let's just change the width I can still do a clamp overlap and it's still C so I can do that and then let's alt and change the number of segments so we're going here right so why is this world modifier call right this world modifier is awesome because if we look at this one it was destructive this was non-destructive but being destructive if I go to vertex mode and select this vertex here and press G this has created two vertices on top of it each other where the clamp overlap joined these two bevels together we get this overlap and that can cause you loads of problems if you want to do things later for example if I'll go to that face and press I to inser it you can notice straight away that we get this problem so this causes a lots of issues now it's not the worst thing to fix if you've got Machine Tools you'll just hit three and it's fixed that problem so I can now do this but it is an extra thing to worry about whereas this world modifier stops that being a problem it means means that this will effectively already have done a merge vertices which me using three on Machine Tools has done you could also do it with a normal standard merge vertices function now this is really cool CU it combines with the other ND functions really well if I shift an f and I decide that I want to do a panel I could click on this face notice that it's semi applied all of the modifiers but it hasn't really applied them it will bring them back but it means I can click on this panel click space drag that in Click space again bring that out to there and we haven't had any problem with this because of the world modifier so it's a really useful function or if I do decide that I just want to apply all of these so let's apply and apply then we can go into face mode I and we haven't got a problem so this automatically adding a world modifier is great anyway really big tangent there but I thought I'd explain why this is really cool control and minus and we've got that being added in again I do think this is slightly slower than using hard Ops though that might be because I'm in the 4.2 Beta And there are still some things that are slowing this down so I can't say for definite if that is ND or not so do bear that in mind I'm not going to try and say that this add-on's perfect it might not be because of that in fact oh let's come back to this let's look at a case point then so I'm actually thinking we could do something a bit more interesting in that so let's shift and F let's go to cycle let's scroll down we've got this now even though this is is automatically being put as a wireframe it's still all there so if I shift an F oh I couldn't actually do this so I'm just going to press shift and two to bring all of my options and I want to solidify this object so let's go like that and you'll notice this is now going to add just this additional bit and we get this cool detailing so finally uh through a bit of a battle I've found something that didn't automatically have the right option in the shift and F functions but you can see how good this is at predicting what you're likely to want to do right um this is looking pretty cool do I need much else well I definitely need a switch so let's do something with the switch what am I going to do I'm actually not going to have a switch as such I'm going to bring in a cylinder well actually let's just delete that we can shift an f and we can bring in something called a Recon poly now if I bring the radius up we can go to let's say there so let's scroll up I'm going to press alt to up the segments something like that let's go to actually let's just go to one 28 now I also going to add something because this is just going to be a loop round the outside so I'm going to hold control and we've got an inner radius now again I'm not 100% sure about this function so this basically means that now the width is now the external width on this object it's not the width from the center I'm not sure how I feel about that it kind of feels like I'm going to have to do some maths in my head and I don't like maths well I do like maths but I don't like it when I'm just trying to relax and model but I can just come back and then go to there so let's go with that okay somewhere about there and then let's just G and Z that up so this is going to be sort of like a loop and the idea would be that you'd rotate this round to turn it on and off so is that too big yes so let's shift an f and then I'm going to go back to my Recon poly and I can still change this all around so let's go to about there and then I'm going to shift and F and I want to solidify this oh look it's just there once again now I don't like the shading on this we'll deal with that in a second so let's click somewhere about there let's G and Z that up let's have a look now notice because this is all modifiers let's shift and F I can change the Recon poly let's bring that a little bit thinner I'm going to right click and I'm going to click shade flat why are you not working don't like that okay let's use shade Auto smooth I dislike you and your existence but do notice that we've got the positive in blender 4.2 this is now pinned to the end so I guess that's something okay right so we've got this here and I want to make it easy to use so let's just click shift F and we're going to do a panel and once again I'm going to select some panel points uh I'm just going to do I don't know how wide do we want this to be somewhere there let's space make that a bit smaller to about there space to bring that out somewhere about there click and then I'm going to click there and then shift F2 and then we'll do our circular array scroll that up to something like that and then click and then I'm going to have to right click and shade Auto smooth again there we go so that's going to be our disc that we effectively can just rotate round now I think this might need some sort of indent to show how this works so let's just click shift and D duplicate that I can shift F and then go to solidify to change the solidify of it make it a bit wider let's click there control and then minus so we've got that cut out but I don't want this cut out all the way to the depth that this one was because I'm going to 3D print this so I need it to be slightly less thick so let's come here let's going to x-ray mode so we can see what we're doing and I'm going to shift an f and once F I'm going to Recon poly and we want to change the inner radius so I'm going to hold down control and just make the inner radius a little bit wider so we're can to have a nice overlap there we go and then shift and Zed and then we've got that there so let's just H to hide that cool right well this is looking pretty good as a very quick lightsaber really easy to do and hopefully that's shown off a lot of those really nice functions just to finish off let's just add in some textures so what we'll do is just separate these out so let's shift a mesh and then bring in a cube let to scale that up G and then Zed and I'm going to go to let's say there in fact let's G and Zed that down to about there and then we're going to click there control and slash to do a cut so now I've got one bit at the top one bit at the bottom let's H to hide that which is useful cuz I can then put on different materials and then for something a little different let's just add materials to this model I wouldn't normally bother doing this but we were looking at materials in a recent video so why not let's go to materials metal and I want something really nice and metallic for the outside let's go with a chrome let's come into our Shader so possibly that yeah that looks quite nice uh let's go for something more metallic for the top so let's go with a sort of steel or scratch steel yeah that looks good for that scratched metal look maybe it's too scratched maybe we'll just go with some sort of Steel and another steel for that yeah that could work and then we want a really bright silver for the top and then we're just going to come to a plastic and rubber and I want a shiny black for the rest of it that's cool and then oh let's go back to the metals and then we'll go back to our shiny silver for this bit here so there we go a really sort of simple lightsaber but I think you'll agree that has been a very very effective example of just how good this add-on could be it's very very simple to use and it can create some fantastic effects in very little time and most importantly and I want to say this again it's free do let me know in the comments if you want to see some more examples of some products with ND let me know if you're thinking of grabbing this from gumroad or if you've already been playing around with this and finally I have no affiliation with huge Menace I doubt they're actually ever going to see this or even aware of the channel but I just want to say how much I appreciate this add-on and the work that's obviously gone into it you guys are absolutely awesome and lastly if you want this model so you can have a look at how all of these modifiers work or what's been done here feel free to head over to the patreon where you can get these videos a week ahead of time add free and you really help to support the channel and keep it going have a great day guys

Channel: Artisans of Vaul

Views: 3,739

Keywords: blender, addon, blender tutorial, 3d modelling, 3d modeling, nd, non-destructive, guide, how to, tutorial, expert, beginner, pro, noob, boolean, array, example

Id: CvhMLIIr17E

Length: 26min 52sec (1612 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 17 2024