Post by: sorveltaja on May 06, 2025, 08:11:27 PM
Blender seems to offer primarily mesh tools, so it probably isn't suitable for any precision object modeling. But how about its animation and simulation capabilities?
Few weeks ago, to get my feet wet I started with Bforartists, which is a 'hack' of Blender. It's still Blender, but has additional user interface elements like icons (and overall more colorful appearance) which may help to navigate and find certain functions easier, and to get a grasp of how the UI works.
I remember trying Blender several times in the past, but tossed it because its UI structure felt just too strange.
It's obviously for users who prefer to use keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking icons. I guess pros use it that way to accomplish things faster and more efficiently, but for newbies it may be too challenging at first.
At the moment, I'm playing with simple tutorials, hoping to learn basics of rigid body based mechanical animation with objects like this:
It appears that simulated objects must be mesh objects, so I'm trying out mesh modeling in Blender, and see how it goes.
It really doesn't have tools for drafting, although it's possible (but tedious) to make "cad-ish" 2D drawings from images. I find that in Blender, curves need to be converted to meshes for easier editing (vertices and edges instead of nurbs or bezier ones which have handles for more "organic" editing).
Some of the things that may seem odd for newcomers:
- Blender and Bforartists seem to favor quite dark themes; if one prefers lighter color viewport background, it makes certain elements(like crosshair cursor and selection rectangle) very hard to distinguish, so it might take some fiddling to find suitable color.
- Lack of easily making/editing toolbars (well not really lack, if one knows python). But there's an option to add commands to 'quick favorites', which opens by pressing Q key. It's handy, and I'm starting to get used to it.
- Using snapping for moving, scaling or rotating objects is dependent of the view, and works more consistently if the view is aligned in X, Y or Z axis. It's also dependent on how close the target is zoomed; the closer the zoom, the finer the snap, and similarly coarser when zoomed out.
Things to consider:
- It's free
- It's available for Windows, Linux and Mac
- Lots of tutorials from beginner to advanced levels on Youtube
- Also lots of free add-ons available
P.S. I wonder if there's way to show animated images or similar sized mp4 video snippets in posts? From what I've read on the forum, if memory serves, animated gifs aren't allowed for security reasons. As one possible option, I have free Proton account, and it has Proton Drive with 2 Gb storage. It allows encrypted link to files, but I have no idea how volatile it is. In other words, how long those links lasts. Another option would be to upload files to Youtube, which is also free, I suppose.
Besides those mentioned, any suggestions?
Post by: vtsteam on May 06, 2025, 10:00:27 PM
Anyway, very glad to see someone actually using Blender for our kind of projects. I do really like seeing the pictures, and the interface you are using. :coffee:
As far as animations go, yes YouTube is a possibility. But in the past I have also used Vimeo to post here on the forum -- well not for a long while, and I think its upload interface has become more script loaded -- also I think Google has a hand in them, too. But it used to be non-commercial, unlike YouTube. Don't know if it still is.
I think I might have tried Dailymotion a couple times, and Metacafe, which no longer exists.
Keep showing us what you're doing in Blender -- I wish I understood it better.
Post by: RussellT on May 07, 2025, 05:26:21 AM
Like Steve, I liked Sketchup. Then I got a 3D printer and found that Sketchup's meshes were often faulty and difficult to fix.
Blender has been recommended to me by a semi professional on that sort of stuff but I haven't got to grips with it - I don't do enough stuff and I'd be throwing away the effort I've made to learn some Freecad.
Russell
Post by: sorveltaja on May 07, 2025, 09:39:26 PM
Anyways, to get back to the topic, here's an example of how rigid bodies (in this case, gears) can be made to react with each other:
Post by: vtsteam on May 07, 2025, 10:05:26 PM
Can I ask, in your piston drawing earlier, what are the triangular sections under the crown?
Post by: sorveltaja on May 08, 2025, 08:12:24 AM
Nice work! :beer:
Can I ask, in your piston drawing earlier, what are the triangular sections under the crown?
At first I thought they are for cooling, but since when pistons had such? It would be interesting to know what kind of engine that kind of piston belongs to. But yeah, it's just random image I found on the net.
Post by: awemawson on May 08, 2025, 05:06:47 PM