Tutorials – D0’s and Don’ts

mt-0030 – Do’s and don’ts
Remember that this is MY list of what I want to see in a tutorial/video.

Making a video is very subjective. Making a ‘good’ video takes a lot of time. Most of the people making videos are more concerned in getting a video quickly than in trying to make sure others will understand it. Too often they assume the viewer will know a lot more then the know.

DON’T =================
— No long intro with pleas for likes and subscriptions.
— M make the video so it is easy to follow and see all of the actions the viewer needs to see. Move the pointer slowly enough that the viewer can follow it. I hate it when someone says ‘push this button’ as he pushes the button and you have no idea where the cursor was.

Don’t make the cursor so small that it is hard to see.
Don’t move it so fast it is hard to follow.
Don’t have the screen resolution so low that you cannot easily see icons and text.
Do not say ‘click THIS’, identify what you are clicking.

b-1045-World Background

b-1045-World Background

World Background
The world background is one of the more neglected areas in beginning Blender tutorials. I think how it works should be understood early on.

The primary setting in the World Settings is the background setting. For me this is an extrmemly important setting. It can be used to change the background to a solid black, which is much easier on the eyes.
Beyond that, to make small images with different backgrounds, and this setting allows that.


I did a search on world background and got this:
google search
Not anything on what the different methods are, or why you would use them.

Basically you have three options. You can use the Shader to create a background , you can us an HDRI background, or you can set the background to transparent.

The World setting in the Shader.
This is the default setting when you first open Blender. This is simply set up by changed the base color in your material tab. I almost always set it to solid black. Much more advanced colors can be created in the Shader Node Editor as you become more skilled in working with Blender.

==============================
Hide world background – set it to transparent
============================
How to use an image as a background
basic video adding the image

==========HDRI =============|
HDRIHDRI stands for High Dynamic Range Imaging, and is basically an image format that contains from the deepest shadow up to the brightest highlight information.

Set up HDRI– simple setup
– Shader tab – World
add

 Add more complex HRDI background
download site – HDRI Haven
 set up background– wworld color
=====================
Advanced Background setup using Nodes – Chipp Walters
How to add gradient to background. Very good

Snagit

To make a video you will need to use a video recorder. I use Snagit. If you look through my website you will see that I use it everywhere. It is not free, but there are many free knock-offs you can use to get started, just do a google search. I recently discovered that Snagit is a killer for your computer resources. It can make your disk run at 100% all of the time!. I now kill Snagit in the task manager when I am not using it. This seems to work good for me.

Blender Nodes

As Blender grows it increasingly is using Nodes for creating new procecural objects. Both the Shader Editor and the Geometry Node Editor are used to create procedural materials with Nodes. Although the nodes are not the same, how they work is the same.

I will use the Shader Editor to look at basics that are common to all node editors.


Node Wrangler – this should always be installed if you are going to edit nodes.
Helpful hotkeys with Node Wrangler Installed
ctrl-X delete the node(s) and keep the connections
ctrl-t Add Texture Coordinate and Mapping to Texture
Ctrl-shft- click on node to see effect of node

==== Nodes ===
Blender Manual Node Overview.



How do the socket colors of the connecting points work?


=================================
===================================

b-3200- Shader Nodes

==================
Geometry Nodes




Bounc ing Blocks – Balls

Bouncing Blcoks demo of my cube
see BasicLayout.blend – cubebounce.002

  1. Set collodion on the plane (or object) used as the floor
    2. Go to Properties ‣ Physics and choose Soft Body. Uncheck the Soft Body Goal, and check Soft Body Self Collision. Also, under Soft Body Edges, increase the Bending to 10.

Bouncing Ball with physics Default Cube

Bouncing Ball video Olav
How to make a bouncing Ball

Better Bouncing ball – TutsByKai

Bouncing cube – Blender

Rendering the video
only comment is the transparent background,
probably want to leave off,

BLender – Basic Layout

You may want to create a Basic Layout for each of you main Blender Functions, Editing, Video, etc. Note that what I call a Basic Layout is basically the same as a Blender Template. The difficultly of creating a Template is that you must manually create a folder.

World versis Object settings

Once you have created the folder you can create the layout or template that contains the features you need.
A major part of your layout will be the world background the you set up. When you first begin you will probable want to just stick with the default settings. These settings do not work for me because I do not have very good vision, so I make a few very simple changes.

World Background.
– I generally use a solid black
– Your setup may include a HDRI
HDRI setup – This is an option as you become more experienced and need more sophisticated lighting.


====================
My setups for opening in a :
-Basic Layout for most Blender modeling.
– background solid black
– basic materials (colors)


– Opening in the Video Sequence for Video Editing

World Background Setup. Remember that the World Background does not include a light source.
See basic layout blend – wrld bkg 002

References
Advanced Techniques IF you understand Shader Nodes.

Bluehost Support

Finally back up after being down for two days. Not happy with Blue Host. Somehow they messed up my SSL certificate and getting it re-registered was a pain.

Blender – Dynamic Sky Addon

Blender Dynamic Sky
This is an new addon as of Blender 2.8 called Dynamic Lighting. see video. I am sad to say that after a couple of hours playing with the adjustments I am very disappointed in it. Probably just me.

Blender Manual – very good

!!! Warning =  “The Dynamic World could not be found in the Worlds’ Data – this message caused by not having Render set to EEVVEE !!! Also make sure you are working in a blendfile that has been saved. Should work in cycles onece everything is ok.

Daylignt with clouds

Night with clouds