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Introduction
In this tutorial, I'll explain how you can create a die in Blender using only meshes.
I expect you've already done the dolphin and heart tutorials, so I'll be skipping some steps like how to switch view, how to bring up the toolbox and things like that.
Anyway, here goes.
Start a new Blender and remove the standard plane in the middle (KEYX). Bring up the toolbox (SPACE) and add a cube to the scene (ADD/MESH/CUBE). We'll want the die to have rounded edges. A quick and dirty way of achieving this is by increasing the resolution of the cube (or subdividing it if you like), and then smoothing off the edges. Go to the EditButtons screen (F9) and select the 'subdirive' button five times. Next, select the Smooth button about five times. This will round off the edges of the cube.
Next, I'll remove the interior from the cube, leaving only a 'skeleton' of the rounded edges. Deselect everything (right-click outside the cube), so that all vertices turn pink. Next, use the box-selection tool (KEYB) and select the inner vertices of the cube. The top view of the cube will now look like this:
Now, delete those vertices with KEYX, and repeat these steps in the front and side view, until your cube skeleton looks like this:
While still in the EditButtons screen and still in Edit mode , select all the vertices with KEYA and select the 'Set Smooth' button.
Setting a mesh to 'smooth' will make it, when rendered, look smoother than it really is. I don't want to make the entire die smooth - this would introduce some rendering artifacts on large planes. Remember, this is a tool to use selectively.
Now, let's move on to the 'eyes' of the die.
I will make these out of a partial sphere. To start off, leave the edit mode of the cube (TAB), go to top view, place the 3d cursor outside of the cube and create a UVSphere. I used 32 segments and 32 rings in this case. Go to front view and, using the box-selection tool again, chop off the top side of the sphere. When you're done, your sphere should look like this:
While all vertices are still selected, select the 'set smooth' button in the EditButtons screen again. Scale down the half-sphere to a reasonable size and align it with the top of the cube.
I will now only explain how to create the top plane of the cube, but the rest uses the same process.
The next step will be to fill up the remaining space in the top-plane of the die. To do this, I first join the meshes of the die and the half-spheres (CTRL-J). Now comes the tricky part. Go to front view, enter Edit-mode (TAB), and using the box-selection tool, select the top vertices of the die.This is the selection that you MUST have before you can continue:
Now for the easy part: fill up the selected space using SHIFT-F. Select 'set solid' for the selected faces. If you render an image now, it will look like this:
Of course, the half-spheres need to have a different color than the rest of the die. While the cube is still selected, go to the materials section of the EditButtons screen and hit the 'New' button twice. This will generate two indies for two different materials on the object. This is indicated by the big button in the middle which will now show: 2 Mat: 2. The first digit indicates the number of available material indies while the second digit is the currently selected index. Click on the left size of the button to set the current material index to 1. Later on, we will select separate faces and assign them a different index (and thus, a different material).
Now, assign a material to the entiry die. Then, return to the EditButtons screen. Click on the right side of the Material Index selection button. It will now show: '2 Mat: 2'.Return to the top view, enter edit mode, select one of the half-spheres using the box-selection tool and select the 'Assign' button in the materials section of the EditButtons screen. Repeat these steps for all half-spheres on the current side of the die.When you think you're done, hit the 'Select' button. This will select all faces with the currently selecter material index. If you've missed a spot, it will immediately become clear.After hitting the 'Select' button, these vertices should be selected:
While Material Index 2 is still selected, go to the MaterialButtons screen and create a new material with a different color. A rendered image should now look something like this: (depending on the colors you chose ;-)
Okay, now the boring and repetitive work starts. Using the duplicate half-sphere you created earlier, work on the rest of the sides of the die. When rotating the sphere, hold down the CTRL key to limit the rotation to multiples of 5 degrees.
Great tutorial man, easy to follow. Good job.
Thanks,
Alex
Thanks for offering your skills and knowledge to help others along the way with Blender. It's appreciated.
Deltawing
Cool Tutorial Wish i was'nt a complete novice. made it about 70% there then
my novice skills kicked into gear ! :D
Thanks a lot ! I'm a starter with Blender and that tutorial is very easy to do and it taught me a lot !
Well, I'm on my fifth attempt and I'm still not getting it right. Or to put it another way, I suck.
a die - i'm having trouble. first i select the vertices of the half spheres and assign them to the second material (i do click assign), then i try to assign a different color to the still selected vertices of the half spheres and it assigns the color to the whole die.
in other words i have successfully assigned a selection of half sphere vertices to the second indice, but cannot get that selection to be assigned it's own color
what is going on here?
thank you
Hey, I came across this tutorial when I needed to draw a die for a website. I was going to do that in Photoshop with its 3D transform tool. That is much easier for me. But I think I'll try to that with Blender. Thanks for coming my way :)
In response to Franke's question, you need to make the textures you assign the vetices to independent from the original texture. To do this, with the die selected, go to the texture panel. Change the material selection from '1 of 2' to '2 of two'. Then click the number next to the overall texture name. This will make it a new material, independent from the original cube material. Now any changes you make to either '1 of 2' or '2 of 2' will only affect the vertices assigned to them.
I can't get the color part everytime i try to change the color of the spheres the whole cube also changes with it
Good tutorial but some parts are confusing.
Like the other posters, I can't seem to get the material part correct.
I dun understand Mike's reply on Mar 16th either.
:(
hey thanks for the great tutorial man!!!! it taught me a lot….i 've battled with the colour problem for a long time myself, i think its due to some kind of counter-intuitive approach by blender…….trick is to select the vertices, go to EDITING, select the material number, then assign. Then go to MATERIALS and mess the material up……i think the confusion is that you can also select materials from the MATERIAL panel, while the choice for particular vertices should really be done in EDITING, like the tutorial says - its this part that is easily overlooked i found….anyway thanks a lot for the good tutorial!
Nice tutorial and galileon's post really helped me.
Nice tut thanks
Maybe you can pu french tutorial too 'cause i speek french and i have somme difficulties to fallow the instructions.
im 14 years old and my english is not perfect so i need french tutorial; please:)
Hey, how to fix that boring line when you use it with the "set smooth" function?
good tut
after 2 years of blendering there are still new things…
but there are too much triangles for my taste…
thx
hey, good tutorial. this is really easy to follow, even me who cant understand n talk good english understanded it, but i still ave problem on one place, u sayd select the box thing with keyb now i selected next if i do shift+f then my blender 3d will freeze. i did wait 10 mins but it still was freezed and everytime so on. i didnt join the circles, maybe was that the problem?
IT WAS VERY CONFUSING
Great tutorial, everything's been working for me except for one thing:
At the "tricky part", I can only select the half sphere and not the die. What do I do?
Thanks for your help
~Alex
Nevermind, I solved that problem. Of course, another problem popped up three seconds later. Every time I press shift f, the half spheres are covered up as the space is filled in. Why does this happen?
Thanks,
Alex
Hey
The instruction on how to make a die have been very clear but im stuck.
Im still noob at this so bear with me. When you go to create eye of the die how do you change the centre point to focus onto the sphere. Also once this is done what is the box selection tool.
Thanks
Thank you very much for the tutorial. Finally managed to complete the die and assign materials to the flat parts and the dimples as required. This was pretty good and I have learnt a lot. There is another simple tutorial on Materials that some of the others who have been having problem may wish to look at. Is titled Material indice.
http://feeblemind.tuxfamily.org/dotclear/index.php/2004/12/21/5-blender-indices-materiau—material-indice
Now I needs to animate that dice!
this tut is from the blender 1.8 book that I bought several years ago …
The book that makes me come into 3d graphics …
I still use it sometimes !
Nice to see thats still usefull yet …
Yeeeeeaaaah !
okay, nowadayz it's probably faster to bever the startup-cube,
and BOOLEAN the spheres into it,
but i was very surprised to see the Fkey function in this example.
whenever i tried making faces between more than 2 edges or 4 verts, i get 'make fgon?' and when i said okay it didn't do anything..
can someone point me to some clear explanation of how & when the Fkey works ?
Yup !
if you have blender2.42 go into editmode with the cube you startup with, and press WKEY, choose recursion 2 (orlittle more like 3) for the edgesmooth-ness.
tab out of editmode and add a uvsphere, downsize it so its smaller than the cube (Skey, 0key .key 2key (you can use the numberkeys ABOVE the letter-keys to scale objects exactly x or 0.x times(GREAT!)))
move it up(its now inside the cube)using Gkey,Zkey 1key(the 1 above the Qkey)so the small sphere is half above & half inside the cube.
Now go into objectmode and hit Akey to unselect the sphere.
select the cube ,then SHIFTRMB the sphere as well.
if the cube is dark-pink around it and the sphere light-pink, you've selected them the right way.
Now press Wkey and choose difference from the 'Boolean Tools' menu that should appear under your cursor.
Gkey your selection away from the center of creation, and Tadaah !
a rounded cube with a spherical dent in it should appear.
if you give the objects a diffrent material/color, the color of the removed sphere remains the same as the newly made dent in the cube.
Enjoy !
OOPS !!!!
when you press WKEY, choose BEVEL, then 2or3 to round the edges of the cube !
i forgot to specify sorry !
good luck
COOL
Graeme's link helped with the coloring/materials section of the tut: check it out if your having difficulties
Hey how do you just select the top of the circles?
I'm struggling to get the selection right in the start of the texturing part. It may be a problem with joining the indentations to the cube. I select the top layer of points and it looks wrong: The correct points are selected but the vector lines running between all the selected vertices at the top and the unselected vertices they connect to are shaded, fading between yellow and black. I can't seem to just select the vertices without tinting the ends of the lines that join to them yellow.
It's maybe because it skips a stage when it says to join the meshes with CTRl+J, persumably you have to highlight the set of shapes first… with SHIFT+RMB?
If you know what I'm talking about please help!
i was thinking… and i am pretty sure boolean difference won't work in this case - it would be good but since it's more than one deformation (it'll work for one UVspehere and cube, but for more than two spheres it certainly will leave some holes in the final result).
it's obius that one should join all the spheres first, then select the cube and joined_spheres_object as magnet, then WKEY for boolean difference… but there still will be holes. to avoid holes it have to be done one sphere by one - without joining them into one object first. no holes but messy mesh… any other ideas?
and i think SHIFT+F is also wrong in this case since it will create triangle over triangle near those rounded edges - wouldn't that mess normals a lot? there would be some undesired shadows… it's even visible over included screenshots.
and one hint: you can mirror (half)spheres via cursor (duplicate sphere with SHIFT+DKEY, then dot [.] for cursor as a reference point, then CTRL+ZKEY for mirror, then choose local axis - Zaxis to mirror sphere to the opposite wall of the dice, Yaxis or Xaxis to mirror it lower or higher on the same wall)
p.s.
if someone solves the boolean problem please let me know ;) cythrus -at- o2 -dot- pl
@Tyler: press ALT while selecting… then press ALT+SHIFT while selecting another edgeloop.
i still dont understand how to select the outside of the circle
i know how to do everything but i just dont know how to do the part where you have to select the outside of the half spheres. please help
I'm returning to Blender, but still a noob. I had a hard time with the materials, as some others. I was adding and assigning under the materials section, but finally learned that I was failing to select the dropdown list and choose "ADD NEW", then pick the new color, at the Shading controls. There is a little button to the left of the current material name at the top of the first section of controls that produces the dropdown of existing materials and the "ADD NEW" option.
There's something I don't understand. First I aligned the half spheres to the top edge of the cube. But when I want to fill the selection of the top cube plane it doesn't work. Oddly enough, I have noticed that it seemed to be impossible to select the cube frame vertices !! The cube frame has turned into a black dotted line frame, and I can't select the vertices from that. Which is very odd because when I orbit around to see the object from all angles, the half spheres and the cube frame turn around like one single object. But it seems somehow that the cubeframe isn't a real object anymore, because I can't edit or select the vertices from the cubeframe separately ?! Can somebody tell me what the hell am I doing wrong ?
Nice tutorial!
well i cant figure out how to fill in the surfaces. when i go to front view and highlight the very top vertices, it still selects the outside of the top. i cant figure out how to select only the vertices that he has highlighted in his screenshot b4 he fills in the top. can someone help me plz. thx.
Having same problem,can't selct the vers like in the picture..I end up getting them all on the top,and when i go to fill in the space,the half circle ends up filling in,lol
any help here plz ? thxs
well someone ask me on another forum,if i pressed smooth 5 times or set smooth 5 times..WTF? wheres a button that just says smooth,all i see is a set smooth..I guess thats what im dong wrong lol
sorry found the smooth button,under subdiv -the hash-theres smooth ;)
How do you select the interior of the cube in the second step?
How do you select the interior of the cube in the second part?
how do you chop off the top hlf of the sphere? i used the box selection thing and when i grabbed, it streched!
the kid, don't grab ( which is GKEY) it, just erase it with the delete key and click erase, vertices. this will chap off the top of your uvsphere
How can i move just one object ( i jave to spheres and i want to select one and move it to the right )
Can you tell me how i can do it ?
plz
Is it "die" or "dice"?
For selecting the half spheres, try
a) Alt-right-click an outside edge - easy!
b) try Select - Non Manifold, this is really handy for selecting edges, then deselect the parts of the cube you don't want (don't forget to look underneath!). You can deselect with the boder select in 'paint' mode (KEYB, KEYB) by holding ALT down. Use the keypad +/- to make the paint circle bigger/smaller.
c) later on in life, you might want to play around with the Edge Loop and Edge Ring selects
Christoph - die is singular, dice is plural, but most people say dice for both -wrong but sounds less academic :-)
vapourmile - I know what you mean - don't worry I think the faded selections are a new feature! They seem to help your eye track where the edges go in more complex meshes.
Alex - I had that, and my spheres were slightly too low and the new face went over them. Go to side view and move them up to align with the very top of the cube before. Zoom in to check. Also hit keypad5 to check you're in isometric mode to remove perspective from the preview.
for some reason i can not manage to set the first section to solid using 'set solid' by selecting the top vertices in front view but if i do it in top view it makes all the sides solid except the one i need :/
i'm totally new to this whole 3d model thing… been a programmer for 21 years and still can't figure it out
but i'm using version 2.43a
if anyone could help i'd appreciate it…
I'll be checking back here to see if anyone has offered any advice; i can also make a screen shot of the results i've been getting…
–leroi–
Noob here.
Anyway, I can produce the first face of the die just fine. On the second face, when I use the box selection tool, the area between the "die pips" gets selected as well and so the material doesn't just apply to only the "pips".
AArg! What's the tip to get around this?
Thanks.
Bill
P. S.
I'm using version 2.43.
Bill D.: Try switching to face-select mode using Ctrl+TAB - that will give you better control over which faces are selected.
Alternatively, you can assign the material for each sphere separately. That will also make selection less complicated.
leroi: You may also want to try face-select mode & painting select. Switch to face selection, then press B twice to get paint mode. That may be easier to make the selection. When in paint mode, click & drag the left-mouse button to select faces under the mouse. Use can use the scroll wheel to select the select of the "paint front". The middle mouse button will un-select faces, and the right mouse button exits the paint mouse.
Separate vertex/edge/face modes are relative new in blender. They make selecting specific faces / edges easier than it used to be without the added specificity.
Hope that helps.
Its a decent tutorial but I'm aa complete novice and it wasn't indepth enough. I shall have to seek out simpler tutorials to get me through the first steps.
I was going through the tutorial fine when i accidentally hit "z"+"7" and every thing disappeared, anyone know how i can get back when i do this… The reason i did this is im on a Laptop and z and Function button are right next to each other. I wanted to hit num pad 7, but i hit z and 7.
Not a good tutorial for a complete novice. For example, when starting to make the pips on the die, the instructions say to select top view and move the 3D cursor outside of the cube. How is this done? Up to this point, instuctions include required keystrokes, but then stop.
I agree with Mikey, i sorta gave up on the whole blender thing cause i didnt get it, which isnt the attitude, but still, clearer instruction at this stage would be heaps helpful
Hi,
I got to this step
http://www.blendernation.com/wp-content/xoom/tutorials/Die/dice6.gif
and somehow could not get to the individual vertices of the die edges. Any help for a noob? (It's a great tutorial — I'm just bad at following directions)
Thanks,
october
Hi again,
To clarify, I can select the half-circle vertices but not the die edge vertices. Help?
Thanks again,
october
I am a NUMBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To Mikey and George: the author assumes you already did the heart and dolphin tutorials, which means the reader should not be 100% noob. It would be very boring if every tutorial kept repeating the detailed steps, don't you agree?
To october: that's because they're separated objects. Right-click the spheres, then shift right-click the cube and hit CTRL+J to join them.
My problem: Appearently, I did everything right, but the cube does not look good, like if the cube had manufacturing defects. Any ideas?
http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/9462/badcubejr8.jpg
Without the 'set smooth' it looks good, but I lose those rounded edges.
спасибо
thanks for this tutorial. I am new to blender, and it is so helpful to me,
thanks ….
I have a problem with making the top plane of the die solid. it seems that when i press CTRL-F it makes the half spheres solid and not the plane , If anyone could give me a tip on how to make the top die plane solid i would really appriciate it
Great toot, noobie too. I as well having problems even with the initial face creation with the half circles. re-did the tutorial using a cube and it worked fine….I'll keep trying, maybe figure it out.
Thanks for posting!
Great tutorial! =)
And the results…
http://i20.tinypic.com/2d8jt7d.jpg
Very good tutorial. I can follow all. Great job.
Thank you.
Thanks for the tutorial man! I got along pretty good except when you get up to the SHIFT F step. I selected the top verticies but then i press SHIFT F and then select set solid but nothing happens when i render it! Maybe you could help!?
Thanks alot for the tutorials though. Peace.
Nice tutorial! Although I'm still such a noob, I managed to do this in no time ;) OK, I had some problems initially, but then I resolved to follow everything exactly to the letter - and surprisingly, it worked! ;D Thank you.
Lol how do I make a new material with a colour?
=o I'm a n00b..
lol
this die sucks. I can't get it to work for me. everytime i try it, i get to one spot and then get stuck. can someone try to teach this a little more easier for me cause i want to get done.
help me
How do I duplicate the sphere
Nice work. I loved it.
I have Alex's problem. When I try to fill the top side of the die, I end up filling the half spheres and not the die it self. How do I fix this?
@cherub of death
Well, I am a beginner, too, but according to the tutorial you should
switch to front view (seeing the spheres on top)
choose (b) only the thin upper layer of vertices (including only the edges of the the spheres)
and then join them (j)
So it only joins the vertices around the 'craters' without closing them.
I liked the tutorial, if you follow it word by word it works. I recommend to try the same tutorial again and again.
Sunny regards from the Mediterranean.
It is easier to select the vertices if you click "Limit selection to visible" (the cube icon in the bottom-right of the main window).
Then, you can select the outter circle of the sphere with Alt + right-click (or Win + Alt + right-click, if you're using KDE). You can do the same to the cube.
But, I have the same problem as Blitzkrieg. The filled surfaces look horrible. I don't understand why. I even zoomed a lot to align the spheres with the cube, so the face would be as flat as possible =(
To whom it may concern,
I see that there have been several postings for the same problems and I see no answer, so here we go again.
I followed the steps in making a cube and subdiv them 5 times, etc. but when it asked to select the inner vertices in step 2, I can't seem to do what it is asking. All I get are the corner vertices selected. Can someone be kind and explain to me how it's done.
ya, im so thick that i still dont get any of tis stuff…………….HELP
Yeah, the step where it says to go to the front viewport and select the vertices, and hit SHIFT+F to fill in the space….it doesnt work, because when i go to the front view, my half-cut spheres are on the top….WHERE I WAS TOLD TO PUT THEM. and yet it doesnt come out right, can someone explain?!?!
Hi, I have a question. How do I make the top of the half sphere exactly align with the top of the die? (I tried hold Ctrl when grap it)
can someone who know write an answer?
love this tutorial only been been working with blender since the first day on the year and this program is so easy even for someone like me that has no experience what so ever in any 3d modeling program thanks and keep the tutorials coming
Hey what's the box-selection tool??
Thank you.
it have not ignore backfacing check box to select only front vertex,edge or face
thanks
where is subdirive button????????
WTF??
hey this is a great tutorial, but i am having trouble getting my die back in the edit mode. I can only get my half spheres to join or go bak to edit mode.. any tips?