Getting Started with Blender: Model, Light, Render!

Blender is a free and opensource software for 3D modeling, animation, VFX and sculpting among other things. This year's Oscar winner for the Best Animated Feature Film was made using Blender. If you are curious, lookup the film "Flow".

This workshop is intended for beginners who have little to no prior experience with Blender, but are looking to to quickly get started with creating 3D models using it. We will start with simple things like navigating the UI, understand coordinate systems, and then move on to basic 3D modelling, before getting into materials, lights, camera placement and rendering.

Outline:

• Introduction to Blender

• 3D Graphics Basics: Coordinate System, 3D Objects, Rendering Modes

• Quick Introduction to Blender UI and Navigation

• Adding Simple Shapes: Cube, Cone, Cylinder etc.

• Basic 3D Operations: Move, Rotate, Scale, Pan, Zoom and Spin.

• Building a Complex Shape: Tree, Grass and a Small Terrain (and hopefully a character if time permits)

• Adding Colors and Materials

• Camera Setup & Rendering

Participants will get to apply all the concepts learned in this workshop by working on a mini-project. It is highly recommended that participants bring a laptop with the latest version of Blender already installed.

In April and May this year, I conducted two workshops on Blender Basics online - and I have briefly spoken about it during the lightning talk I gave at FOSSUnited's May meetup in Bengaluru. Link to the video is given below.

In my previous workshops, I would guide participants to create a simple table-vase scene, but this time I hope to do something different, something elaborate and fun.