Stories from my 3D Journey with Blender, Solidworks and 3d printer
By default, links in the Blender shader editor are straight lines, but did you know that you can change them to be curved like a noodle? This can help you create a more visually appealing and organized shader network, making it easier to see the relationships between nodes.
Here’s a quick tip on how to change the shader links in Blender to be either straight or curved:
Continue reading “Blender Tip: Noodle Curving”
I just spent the last hour in Blender trying to bake a diffuse texture from a model created with photogrammetry to a lo-poly model created in Blender. I checked and double checked every setting. I went back to tutorials that I watched years ago. I looked for new issues that might be caused by the latest version. I finally found the problem.
The software I use for photogrammetry is Zephyr. It outputs the textured models in several formats. The two formats that can be imported into Blender or OBJ and FBX. I chose FBX. I chose poorly.
No matter what I did, I could not bake the texture from the FBX model to a low poly model.
When I went back to Zephyr and exported as OBJ, all my problems went away.
This one drove me crazy. When I would post my models that I created in Blender and exported as OBJ files, people would complain that the textures weren’t included. And they were right.
I have found the solution. Before you export the file, use the “Pack All Into .blend” function. This can be found in the menu. Click File – External Data – Pack All Into .blend.
I found this pressure gauge buried under the pile of un-used parts. I can’t image when I would have purchased a 10,000 psi pressure gauge…made in China. My guess is…I didn’t buy it. It’s not up to the quality my customers expect. It probably came on some equipment and we replaced it. It does however have a unique “Danger Zone” graphic on the dial. I figured this might have artistic appeal.
It was uploaded to CG Trader and I got my first sale 3 days later.
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/industrial/part/10000-psi-pressure-gauge
Continue reading “Pressure Gauge”
My day job has me designing an oil recovery system for a hydraulic coupling. It’s a complex oil system that uses a residential oil tank. I was surprised to find little in the way of online resources for such a common architectural 3D asset.
So I spent a little extra personal time on this model. I modeled the tank in Blender 2.9. It’s a 275 gallon Granby vertical oil tank. It is available at CGTrader:
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/other/residential-oil-tank
Continue reading “Residential Oil Tank”
By day, I work in a machine shop where we have tons of items: Some common, some uncommon, but all dirty. Today’s model is a yellow container we used to transfer hydraulic oil from a 55 gallon drum to the our machine tools.
Continue reading “Dirty Plastic Bottle”
Knobs have knurls. A knurl is that hatch pattern found on cylindrical surfaces. They are easy to create on a lathe and, believe it or not, it is easy to model in Blender. Here’s how.
These instructions are for Blender 2.8
Start with a cylinder. Shift-A, Mesh, Cylinder
Set the cylinder parameters to a radius of 1 with a depth of 2 and 60 vertices. Select nothing for Cap Fill. Continue reading “Blender Tutorial: Knurl Mesh”
3D models can be from your imagination or from real world items. Today’s model is from the real world.
I modeled a picnic table from one that is available at Home Depot. I used the online photos in fspy to get the camera position. The fspy camera positions and the phone are then imported into Blender with an add-on. I then drew and aligned picnic table elements in Blender. When it was all done, I scaled it to real world sizes and added weathered wood materials. The materials were created with overlapping UVs. This allowed me to get decent resolution without using huge images.
The model is available at CGTrader.
2 posts in one day. That’s a first.
I’ve been working on this collection of knobs for a while. I thought it would be simple. But like most things…simple is rare. I ran into difficulties controlling fillets in meshes that were sub-surface ready. The model would look good until the sub-surface modifier was added. You can get some strange looking artifacts if you don’t have good topology.
The collection of knobs is available at CGTrader: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/electronics/other/collection-of-12-knobs
I walked passed this cone the other day. I had some time to kill, so I modeled it. I created one with the dirt and then cleaned it up.
Simmer3D 