Blender Animation Architecture

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  • Darren Hi, I'm Darrin Lile, a Blender Foundation Certified Trainer, and welcome to 'Scene Creation with Blender and Substance Painter.' In this course, we will use Blender's modeling tools to create the rooms of this coworking space, creating the walls doors and window frames. We will then model the furniture and appliances using Blender's hard surface modeling tools and modifiers.
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  • The Dutch animation studio NeoGeo (not associated with the Neo Geo video game hardware brand) started to develop Blender as an in-house application, and based on the timestamps for the first source files, January 2, 1994 is considered to be Blender's birthday. The version 1.00 was released in January 1995, with the primary author being company co-owner and software developer Ton Roosendaal.
  • Blender-OSM Addon October 29, 2020 November 22, 2020 New Media Supply 2 Comments landscape, satellite, Terrain With the Blender-OSM Addon we can pick an area on a map and import landscapes.
  1. Blender Animation Architecture For Beginners
  2. Blender Animation Tutorial
  3. Blender Animation Architecture Software
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Welcome to the course architectural design and animation in blender. In this course you'll be learning how to layout the design and create photo realistic animations of this modern house. This is a great skill to have especially for 3D artists creating their own works and those who want to create architectural structures and models.

A large part of Blender's success comes from the community that developed it.

The open source nature of Blender encourages enthusiasts and professionals alike to contribute their time and expertise in the name of making a better Blender.

This is widely visible in the massive variety of plugins you can find for Blender on the web. These plugins extend the program and improve its capabilities.

And it seems like new plugins pop up every day.

In this post you'll find a list of the best plugins for Blender for all purposes. Use these scripts to enhance your workflow and radically improve your Blender creations.

BLAM

BLAM is a powerful plugin for calibrating Blender's 3D camera.

Using a photograph, BLAM can interpret the orientation and focal length of the camera that was used to take the photo. From there it's easy to calibrate Blender's camera to match.

This technique has a variety of uses including projection mapping, special effects in film and animation, and creating simulations in a real-world environment.

BLAM is simple to set up too.

The plugin asks the user provide vanishing lines based on a reference photo. BLAM can then automatically reconstruct the geometry. This makes it easy to reproduce real-world architecture such as a room or a staircase within blender using only a photo.

Amaranth

One of the best things about Blender is the sheer range of customization.

Those who devote time to Blender will benefit from studying and experimenting with the many options and systems settings that can be used to add or remove functionality.

Amaranth is a plugin created with this aspect of Blender in mind.

Designed to speed up workflows for dedicated users, Amaranth adds a plethora of tools that enhance Blender's workflow and simplify certain actions within the software.

Amaranth introduces shortcuts and extensions for several of Blender's key features. There's too many to list them all but you can find a list on the main plugin webpage.

Most are geared towards saving time by making Blender easier to use.

One of the best shortcuts provided by Amaranth is the 'Camera to Render Border' which prevents Blender from rendering options that aren't even in the final shot, saving precious rendering time.

Ragdoll Tools

Blender Animation Architecture For Beginners

Ragdoll tools is an easy-to-use plugin for generating hitboxes from bones.

These non-destructive tools allow you to easily edit your armature and rigid body settings to achieve realistic ragdoll physics.

Also included are tools for copying your ragdoll simulations into animation keyframes for easy export and playback.

This plugin is great for Blender artists looking to add ragdoll physics to their characters or simulations.

The ragdoll tools are simple to setup and well documented advanced users can take advantage of the custom options too.

Gaffer

Gaffer is a must-have addon for anyone serious about getting great lighting in their scenes.

Not only does this tool help you organize multiple lights but it also provides the necessary light settings in convenient panels for easier access.

What this means for artists is simply better lighting for half the work.

Working in complex scenes with several lights can be clunky with Blender's default setup.

Gaffer provides all the important lighting settings so you can focus on getting better lighting without the distraction of digging for the right settings and hunting for buttons.

Once installed, Gaffer lets you fine tune individual lights without interference from the other lights in your scene.

There's also an HDRI handler that organizes your HDRI's and allows you cycle through them without the hassle of the node editor.

Artists who are serious about achieving beautiful lighting in Blender are going to love this plugin.

RetopoFlow

Blender comes with a powerful set of sculpting tools for shaping finely detailed 3D models.

To animate these high-resolution objects an artist must create another simpler model using a process called retopology.

By default Blender lacks in the retopology department.

This is where RetopoFlow comes to the rescue. It brings together a set of tools that were specifically designed to help artist retopologize their work.

Using an intuitive process, RetopoFlow lets you draw new contours over the surface of an object giving complete control over the geometry. A new clean mesh is generated on the fly that automatically follows the surface of the old model.

RetopoFlow will also ensure quad-based geometry which means your model will be perfect for animation.

Image Background Transform

Many Blender artists rely on reference images to guide their work.

Character model sheets often contain a front, side, and rear view of the character design. Vehicles and architecture blueprints are often even more detailed.

Blender provides rudimentary tools for moving and scaling your reference images. And the Image Background Transform plugin provides greater control over your reference images.

With the Image Background Transform installed you can scale all your reference images at once, or have then snap to integer values for quick and easy alignment which saves you time during setup.

Magic UV

Magic UV is a must have for artists who want greater control over their UV workflow.

It includes a wide range of tools for manipulating your UV's which Blender lacks.

Working with UV's can be frustrating, and that problem is compounded by Blender's minimal default tools. Magic UV solves these problems.

Blender Animation Tutorial

Magic UV is so popular that it was added to Blender 2.7 by default. You can turn it on in the User Preferences menu by searching for it in the addons tab.

TexTools

Getting a proper UV Layout is essential to achieving beautiful textured models.

Architecture

Unfortunately Blender doesn't come with much more than the basics in this department.

TexTools provides professional UV and texture tools for Blender.

There are multiple tools in this set for aligning your UV layouts and for smoothing your topology.

There's also 18+ baking modes to choose from, making it easier to get the perfect textures for your projects.

BookGen

BookGen is a great example of the wide variety of plugins made by the Blender community.

Once installed, this free script will generate books on command, allowing you to fill 3D shells and cupboards with all the books you could desire.

With options for customizing the dimensions of books, BookGen can generate books of different shapes and sizes so that your scene will have some variety and interest.

This may seem oddly specific and unnecessary until you're faced with a scene requiring some background details.

BookGen would be a useful plugin for interior decorators or artists who work primarily with interior spaces and architecture. Use BookGen to add some details and life to any indoor scene.

Sculpt Tools

Sculpt Tools was designed to help the sculpting process feel more intuitive and creative.

If you're looking to make Blender feel and behave more like other sculpting programs, this is the addon for you.

What Sculpt Tools does is combine complex boolean and modifier actions to make Blender easier and faster to work with.

For instance, with Sculpt Tools artists can use the grease pencil tool to quickly shape an object.

This saves time and streamlines the sculpting workflow in Blender which can otherwise be tedious.

FPS Setup

Some of you may not be aware, but Blender has its own built-in Game Engine for creating interactive software.

While it's not widely used in the game industry the Blender Game Engine provides everything you need for building your own games.

The FPS Setup addon makes it easier to start building your own games in Blender by providing a simple First-Person Shooter style controller.

Using this addon you can create an FPS object in your world that will give you first person controls, jumping, and collision.

This is a great way to get started in game development with Blender. Now you can easily drop an FPS controller into your world and explore your very own creations.

Asset Management

The asset Management addon is a handy tool that will save you time in mostly any project.

It introduces a new panel that lets you create a custom library of the materials, scenes, HDRI's, other assets you create.

These can be shared across your Blender projects too.

Included with the Asset Management plugin is a Thumbnail Generation tool that makes it easy to create custom thumbnails for all your individual assets. Organizing complex scenes and sharing assets has never been easier.

You can also use this plugin to create libraries of your HDRI maps. Experimenting with your scenes and keeping track of your assets is important for obtaining consistent results with Blender, and this plugin is a big step forward in that department.

FLIP Fluids

Blender Animation Architecture Software

You can generate simulations of complex surfaces like cloth or liquid with ease using Blender.

These simulation tools are quite capable, although sometimes getting the results you want can be tricky.

With FLIP Fluids it's much easier to create high quality cinematic fluid effects within Blender.

The FLIP Fluids simulator was created to improve many aspects of Blender's internal simulation tools. You'll get controls for speed, performance, and customizability for anything you generate with this addon.

For example, FLIP provides an exciting whitewater simulator that creates millions of spray and bubble particles. Use this to add greater realism and detail to any scenes featuring oceans or lakes, or even a bubble bath.

BPainter

BPainter is a godsend when it comes to painting textures.

While Blender comes with a quality set of painting tools, getting a good setup for painting can be difficult as the UI is particularly annoying in this regard.

BPainter was developed to help you establish a smooth workflow for painting in Blender.

It adds a layering system that you'll recognize from 2D painting programs. It also cleans up the UI and brings its own set of brushes and textures.

As icing on the cake, BPainter also provides some common blend modes for your texture layers. Advanced users will recognize filters like Overlay, Multiply, and Subtract.

There's also an improved color picker that gives you control over which layer you're sampling from.

BPainter is a big improvement over the default Blender painting setup. The $39.99 price tag might seem expensive, but professional artists will find the price well worth it for what they save in time and frustration.

Material Pipeline

The Material Pipeline plugin was designed to simplify the creation of materials in Blender.

Once installed, you can say goodbye to node-based material setups which can be complex and unwieldy.

Material Pipeline also comes with over 100 different PBR materials that provides so much right out of the box. You can also create your own unique PBR-based materials using the included node group.

Taking inspiration from Disney's Principled Shader, the node group will let you simulate nearly any material imaginable.

ONELVXE, the studio that created this Material Pipeline addon, also provides material packs of your choice for those who might be looking for a specific set.

MESHmachine

MESHmachine is a modeling addon aimed at improving the default behavior of Blender's modeling tools.

Mainly it adds more flexibility when dealing with rounded surfaces such as bevels.

MESHmachine was created to allow a modeling workflow that was previously not possible in Blender. Use it to gain a range of options when dealing with tricky curved surfaces.

This addon is a big improvement over Blender's standard set of beveling tools so it's well worth the price if you'd use it frequently.

Asset Sketcher

If you're a level designer or anyone else who needs to create complex scenes with many assets, you're going to want Asset Sketcher.

Placing objects in your scene is a lot of work. Creating such complex scenes can be extremely tedious too.

While Blender provides a few tools to make this task easier, it has nothing like Asset Sketcher.

Using this plugin you can easily draw assets directly into your scene.

There are so many options for customizing and randomizing how those objects are placed so you get a lot of control in the process.

Assets can be automatically oriented to a ground plane or snapped into a grid. You can even use simple physics calculations to have objects arrange themselves.

Need to add some details to a dungeon scene? Drop some crates using Asset Sketcher and watch them fall right into place.

Related Posts:

Top 5 architecture software: – There can be various reasons for a person to look for architecture and plan designing software. You may a student of architecture looking to enhance your skills by practising virtually- it saves material as well as money. You may be a layman seeking to chalk out a floor plan for a new house, or simply interested in juxtaposing room positions and walls to get an idea as to how they would look in actuality if built.

Architecture software can be really useful in preventing regretful experiences later when the home has been constructed a wrong way, which is costly as well as a huge headache for the persons the house belongs to. If you are clear about how you want your house to be built, it is less likely that there will be mistakes in construction, and this can only be guaranteed by the use of a good architectural software.


Also see: –Top free animation software for windows PC

For whichever purpose you require architecture software, the internet offers a wide range of such software, and a lot of them come free of cost, which is the most desirable to all of us. This article will list the top 5 free architecture software so all you have to do if you are confused is, pick one of these, and just download it online.

5. DesignWorkshop Lite

This free software offers 3D design for home and floor plans as well as any landscape you wish to see a realistic model of. My office crack. The interface is really user-friendly and allows features such as elevation, projection, lengthening, zoom in and out, adding names to objects and materials and a visual walkthrough experience for the user. Text messages can be added, and the user is free to make drawings with a virtual pencil. Shapes like circles and rectangles are also available, and so are the cut-copy options. Users are free to import backdrop images in JPG, GIF, PICT and a few other common formats.

This software is not ideal for floor plans, though you can attempt to use it to create one. Users have complained of more than necessary mouse control, and lack of sophisticated designing tools. This software is great for you if you mainly want to view 3D images of a given space, and are not looking for advanced architecture tools. The simple UI is ideal for a user who is not very experienced in editing and designing online.

4. My Virtual Home

This is great software specifically for those who want to envision and plan what their home will look like, as it shows the user an actual rendering of the effect certain type of construction of say, walls, doors, bathrooms; will have on the layout and structure of the home. This software offers highly creative and interactive models of objects, surfaces, materials and also determines what the lighting will look like in different parts of the layout. For those who don't wish to hire an architect, or just want to get an idea of what they want their home to look like so they can instruct the architect likewise; this software is perfect. Moreover its free of cost and it includes details of material and service suppliers alongside- how to contact them, the rates charged etc- so you don't have to go hunting for a supplier separately once you've selected and liked a material. Not only building supplies, also home decoration and garden supplies are provided.

A drawback of this seemingly perfect software, though, is that it was created to target a vastly Australian audience. So unless you're staying in Australia, the cost of materials offered, as well as the suppliers, won't be of any good to you. For the designing purpose, this software is wonderful, but it is not designed to adapt and cater worldwide, so that's a big con for us.

3. AutoCAD Architecture

This is oriented specifically towards all those budding architects, and the already established architects as well. Filled with advanced tools that every architecture student comes to be familiar with, this software offers precision in detail, easy drafting and creation of designs smoothly. AutoCAD Architecture comes in two versions: free trial and paid. The reason this software features at number 3 on this list is because it offers professional architectural tools, and although the free version is only a trial, any architect or aspiring architect who uses this is guaranteed to fall in love with it- the paid version is then totally worth the one-time expense. Fully compatible with Windows ( both 32 bit and 64 bit), this software is unique in the fact that the drawings you create will demonstrate real life behavior- smooth material displayed as smooth, rougher material shown as grainy, and so on. This is extra cool for the architects out there as they would like to see their creation taking form. Sadly, though, if you don't want to shell out the minimal price for the full version of this software, this may not be the one for you.

2. SketchUp

This software is quickly gaining popularity among users after Google gave its name to SketchUp. SketchUp comes in various versions such as SketchUp Make and SketchUp Pro- users can choose whichever version they feel suitable to their requirements. SketchUp has faced a lot of criticism for its limitations- that it cannot recognize a shape that is not straight cut like rectangles or circles but has a unique shape of its own; that performance issues slow down the speed and functioning of the software and similar complaints.

But it provides many add-ons and a forum where help is provided freely and timely, not to mention some of the really good features it offers- it is very easy to learn, generates clear 3D images, allows you to take charge of flooring, woodworking, creating additional fixtures such as garage, shed, deck, etc. Every object, surface, and material come with its own unique texture, which is definitely a plus. Lack of accuracy is a problem, but with the developers working hard to fix that, SketchUp should soon become even more popular. Its biggest pro remains till date its user-friendly interface.

1.Revit Architecture

This one if free for all students and education-related professionals, and Revit also offers a free three-year license to use the software to all other users, which is really great. The free membership makes this software ideal for architecture students. Highly structured and professional, this software will save any changes you make as soon as you make them, and will continue modifying the landscape/plan you're working on to give you an ideal experience. Accuracy is a major plus point with this software- it guarantees and provides designs neat and free of errors. Users can design any structure and view it in 3D form, draft swiftly, and oversee the building process right from the beginning of construction to demolition of parts the user wants to remove.

Though well defined and clear cut in approach, Revit is not for new learners and laymen planning their homes- only a person with experience in architectural study and design can utilize Revit to create buildings, fixtures, and additional detailing.

If you don't mind paying, ArchiCAD is also a really good architectural software that provides high-quality designing and efficient performance. Though ArchiCAD provides a free trial just like AutoCAD, users have voted the paid full version to be the only version worth trying or using; the trial does not offer many features to try.

A lot of users don't want to straight away pay for using software they're not sure they'll like, and rely on a trial version to help them decide- but if the trial is not reflective of the features promised in the paid version, customers are not very keen on using such software.

DreamPlan Home Design is another free software that nearly made it to our list, similar to SketchUp in its simplicity and basic rendering, but while DreamPlan offers an extremely limited and unsophisticated range of objects, materials, and tools, SketchUp is far more creative in the options it provides. SketchUp is also extremely user-friendly, which gives it another advantage over DreamPlan.

MicroStation is an architecture software used by many because it provides a stable interface to work with. While that sounds promising, users complain that the software lags a lot and leads to performance issues for the computer. Software that lags frequently and causes disruption in workflow is not at all preferable; hence that's a no for MicroStation from us.

It is tough to choose the suitable software from all the architecture software options offered on the internet, but cost, reliability, performance and suitability to one's needs are the biggest and most important factors one has to remember. While it may feel great not having to pay for using software, paid software is sometimes better in functioning and service. But if one does not want to spend any money, they can easily use any of the software mentioned in the list above, and bear whatever flaws it comes with as long as they are reasonable.

A word of caution:

Whichever software you choose to download, always make sure that it is a trustworthy website and not some shady lesser known unaffiliated site that looks even remotely as if it may contain malware. Several unknown sites may look innocent enough, but just one click on the download link can infect your system with viruses. Sites such as CNET download, softpedia and official websites are trustworthy.

Saurav is associated with IT industry and computers for more than a decade and is writing on The Geek Page on topics revolving on windows 10 and softwares.

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