> Get the right kind of music going, it's time to focus 😎 ## Brainstorming ### Topic %%What is the big idea you're thinking about? Why are you writing this? %% [[I tried learning blender]] ### References %%Are there any existing notes, resources, or experiences that come to mind related to the topic? For each thing, why is it related and how can it be helpful? %% - Progress logs found in [[Learning blender and 3D animation]] - Notes about the things I learned ### Brain Dump %% Write out any other thoughts that come to mind, then create a cognitive scaffolding that combines your references and brain dump. Break it down into branches and sub-ideas for further elaboration %% #### Day 1 - ! Preparation - On the first day, it was time to brainstorm what this environment could look like - Unlike a famous religious figure, I don't think I can create the entire universe in 7 days. So, I had to ask myself, what were the main parts of space I wanted to create? - There's something aesthetic about a colorful starry sky, so I think a vibrant galaxy is important - Next, I wanted to do something related to my vtuber lore idea of how we can view our life as a solar system, so I think it would be fun to create and animate my own. - It would also be cool to make a space ship I can fly around in, but we'll see if I have enough time for that 😅 - -> so, now that I knew what I was creating, how could I make this in the anime style? - I began filling out an inspiration board to find examples of the main things I wanted to make - Of course, I had to add honkai star rail. but surprisingly, i couldn't find much photos or in-game scenes of space aside from these few - But aside from that, I found it hard to find any other relevant examples of space-theme anime or games. - I found random images on google and looked at old anime i watched - Once I pooled together these images, I started listing out the things i liked to keep in mind when designing my own. - Just like the 3d environment i'm currently in, I like the nebula gas that adds color to the galaxy - I liked the color scheme of the sky in the anime i watched, call of the night - Most planets I saw seemed to only be one color, and looked rather detailed - But at some point it was time to stop dreaming, and learn how i could actually do this using blender. Apparently you're legally required to create a donut, but I wanted to dive straight into tutorials that were somewhat related to my galaxy anime aesthetic. - Video tutorials - Fortunately, kakaiya, the artist of my 3d model, recommended me to watch her friend Crashsune's tutorials to learn the basics - There was also a lot of space-related tutorials, so I began creating a list of them for the different elements of my solar system, but they weren't part of the animation - Additionally, to understand the basics of animation, I was also recommended Alex Becker's video on the 12 principles of animation. - Now that I had a clear enough plan to start, it was time to start my training arc 😎 #### Day 2 - ! Training arc - I began going through the tutorials I mentioned earlier. - The overwhelmingly complex interface I was staring at began to slowly make sense as each video explained each section one by one, like the viewport and side bars. - after learning the app, then i learned about things related to animation like keyframes, cameras, and the timeline. surprisingly, all those physics and calculus graph problems in math actually helped me understand? - they should have just used that instead - % my experience in video editing and math helped me understand these topics better. - as i learned these, i took notes like a quick reference sheet to remember hotkeys before each blender session so my adhd brain wouldn't forget instantly. - however, no amount of note-taking could help me memorize these things better than to actually put it into practice. - bouncing ball - as much as i wanted to just get straight into creating my space environment, kakaiya recommended me to practice blender and animation by creating a bouncing ball. - sounds simple, right? - i wish. i felt painfully slow. i had to piece together everything i learned. - i made the ball more lively by implementing squash and stretch from the principles of animation video - instead of constantly referencing my cheat sheet, i began engraining the hotkeys from repetitive use - i began to intuitively understand how these 2d graphs would look like in 3d - not going to lie, it took quite some time and live assistance to make the animation look smooth, but by the end, it looked like this - i even started experimenting beyond what was mentioned in tutorials, as she showed me how to do extra steps like add a texture onto the ball and export it into an mp4 - finally, after few hours later, this is what my first animation looked like - that was a lot to consider just for a basic animation. that's not even including more complex movements and objects like full on character models. needless to say, i gained massive respect for 3d animation. but at the same time, i was a bit anxious. i had direct help the whole time. when i'm own learning more complex skills, would i continue to enjoy the challenge, or will i end up overwhelmed? 😵‍💫 - i decided to worry about it later. after all, i still need to actually create things to animate 😅 #### Day 3 - ! Galaxy - It was time to finally start working on the environment - I began following this video on how to set up a galaxy - First introduction to shaders in blender. - What first comes to mind when you think of blender might be modelling and shapes, but creating this galaxy mostly used shaders - [ ] Explain what shaders are - In my case, was working on the world shader, but there are also ones for each material you create. - [ ] Explain technical implementation to my understanding - And since this is a bit more realistic, I had to squeeze every creative juice in my body to make it my own style - Stars - My best friend was noise texture and emission shader - Randomly spawn circles - He made it different colors, but I enjoyed the just white stars, felt clean - Random dots, add glow - Nebular gas - Noise texture - Made the colors more colorful to match my vtuber model. - Base color - By the end, I was impressed. I was surprised an 18 minute tutorial could create something like this. - Now it was time to bring life inside as well. #### Day 4 - ! Sun and planets - Literally. - First thing was the sun, which I created by following this tutorial - I modified it a bit just based on vibes by playing around with parameters to make it less realistic and more cartoony - Instead of a world shader I created the galaxy in, I had to create a new material for the sun to apply shading to - Once I was done, it looked somewhat similar to the planets in my inspiration board, which I see as a win :) - Next, I followed another tutorial for creating orbits and planets - The orbits weren't actually visible, but - There was an option to make an object only move around the orbit - About mid-way through, I began branching off the tutorial to create this solar system with my life analogy in mind. instead of also creating the planets in our solar system, I made three planets for the different big timeframes in our life: year, quarter, and month - In the video he manually set the rotations of the planets, but I wanted them to eternally rotate according to the timings of the different timeframes in life. - So instead of creating an actual keyframe, I just used a variable? - And since I wasn't using the realistic textures he was, I ended up just creating a placeholder by modifying the sun texture - Eventually I finished with a decent looking solar system, something didn't feel right. There was this bright sun, but no lighting? - I'll just leave the lighting for tomorrow. - Oh wait I have to move. - 3 weeks later. #### Day 5 - You would think that the one called Sun light would be the one I use, but it didn't fit my needs. - With the sun light, it lights your scene as if the sun is infinitely far away, so it would light all your items the same way. - Instead, I wanted the light to originate in the middle, and be less powerful for planets further away. - This is what the point light is used for. - Spent the longest time trying to get it to work. I would change the intensity of the light, but it seemed to never affect my planets. - At first I thought it was something wrong with the object itself, but when i created another item the light seemed to work on it. - Luckily, ChatGPT came to the rescue, as it recommended me to check the shaders. - Problem was that the emissions shader I used to create the texture of my planet was overriding any other lighting, so what I had to do was add a mix shader element and mix it with a shader that allows for lighting? - finally worked! decided to move the camera and record a quick WIP showcase. i wanted to work on changing the planet textures, but i decided to leave it for the next day. #### Day 6 - ! planet textures, ring - being gone from blender made me rusty, but the quick refresher through the notes helped - now, i was stumped on what my planets should look like. - what colors? - what texture? - i realized i couldn't creatively think of anything, but my logical brain came to the rescue - just like a normal solar system, ones closer to the sun should be more red and rocky, while the ones further should be more gassy - decided to choose a planet as inspiration - mercury - saturn - neptune - I tried using texture maps from nasa, but i think the shaders may be conflicting with the textures showing - So ended up just playing around and modifying the placeholder shaders to create the different kinds - not the best, but they get the job done - During this time I had this weird thing keep moving around, spent time moving it back - Little did I know this was going to come in handy for the next thing I was doing… - Just missing the ring. - when i created a ring it would create in the origin - Struggled to move it perfectly onto the planet - chatgpt came to the rescue ! - 3d cursor - cursor but for 3d - think of it as a 3d marker point - followed it's instructions. - Continued playing around with creating rings, followed another tutorial - Not as transparent as I would like but still epic - Made them rotate - Apparently closer planets rotate much slower than the further ones, but that looked weird so did the reverse of how it actually is supposed to work - Made the hard decision to make the space background darker - Help accentuate the planets and make the lighting from the sun more meaningful - Environment is good enough! Now just had to add myself into the equation #### Day 7 - ! Anime lighting and myself - When I imported myself, I looked like this. - Had to get help from kakaiya again lol - But didn't like the lighting - Blender is built in mind for photorealism, but I wanted anime-style lighting - [ ] explain what two tone lighting is - Had to do more research on how to do so - Ended up with goo engine, a fork of blender made for creating 3d anime-style lighting, which is done through two major features: - New nodes to separate the different lighting effects on a character - Usually casted shadows from other objects, self-generated shadows, and environmental shadows would all be renderred from a node - But now with goo they can all be managed separately - Another thing with anime is that sometimes you want different light affecting different items - In goo, there are light groups to separate lighting effects - Watched goo tutorials - Started creating my own base shader - First on cape - Then duplicated it onto others - Doesn't look as good as other shaders, but I don't have the time to go all-in 😔 #### Day 8 - ! Camerawork and real-time blender tracking - Wanted to think of an interesting way to add my character into the scene - Could do something simple like put my camera out far and have my character in front or even behind the system,, but I didn't want to just stand still - On the far planet as it rotated, would continue to move while i was in the background? hmm - How could I also set up my wallet? - Set up face capture (rip wallet) - Not bad - See if there's anything for arms? - Tutorial on manipulating bones #### Conclusion - Creativity can be expressed in a lot of ways. Drawing isn't the only form of art. - I'm not the best, but I still enjoyed the learning journey - Greater appreciation for 3d animation - If you want to see me learn or try new things, feel free to subscribe ## Organized Ideas %% A place to start your rough (or maybe even final) draft. What writing framework or checklist best works to guide you towards your ideal finished product? %% ### Tips - Keeping it authentic - Share funny moments or unexpected results - Relate any technical explanations to my own learning process - Illustrate my moments of insight - Build Suspense and Payoff - Set goals for each day and create anticipation about whether you'll achieve them - Have a "big project" you're working towards throughout the week - Metaphors to explain my experiences - Keep viewer as part of story - Balance Detail and Pacing - Mix detailed explanations of key Blender concepts with quicker, more dynamic sections showing your progress - Use time-lapse or montage techniques to show lengthy processes quicklyn - conversational, enthusiastic tone throughout ## Potential Outputs %% What can I use these ideas for? Content, new notes, etc. %%