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Hello everybody! This is my first tutorial on showing how to model and texture a banana.
Its intended for beginners but you should have basic knowledge in blender.
If you have additional questions, or if I have missed something go to
http://www.dm.univaq.it/blender236/book1.html (blender documentation)
Lets start...
What we need:
● an Image Manipulation Software (I use Gimp)
○ you can get it here: http://www.gimp.org
● Blender (I use version 2.42 in this tutorial)
○ if you dont already have blender get it here: www.blender.org
● a digital camera
● a banana ;)
Okay first we need to take a picture of the banana with our digital camera. Position the banana like
in the image below. And take a picture from the top of the banana. Its better for later processing to
put a white piece of paper under it. Next copy the image to your box and open it in Gimp (or any
other image manipulation software)
All we have to do now is to get rid of the surrounding pixels which doesnt belong to the banana. In
Gimp you can use the Select contiguous regions tool shortcut key Z. Fill all parts in the image with
a plain white color like in the image below.
If you want or if you dont have a digital camera you can cut this image and use it for the next steps.
But the resolution is not as good as if you had taken a 5 mega pixel image ;)
So now we have our texture image and a good reference for modelling.
This is our reference for the modelling step
If we look at the real banana next to us on
our table, we can see that we can reduce the
shape to a 6 sided cylinder. This is a very
important thing for modelling!! First think
of how would be the easiest way to get a
simplyfied shape on the screen. This saves
us a lot of work afterwards :)
First make sure that you are in Vertex edit mode. The
small dots have to be highlighted!!
We'll start in the middle and slowly walk with each cut to the edges of the cylinder. Every cut must
be scaled (S key) and grabbed (G key) that it fits nicely in our reference image. With everything
selected press CTRLR. You will notice that a pink line will appear. This is our loop cut. If we
move the mouse left and right we are able to move the cut. But for now we want it in the middle.
Click the left mouse button.
It should now look like the image above. Cause we can't see our reference image through the
cylinder we can go into wireframe display mode simply press Z key.
The next steps are loop subdivide, grab, scale until every part fits nicely in our banana image in the
background
Does it looks like this? Then you can take a quick break and eat the banana :)
Okay, now its time for some texturing, press Tab to exit edit mode and press F6 to change to the
Texture Buttons. Click on Add New in the Texture Tab and choose image in the drop down list.
Next Click on Load Image in the Image Tab. Load our sweet banana image in blender. It should
look like this:
If you are ready with this switch to the Materials Button (F5 key)
again press on Add New. In this menu we have to adjust many things. Ive put some screenshots
below what options I have chosen. But don't think these values are best !!!! NO !!! they are surely
not !! I've simply played with the values so that it looks good to me. I will describe some of them
here. These values are only a good starting point. I recommend to adjust them a little bit. Just play
with them :)
A important thing which you should do first are the options in the Map Input panel. These options
control how the image is projected on our banana. Choose flat and make sure that the X,Y,Z buttons
are activated according my screenshot. Otherwise the imagemap will be projected anywhere else but
not how we want it.
In the Map To panel activate Nor and set the value to 1.40 this makes sure that we have a little
bumpy effect.
The Shaders Panel allows us to control the highlights, specularity and much more. I would suggest
you play a little bit with these options... Do some test renders :)
This was enough for texturing. Now we should add some more living to our scene:
You can add a plane as well by pressing 7 on the numpad to get to the Top View then hit spacebar
in the edit window and choose Add > Mesh > Plane. Remember to scale it by pressing the S key
and grab with the G key.
You have to experiment a little to get the lightsources to a nice position. Simply do some quick test
renders :)
And don't forget to tweak some options in the Lamp buttons panel.
In my image both Area lights have the same options/values. One has a yellowgrey lightcolor and
one is only grey like in the image below.
If you turn on 16 Samples, the render time will increase!!
I will put the light options I have used here for you as reference:
Now we can make our model a little bit more
smoother. Go into the edit mode Tab with the
banana selected and press F9 to switch to
Editing. In the Link and Materials tab
activate Set smooth. You can also add the
Subsurf modifier under the Modifiers Tab.
See the screenshot.
If you are satisfied with your results its time to do a test render, and to add some beauty finish. I've
added Ambient Occulsion located in the World Button options
Here are my values:
So this is the final image. Looks quite nice...
And here is another image to show what you can do with bananas =)
Some final words:
Thank you for reading my first tutorial. I hope you could learn something and it had made fun...
If you have comments about anything here, or have found typing errors or grammar (I think there
are a lot :) feel free to send an email to: info@pixeltrap.de
If you like you can visit www.pixeltrap.de from time to time. to check out some more tutorials...
thanks for reading!
bye!