Set & props

Please read this entire page before starting to model. Remember, the Blender instructions webpage is a good tool if you forgot how to do something.

See the bottom of the page for what to submit.

Your assignment

For this assignment, you will create a set for a short film in Blender.

You will be telling a story in your movie, so think about where you will base your story - at a park? Then maybe you need some trees, a playset or skatepark, benches, a soccer field / soccer ball / goals, a street and sidewalks...? Or maybe your story is set in a city - streets, buildings, restaurants with outside tables, trash cans, cars, a bicycle...? Or are you at home? Which room(s)? What kind of furniture and decorations will there be?

Think about what props you will need, too. Will your character go to a restaurant and buy a meal? Then maybe you need to make chairs, tables, plates, food... You get the idea. You will have SO MUCH TO MAKE, you should definitely not be "done" before I get back, or have time to be on your phone (I'm looking at you, everyone who gets distracted by their phone!). If your set looks like it was made in an hour, that will affect your grade for this assignment.

DO NOT make characters yet (unless they are background characters who won't need to move their arms and legs). We will talk about how to design characters for movement in another assignment. 

"Low-poly" is a type of art that is more blocky and less smooth (here's an article with examples). I encourage you to stay in the low-poly realm with your artwork. It takes less time and can look really great! Below are some pretty awesome examples of low-poly settings. Unless you are an amazing artist who works very quickly, yours might not be quite to this level in the time I give you :)

  You can make an easy "ground" by subdividing a plane and using the proportional editing tool.

Save often

You will be glad you made this a priority if you ever mess up a model that you spent a long time on! I recommend trying to save whenever you feel like a part of a model is finished, or at least every 10-15 minutes -- that's a painful but not deadly amount of work to redo if the worst happens. Make sure you save to your Google Drive just in case something tragic happens to the computer you are working on. You have unlimited storage in your apps4pps Google Drive, so don't worry about running out of room. If you haven't set up your Google Drive folder on your computer yet, click here for instructions.

• in Blender, click  File → Save As…
• navigate to your Google Drive folder:  Windows (C:\) → Users → <your username> → Google Drive → <your CS folder>
• name your file with the next version number (like flower1.blend, flower2.blend, etc)
• click the Save As Blender File button

You can either make everything in one big file or make your set and props in multiple files and put everything together later. You can also google "Blender layers" and learn how to work in layers - it's easy, and a good way to organize lots of items in a single file.

Story inspiration

You will have a maximum of 20 minutes at the start of each period to watch a few of these animations and start geting some ideas for types of stories you could tell. If you're not sure yet what story YOU want to tell, that's okay, start modeling a set anyway and see if the set starts to inspire the story. 

Be aware that these animations were made by professionals or college students who are doing this kind of thing for many many hours every day....I'm not giving you enough time to make movies that are this long or detailed. They are also mostly NOT low-poly, which is harder to make look good. Focus on how the setting and props are used in each movie and how the story is developed - often without any dialogue!

Low poly art (not a story):  https://youtu.be/KMo3tR1Mf3o 

Simple with a message: https://www.bloopanimation.com/liftup/ 

Lighthearted and dramatic: https://youtu.be/mZ6eeAjgSZI 

Weird but pulls it all together at the end: https://youtu.be/A8LRxIANzQs 

Dystopian with a twist: https://youtu.be/bNfYUsDSrOs 

Personal story or experience: https://youtu.be/2REkk9SCRn0 

What to do if something goes wrong

This happens to most of us at some point. If you accidentally mess up your model and don't know how to fix it, or something isn't working right, there are a few things you can try while I'm not here.

1. try to UNDO what you did (CONTROL Z) and if you go too far, undo your undo with CONTROL SHIFT Z
2. hit ESCAPE to see if you're stuck in some weird mode
3. check whether you are in Edit Mode or Object Mode - some things only work in one or the other
4. make sure your mouse pointer is hovering in the main center window (if it's hovering over a side menu, keyboard commands don't work the same)
5. see if anyone in the class can help you
6. go back to a previous version of your file (yes, you will lose some work...the more often you save versions, the less work you will lose)
7. abandon the model and start the same model over, or start working on a different model

What to submit

Submit a good rendered PNG image of your setting.

You will need to adjust your lighting, world, and camera, and save the rendered image -- if you forgot how, go to the Blender website and look for the green Rendering Images box.