If you thought you couldn’t create a 3D design, think again

If you think you can’t create a 3D design, it’s time to take your creative mind and open it to new possibilities.

You might be thinking to yourself: “But I don’t have the right hardware to do it.” Well, to an extent, you would be right. However, a strong office computer can still do some decent design work. All my designs thus far have been done on a Core i5 Lenovo laptop with 12GB of RAM and no Graphics card.

A word of warning

If you are using a machine that does not have a graphics card, you are using a machine that is not built for what you are about to. There is a factor of overheating your computer.

Please view the video on safe rendering for entry-level machines.

A second issue that might come to your mind is that 3D design and animation software cost an arm and a leg. While that may be true about mainstream professional-level software, there is a free open-source programme that is extremely powerful and fun to use. That programme is called Blender.

Blender: The starting point

Blender is a great place to start your career or hobby as a 3D artist. It’s relatively easy to use and can do everything you want it to. It can be used for video editing, visual effects design, 3D modelling and animation.

It’s also great because there are hundreds of hours of learning material out there on the internet for free.

At the end of this article, if you have followed the steps given, you will have created your very first 3D design, and you will hopefully see that you too can make something that makes people wonder “How did they do that?” So, let’s get started.

Step 1: The download

If you are reading this, you no doubt have the hardware, whether that is a laptop or a desktop computer. That means the hardware side of things is sorted. So now let’s get the software side business done. To download Blender, go to www.blender.org/download and click on the download tab at the top of your screen.

You should now have in front of you an option to download the latest version of Blender. Click on the link and wait for the download to complete. Once you have downloaded and installed it successfully open the program and proceed to step two.

Step 2: Create your first 3D project

In front of you, you will have several file types that you can create. Under the new file section select “general.” You should then have a standard screen with a cube in the middle of it. This screen is called the “viewport”. You can navigate the viewport by using your mouse. To zoom in and out simply scroll your mouse wheel back and forth. To move around your object, click and hold your mouse wheel and move your mouse around to see different angles of your object.

Step 3: Your first liquid simulation

This is where things get interesting. You are about to create your first liquid simulation.

To get started, left-click on the cube in front of you to select it. Then toward the top of your viewport select object. This will give you a list of options to choose from. Select the “quick effects” option. In the quick effects tab, select “quick liquid”. Your cube should now look as it does in the image below.

Now we have to do some nitty-gritty settings. On the right-hand side of your viewport, you will see some icons and settings. Do not let it intimidate you. We will not be working with it too much.

In the list of icons, we want to navigate to Physics Properties. Scroll to the bottom until you see an option that says “Cache”. Make sure that “Type” is set to Modular. You can also click the little folder icon and choose where you would like to save your render. Once you have done that, scroll up to the top where it says “Settings”.

Under the “Settings” tab, you will see a button that says “Bake Data”. Click the button and wait till you see a notification at the bottom of your screen that says “Bake Complete.” Now scroll a bit further down until you see “Mesh”. Tick the box and click the little arrow to open that tab. Scroll down and click on “Bake Mesh”. Once again, you will wait until you see a notification that says “Bake Complete”.

Now your simulation is ready to be tested. Press space bar to play your simulation. We are now ready to prepare our render.

Rendering

Now we are going to visit the icons on the right-hand sight of our viewport. This time we are going to click on “Render Properties”. It should be the second icon from the top. You will see an option that says “Render Engine”. Click on the drop-down menu next to it and select “Cycles”. If you have a graphics card, you can select the option to use that for your rendering. To do this, click on the drop-down menu next to “Device” and select “GPU”. Now click anywhere in your viewport and press SHIFT + Z. you will now see a representation of what your water looks like.

Now we want to delete the cube which is blocking your view of your water. To this look toward the top right-hand side of your screen. You should see a section that says scene selection; right-click on the label that says “Cube” and select delete.

When you have done that, go back to the icons and select “Output Properties”. Scroll down until you see the “Output Menu”. Click the drop-down menu next to “File Format”. Under the options that you see select “AVI JPEG”. You can select where you want to save your render to by clicking the folder icon and selecting the folder you want to save it to.

You are now nearing completion. Our final step is to place the camera in a way that you like, and that will capture the simulation to your satisfaction. To this click anywhere in your viewport and move around your simulation by clicking and holding the mouse wheel and moving your mouse around as stated earlier. Once you have a suitable angle press SHIFT+ALT+0. This will snap the camera to your view.

Test your render and render your final product.

To see if you are happy with your render, press F12. This will render a single image for you to see if it’s looking good. If you are happy with your image, exit the render image screen and press CTRL + F12. This will render out your animation.

Well done. You have just completed your first 3D animation. So now that you’ve seen that you can do it, I invite you to test yourself and awaken the creativity that lies dormant and is waiting to be explored. Keep an eye out for a more detailed series of articles centred around creating water simulations and more.

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