Difference between revisions of "Asteroids and rocks in Blender"
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* Switch to Textures panel, and create two textures, one for the fine detail, one for larger perturbations. | * Switch to Textures panel, and create two textures, one for the fine detail, one for larger perturbations. | ||
* Make one 'Clouds', and increase its size. 5 seems to work. | * Make one 'Clouds', and increase its size. 5 seems to work. | ||
| − | * Make one 'Distorted noise', and increase its size further again, say to 100. | + | * Make one 'Distorted noise', and increase its size further again, say to 100 or 300. |
* Select the asteroid, and add 'Displace' modifiers, attaching them to the textures you've just created. Adjust 'Strength' appropriately. Numbers in the 10 - 200 range seem sane for an asteroid of this size. | * Select the asteroid, and add 'Displace' modifiers, attaching them to the textures you've just created. Adjust 'Strength' appropriately. Numbers in the 10 - 200 range seem sane for an asteroid of this size. | ||
Revision as of 23:49, 3 February 2013
Pieced together from various tutorials around the net, which tend to be focused on rendering an asteroid. We don't want to render an asteroid, we want an asteroid mesh.
Contents
Step by step
Basic shape
- Start with an icosphere. I've given mine 4 subdivisions, and made it 500m radius.
- Add a lattice. Scale it appropriately to the icosphere - mine has 1000m edges.
- Add a 'Lattice deform' modifier to the icosphere, and link it to the lattice. Don't hit apply yet.
- Select the lattice, tab to edit mode, then give your asteroid its overall shape. You might want to increase the number of control points on the lattice.
Surface
Now we're going to use some default textures to generate mesh 'noise' for the surface.
- Switch to Textures panel, and create two textures, one for the fine detail, one for larger perturbations.
- Make one 'Clouds', and increase its size. 5 seems to work.
- Make one 'Distorted noise', and increase its size further again, say to 100 or 300.
- Select the asteroid, and add 'Displace' modifiers, attaching them to the textures you've just created. Adjust 'Strength' appropriately. Numbers in the 10 - 200 range seem sane for an asteroid of this size.
Some final, 'manual' lumps
Before this stage, you'll probably want to apply the modifiers you've created to the mesh.
- Tab to edit mode, ctrl-tab to vertex mode.
- Turn on 'Proportional editing mode' with the 'o' key. Choose an appropriate 'Proportional editing falloff' on the menu at the bottom.
- Hold the 'g' key and scroll the mousewheel to set 'Proportional size' to 100 or so. You can now manually add some natural looking lumps by grabbing several vertices at a time.
A quick polish
You can add a 'smooth' modifier at this stage to make it look a bit more 'weathered'.
Craters and pockmarks
Haven't got that far yet, run out of polygons again... :-)
Textures and properties
Switch shading mode to 'Smooth'.
Tutorials and links
Lattice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfz0dTl7aeM Asteroid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7SdmYKirLI Rock generator script: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Add_Mesh/Rock_Generator
