Objectives

Installation of Blender software
Understanding Blender Software Navigation
Using Blender Transform Functions, File System and Object and Edit Functions
Applying Materials and Textures to modeled objects
Understanding Basic Keyframe Animation
Positioning Lighting Objects in 3D Scenes
Rendering to Image and Video files
Develop 3D modeling strategies for creative use

General Information

Instructor: Neal Hirsig - nhirsig@tufts.edu.

This course is offered to students online. That is, all of the course material is located on our course site or on other web sites.

To take this class, you must have access to a personal computer on which you can download all of the required software (free) and execute all of the required assignments.

Personal computer specifications:

System: Blender will run on the following Operating systems:

Windows® 2000 or XP
Mac® OS X 10.2 or 10.3
Linux 2.2.5 i386
Linux 2.3.2 PPC
FreeBSD 5.3 i386
Irix 6.5 mips3
Solaris 2.8 sparc

Hardware: The following are minimal hardware requirements:

500 MHz CPU
128 MB Ram
150 MB free hard disk space
1024 x 768 px.
Display with 24 bit color

Additional Hardware:

3 button mouse (You must have a 3-Button mouse. Blender uses 3 buttons on the mouse to navigate the 3-D space and edit objects. Ideally your 3-Button mouse will have a center scroll wheel)
Open GL Graphics card with at least 8MB RAM (You can get further information on graphics card requirements at:http://www.blender.org/cms/Graphics_Cards.201.0.html)

Software:

The software used for this class is called Blender. Blender is a sophisticated and fully functional open-source 3D software. It is designed cross-platform, with an OpenGL interface. It is available as a free download from http://www.blender.org for Windows®, MAC®, Linux, Solaris, Irix or FreeBSD operating systems.

Other software you will need installed on your computer:

Adobe Acrobat® Reader- Most of the documents used in this course are in Adobe PDF format. Acrobat version 7 or later is required as it may not display on earlier versions of Adobe Acrobat® Reader. You can download a free version of Adobe Acrobat® Reader at http://www.adobe.com.
Real Media® Player - All of the video tutorials are in .RM (Real Media Streaming) video format. You will need a media player that can play Real Media® files. You can download a free Real Media ®Player at http://www.real.com (Note: follow the links for the FREE player - Do not purchase the one that is not free.)
QuickTime® Player - All of the Animation files you create in Blender are created in .MOV format which requires QuickTime® Player be installed on your computer. You can download a free copy of QuickTime® Player at: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/win.html.
You will need to open Zip Files and extract the files they contain. To do this on a Windows computer you will need WinZip (latest version is V-10 but earlier versions will work). You can download a free copy of this at: http://www.winzip.com. MAC computers using OS 10 should be able to open zip files without any external software. Earlier MAC Operating Systems may need Stuffit or similar software able to unzip .zip files. A free copy of Stuffit is available at: http://www.stuffit.com/win/expander/.

In addition to the above software you may (although not required) want access to a color printer. Most of the Blender documents on our site are in color. They display crisp when viewed on a computer display but become degraded when printed in black & white. Color print-outs of these PDF files are considerably easier to read and follow.

Class Structure:

There are 12 weekly units used in this course. There are additional units for those interested in expanding beyond the requirements for this course. These folders contain all of the material for that particular unit. This material may include video tutorials, Web-based (PDF) materials and website viewing. You will need to complete these assignments as they are the basis for learning the software functionality and completing the assigned projects. The video tutorials can simply be viewed, however you may want to try some of the techniques in the Blender software yourself. The PDF tutorials should be worked through, executing all of the directions with a copy of Blender open. Some of these are quite long.

The Blender software, as you will discover, is quite complex. It is by no means intuitive and the hardest part of learning it is getting used to the interface.The material becomes progressively harder so it is important that you keep up with the weekly assignments even though there are no weekly assignments that you are required to submit for grading.

Projects / Grading:

There are 4 design projects required for this course. These projects form the basis for grading, each consisting of 25% of the final grade.

Grading Note:

Projects must be submitted on time. There is a 3 day grace period. If you have not submitted your project: after 3 days your grade will be reduced by one letter grade, after 10 days your grade will be reduced by 2 letter grades. Projects will not be accepted for grading if more than 14 days late.

Important: Blender is a fairly popular 3D modeling software and as such there are many examples of Blender as well as other 3D software models and files available on the web. All of the projects submitted for this course must be a product of your own design, modeling and animation. You can use texture files found on the web as part of your modeling but the modeled objects themselves and any associated animation must be a result of your own design/modeling/animation efforts.

Any project submitted that contains modeled or animated objects derived from existing models found on the web (including tutorials found on this web site) will be assigned a letter grade of "F" and the matter will be referred to the Dean of Student Affairs.