With the cube selected, use the mode selection menu in the 3D View's header to switch into Sculpt mode. All of this is because of a technique known as 3D sculpting, and Blender has it built-in.Īs a quick example, take Blender's default scene, the one with the lonely little cube sitting in empty space. That's not so much the case anymore, at least not while creating our models for 3D printing. We used to have to care about the location of each vertex in a mesh and how those vertices connect to form edges and faces (also known as the mesh's topology). In the past 10 years, the process of 3D modeling has evolved from a structural approach to techniques that are far more intuitive. For now, though, let's get into those advanced tools. Despite the power of the advanced tools, a few standard modeling techniques are still necessary to prepare your model for print. Of course, being comfortable with the base set of modeling tools is still valuable.
#Blender 3d models crack
However, once you crack the seal on some of Blender's more advanced tools, a whole world of possibilities opens in front of you.
Incredible models are created every day by pushing around vertices and using simple operations such as Extrude ( E), Knife ( K), and Loop Cut ( Ctrl + R). Modeling toolsīlender's standard mesh modeling tools in Edit mode are powerful in their own right. If more precise tooling is necessary after that, you'll at least have a physical object you can reference when building it with CAD. In the context of 3D printing and rapid prototyping, Blender is best suited for quickly getting your ideas in a format that can be printed so you can get a sense of how the "real thing" might look and feel. That said, a lot of consumer-level 3D printers don't have that level of precision, either. Blender simply doesn't have a lot of the precision features that CAD operators expect to see.
Rather, its primary purpose is to serve as an artist's tool. Before getting started, I should emphasize that Blender is not a CAD (Computer-Aided Design) tool. In Part 2, I'll examine the process for actually creating those models that you want to print.
#Blender 3d models series
In Part 1 of my series on getting started with 3D printing in Blender, I covered basic preliminary steps for getting your Blender environment set up for creating your own 3D models, ready to be 3D printed.