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Thread: Blender 3D Dungeon - Help with the workflow

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  1. #1
    Guild Journeyer Levtrona's Avatar
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    Wip Blender 3D Dungeon - Help with the workflow

    I built this dungeon in Affinty Designer. Then I thought i try it in 3D. Blender is free, so i went for it. Now i am stucked with the workflow.
    This is a screenshot of what i got.

    dungeonscreen.jpg

    I am having trouble with adding textures and colors. I know how to technically. I can add texture jpg images to the walls but it looks all distorted. Would i be painting these? The smaller objects look nice with the jpg textures or is it better to paint them too?
    what would be the workflow from here?

    This is what i made in Affinty

    dungeonwip3s.jpg

    I found a lot of tutorials on YT but they often work with an older version of blender and i cant really find what i am looking for.
    All help and feedback welcome.

  2. #2
    Guild Master Falconius's Avatar
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    You have to UV map them, an irritating and terrible process, but unfortunately necessary. If you select an object and tab into editing mode you can select the faces you want to unwrap, then press "u" and it will open up the unwrap menu, you can try the smart unwrap option or just go with the default. You'll need to open up a second window and switch it to UV editor, or alternatively use the UV editing tab. Once there at the top of the UV editor window you can open the texture picture you want to use and then use the window to move the UV's around to match what you want to display. Most tutorials from 2.79 will still apply but if you don't want to deal with the differences then 2.8x and up tutorials won't have much, if any, differences (I usually recommend Blender Guru because Andrew is very detailed and step by step in his teaching, and they are what helped me get into blender). Note that even if you want to hand paint things you still have to unwrap them.
    https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/l...diting/uv.html

    Edit: You may also be interested in procedural texturing and painting, but it seems extraordinarily complex to me. Ive been putting off trying it out but here's the tutorial I've had in an open tab for like half a year.

    2nd edit: I notice you are using EEVEE engine for rendering. If you want ray tracing rendering or want to try it out you can switch that to Cycles render engine. EEVEE is nice and quick but it has some limitations, like transparency, emitive surfaces etc.
    Last edited by Falconius; 01-23-2021 at 05:12 PM.

  3. #3
    Guild Journeyer Levtrona's Avatar
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    thank you. I did the UV unwrapping, but it still didnt seem too work. Blender Guru sounds good, especially for the very technical questions. I saw a lot of Grant Abbitt, mainly because i liked his style.
    But slowly step by step i am getting there.

  4. #4
    Guild Master Falconius's Avatar
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    Yeah I like Grant Abbit too. Blender Guru is good because he goes through the entire process step by step from the very beginning to the very end so if you follow along carefully you'll kinda learn everything (excluding animation which is a whole 'nother can of worms). Good luck.

    But of course always feel free to ask any specific questions here if you are having issues, I'll help if I can. Also if you've got something really technical, the Blender Artist forums aren't nearly as friendly as here, but I always got answers to my questions when I asked there. Rude or not, an answer's an answer.

  5. #5
    Guild Journeyer Levtrona's Avatar
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    Thanks Falconius,
    there is very active german blender forum. with some tutorials. That was quite helpful.

    I got the unwrapping, then didnt use it. I only used textures for doors so far. in one of the guides it said to get the basic modelling done. Get into the habit of doing it correctly.
    So i mainly spent the week modelling walls, remodel them and start all over again. found answers for some other questions. Still a lot of questions.
    I will model the floor tilles next.
    For the render i only used some sunlight for now. it is much brighter than in the shading preview. The torches are ready to be lit though. I keep the fun part for last.
    dungeonwip.jpg

    Ignore one of the walls having a different color, just testing.

    This should have gone to the 3D subforum...

    2 questions: Why is the preview much darker than the render?
    Why is Blender rendering hidden layers?
    Last edited by Levtrona; 01-31-2021 at 12:30 PM.

  6. #6
    Guild Master Falconius's Avatar
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    I don't know the 3d subforum is ... extremely inactive. I doubt anyone, including me, would have seen this there.

    I think that is looking pretty good.

    For the second question first, hiding an object in the 3d view doesn't mean you are also not rendering it, to do that you also have to toggle off the render option in the outliner (which is not automatically included in the base scene so you'll have to turn that on). Note you can also use the toggles to hide or not render entire collections so you don't have to do it one by one.
    Visability and render toggles.jpg

    About why it's darker I'm not sure. If you use the z menu with the rendered option what you see should be roughly what you get. Perhaps you are using the solid option and have darker colours selected?
    Render and viewport stuff.jpg

    If you want to render an exact replica of what you are seeing in the viewport you can use the view menu and select viewport render image from the dropdown. This is useful if you want to share quick wip's of specific things or if you want to show your wireframes etc.

  7. #7
    Guild Journeyer Levtrona's Avatar
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    Thank you so much for your help.
    So, today i found out how to add textures with nodes. Yeah! No way, my PC can handle such things as "vector displacement" and such. Also tested some light. So the basic setup is done.

    The render is done in Evee, even solved the light bleeding through the walls. Cycles comes with a lot of noise.
    dungeonwip.jpg

    Edit: no i didnt quite solve the light problem.
    Last edited by Levtrona; 02-01-2021 at 12:48 PM.

  8. #8
    Guild Master Falconius's Avatar
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    I'm not sure how to solve the light problem in Eevee (or in cycles for that matter). Although I must say that is looking quite fantastic.

    If you want to eliminate some of the noise, Cycles does have a denoiser. If you go to the editor menu where you can switch render engines (called the "render properties" tab) and turn it to cycles there should be a an arrow that will open up Sampling options and there should be another arrow in the that opens up the denoiser, if you turn it on for the render it will try to clean up all those fire flies. I've found that in dark scenes like yours the noise problem becomes way worse (or perhaps just more noticeable). Incidentally if you want you can also make the background disappear and be transparent in both render engines by going down to the Film arrow and toggling "Transparent".

  9. #9
    Guild Journeyer Levtrona's Avatar
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    It now becomes very technically. I made two renders one in Evee, one in cycles (33min btw) because i wanted to check how the light and dust is looking. The denoising was alright, sort of, but the walls are transparent

    dungeoncyclestransparent.jpg

    In evee the light is still bleeding through the walls but the dust is coming through nicely. might add some more.
    dungeonevee.jpg

    If i stick to evee i can add some dirt and pebbles with the particles system.
    My Pc is fine with the software itself, working smooth and nicely but the cycless render engine is too heavy, i guess.

    There are some corners where it needs more torches and i will polish up the golden treasure chests.

  10. #10
    Guild Master Falconius's Avatar
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    Yeah I see the transparency. If you are using Principled BSDF make sure that you have the Alpha slider all the way to 1. This transparency also may be causing the light problem in Eevee. Additionally it may be worthwhile to use and HDRI (which you can get from HDRI Haven) and fake the blackness around it by either using the transparency film or by going in afterwords. The huge amount of noise you are getting in cycles is definitely because there isn't enough light (although I think the atmospherics look really neat in that shot. With the HDRI you can also change the strength to lower the brightness. If you use the HDRI though you will definitely want to make the film transparent.

    BTW if you have a graphics card it may be worthwhile to switch cycles from CPU to GPU, with Eevee it doesn't matter.

    World Tab:
    World tab.jpg
    Last edited by Falconius; 02-04-2021 at 02:18 PM. Reason: Forgot to put the picture

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