Welcome to Using the Bevel Tool! In this video we're going to
box model the chess piece base and then using the bevel tool
to round off our sharp edges! So let's hop over
into Blender!
So here we are in Blender! So let's start
working on our shape here! So before, when we've
had a curvy shape like this we've used Bezier Curves, but I fancy doing this with
box modeling. So we've got it at the top here and the
bottom, that's absolutely fine, but we're going to have to put in some loop cuts,
in order to make this work properly. So let's go ahead
and do that now! Control and
R, there we go we've got a loop! And I'm just using the
Scroll Wheel here to add our level of detail. Now, I'm guessing it's going
to need to be about, this is going to be 1,
2, 3, 4, 5,
and then, this one here. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, so that
is perfect! Then, once we've positioned them, I'll position the first one
here. Now, I'm going to leave
this flat, right at the very bottom, so that all of the pieces
have a really nice flat bottom. And now, we can
select the loop edges that run
around, and we can just make sure, by disappearing from that view, that we've
selected the loop edge all around and just go back to
our Front View, so we can model it. And first of all, I'm just going to
move some of these edges into a more appropriate place. So that one's
fine. Let's select that one and move it up
slightly. Let's go and select this one and move it up,
so it's in the middle of there.
So we're moving these edge loops,
so they're in line with our reference material
there, and then, we're going to grab these edge loops and
scale them accordingly. So in the 3D realm, obviously we're looking
from this front on, but on the 3D we'll be shrinking and pulling that
in and out. So
this one here, we can lift up much higher,
and this one here is going to be right on the edge, where that little lump
is around here. So that's fine, as far as that goes, but this
still is just a cylinder, at the moment. So let's go ahead and
go to Solid Mode here and just make our Background
Image a little bit dimmer, so we can work with it.
Alright, so let's grab this one here
and scale it just inwards,
until it's roughly in the right place.
Perfect! And let's do the same to this one here, let's scale
that inwards, grab this one and
scale... Ooh, let's make sure we grab the whole edge loop
and scale that inwards. You see what I'm doing here,
I'm just modeling our... Oops, I can't see my keyboard!
Be careful which keys you press! That one there, and then, finally
this top edge loop here, I can scale that all the way
in to the appropriate place, so I've got a rough outline of
our model there. So we're going to want to, now,
smooth out these edges, and you can do that using the Bevel
Tool. So we'll start down at the bottom edge here.
So select the edge you want to apply a bevel to,
and then, the shortcut keys for it are control and
B. That's a nice easy one to remember for Bevel, B for
Bevel. And as you move the cursor
further away, we start to add that beveled edge in, and you can use the
Scroll Wheel to increase the detail level in that bevel.
You can, of course, go too far and force your model to look
very odd. There may be an application for that but I can't think of one,
at the moment. And of course, the more detail you put in there, you can start getting silly, that's the
amount of segments it's going to make up. Because we're working on the low poly,
probably 3 or 4, something like that, then we can just left-click to
apply that.
And in the menu system, because we've selected an edge there,
let's go have a look at the Mesh, Edges
OK, and there we go, Bevel is
at the bottom for me, depending on your resolution. But it looks like it's about
in the middle. So there we go, Bevel is also in the menu selection there, and
we can see the shortcut Control and B.
And finally, we've introduced it a couple of times, but
you can just press the Spacebar and then
type in what you're looking for. And there we go,
Bevel! It's a very powerful, a very quick way of finding things
in Blender, if you know what they're called. So remember that, Spacebar and
then you start typing the command you're looking for.
OK, so there's one final thing to go over with the Bevel
Tool, and that's when you can Bevel an individual vertex. So let's
go ahead and open up a default cube, because I don't think there's anywhere on this pawn
that we can use that on. OK, so now
we're on a default cube! Let's go ahead and go into
Edit Mode and select, let's say, this edge here. Now,
of course, the edge is made up of two vertices, one at either end.
If I go ahead and use Control and B to bevel, we will get what we
usually get, and then, if we go into the Operator
Panel, in the lower-left, we can see we've got some options, so we can
change the Amount of the bevel, the Segments, etc. Or we could have
changed those with the Scroll Wheel, as we were creating it.
Now, one of the options there is Vertex Only, and if you select that you can
see that the vertices themselves are now being beveled, rather than the
edge, and that can come in use, depending on what you're modeling. I don't think that's going to be
use for it in the chess set, but do prove me wrong and make yourselves
some beveled vertices in there, if you wanted to. But what we can
do here is also use a shortcut key, so we don't have to go down and check this
box every time. So I'm going to undo the bevel that I've
just done and go to Vertex Select. I'm going to select this individual
vertex here, in the corner, and hold down Control,
Shift, and B. So it's not just Control B, it's Control, Shift,
and B, and then, we can bevel that edge there. And of course, with the
Scroll Wheel we can add more segments, if we wanted to, to smooth
that out. And there we go, we've beveled a corner, we've cut
a slice through our cube. Now, of course, this has got many uses,
in the chess set it might not be but I'm sure you'll find lots of uses
in your own work, as well, and if you do use it to create something funky,
of course, share it with us all. So now, it's challenge
time! I'd like you
our sharp edges that are left, finish of the detail to the
base, if you feel it needs more. I think it does, towards the top, as it just bulges out
slightly towards the neck of those pieces. And then, of course,
use your artistic license, go wild if you want to, try and be a little bit
sensible because these are official chess pieces, and then finally, remember to
save your file. Pause the video
welcome back! Let's hop back over into Blender!
OK, so I'm going to start with this big bulgy bit
here and try and smooth that out a little. So let's select the edge
here and edge loop and add
ourselves another bevel. Now that's good
what it's done there, because it's a pointy edge, it's beveling on both sides for us.
I'm liking that!
I'm going to move out and have a look at how it is! In fact, I'm going to hop into
Object Mode, and... Well let's
pull this down a little and set the shading in the Tools menu,
over here, to smooth, just so I get a better impression of
how it looks. I do want that to move in a bit further there,
so I'm going to go straight back into Edit Mode, grab this edge loop
here, and simply scale it in.
Let's hop back into Object Mode and see how that looks! That seems much
better, but this whole section here does now need lifting up, I
feel just a little. And we can play with this to our hearts' content! So in this
case, I think I made a bit of a mistake there, I should have
brought that in first before making that beveled edge, because it's made it look a bit weird.
Fortunately, I've got enough undos to go back and do that now,
so I'm going to go to here and grab the edge loop, scale
it in. That's great! And in fact, I could even
add a tiny bit of a bevel inside there, not much,
but just enough to round it off as we go around.
This one here, I'm going to use my artistic license and lift it up a little, so it's a bit
more equidistant here, apply another bevel on this edge,
and let's round it out. Probably
only that many is necessary around there. Let's flip around, back
to the front again. Oops, I need the cursor on the 3D view to do that,
and yes, I think we can scale that out! Because it's all selected,
you can grab it and straight away scale it out, just push it out ever so
slightly. Brilliant! So I'm happy with those bits there, so it's just this
bit towards the top. So let's just bring the Opacity up.
You can see on this image that there's kind of like another bulge
ring that runs around here, until it goes into the neck,
so I'm just going to use a couple of the tools we've done already, in order
to do that. So first of all, I feel like
I probably need to inset this top face just a little. So
I'm going to select the face and inset ever so slightly, not by
much and there we go! And we're going to need a a couple bits more of
detail around here, because it kind of bulges out. So we're going to go back
into Edge Mode
and put in an edge loop or two
around here. Now, I've simply, once I've placed those
about there I think, we can hop into Face
Select, and I'm going to select this face ring going around
and scale that out, ever so slightly.
I think that's going to have the desired result
I'm going for. Let's just have a look here and see!
Now, there's a bit of a sharp edge there, I can
pull that down to rectify that, so let's hop back into Edit Mode.
So moving backwards and forwards between them and checking your model out is a
great way of making sure that your model is exactly how you like it.
Hop in and out and in and out. I'm just going to set that back to Smooth Shading.
In fact, I think that comes out a bit too far,
I didn't want it quite that large. So again, back in ever so slightly!
We've got the hump there, I do feel like that needs to come down ever so slightly,
so I'll select this top one here and pull that down,
as well. So we've got this lump coming up and I'm going to pull that one down,
and you can do this and tweak it till your heart's content, but I think
I'm going to leave it there, as I believe I've reached my
80/20 principle going on there. So I'm happy with
that as my standard base, that we're going to use across all of our models now,
and remember, at the end, we do need to save it. So we've saved
our chess piece base! Brilliant! I will see you in the next
lecture!