Blender Tutorial

Asteroids

This is an advanced tutorial showing how to create scores of fairly realistic asteroids.

Setup

You will need René Sammler's Vertex Noise script.

1. Visit http://www.sammler-mediengestaltung.com/
2. Click scripts.
3. Scroll down until you see the Vertex Noise script.
4. Click download.

Install it as follows:

1. Unzip (or otherwise extract) the contents of the .zip file.
2. Copy the Python script into the Blender scripts directory.
3. Quit Blender (if it is running).
4. Start Blender.

Asteroid Templates

Two templates are used for this tutorial. The first template defines the materials. The second template defines the shape.

Material Asteroid Template

1. Press NUM1 to change to the front view.
2. Press DEL to erase the 3D cube.
3. Press Space for a menu.
4. Add » Mesh » IcoSphere
5. Click OK to confirm the default options.
6. Click Set Smooth.
7. Press n for the Transform Properties dialog.
8. Change the name from Sphere to Material.TPL.
9. Press F5 for the Materials settings.
10. Click Add New.
11. Change the R, G, and B values for the colour to 0.95.
12. Click the Shaders tab.
13. Change Spec to 0.200.
14. Change Hard to 15.
15. Click the little white arrow beside the Shaders tab to reveal the Texture panel to the right.
16. Add five new textures named Bumps, Craters, Craters.Small, Dirt, and Dust.

    For example, to add one new texture do the following:

    1. Click on the first empty rectangle.
    2. Click Add New
    3. Change the name of the texture from Tex.001 to Bumps.
    4. Repeat for the remaining textures.

17. Click Bumps, you should see:

    

    Texture Names

18. Change the Map To settings for each of the textures as follows:

    Texture	Setting	Value
    Bumps	Col Button	Off
    Craters	Col Button	Off
    Craters.Small	Col Button	Off
    	Nor Button	On (click it twice)
    Dirt	Col Value	0.75
    Dust	Col Button	Off
    	Nor Button	On (click it twice)
    	Nor Value	0.15

19. Press F5 for the Texture settings.
20. Change the settings for each of the textures as follows:

    Texture	Setting	Value
    Bumps	Texture Type	Clouds
    	Colors/Contrast	0.100
    Craters	Texture Type	Voronoi
    	Size	0.350
    	Colors/Brightness	2.000
    	Colors/Contrast	5.000
    	Colors/Colorband/Cur: 0	A: 1, R: 0, G: 0, B: 0
    	Colors/Colorband	Click Add
    	Colors/Colorband/Cur: 1	R: 1, G: 1, B: 1
    	Colors/Colorband/Cur: 2	R: 0.5, G: 0.5, B: 0.5
    Craters.Small	Texture Type	Stucci
    	NoiseSize	0.050
    	Wall Out	Enabled
    	Hard noise	Enabled
    Dirt	Texture Type	Clouds
    	NoiseSize	0.750
    	NoiseDepth	4
    	Colors/Colorband/Cur: 1	R: 0.45, G: 0.15, B: 0
    Dust	Texture Type	Stucci
    	NoiseSize	0.010
    	Turbulence	25
    	Wall Out	Enabled
    	Hard noise	Enabled

21. Press CTRL-w to save your work.

The materials should look as follows:

Material	Preview
Bumps
Craters
Craters.Small
Dirt
Dust
Full Preview

Of Bumps and Craters

The colouring for bumps and craters should not be rendered. Disable them:

1. Press F5 for the Materials settings.
2. Uncheck the checkbox beside Bumps.
3. Uncheck the checkbox beside Craters.

Shape Asteroid Template

1. Press Space for a menu.
2. Add » Mesh » IcoSphere
3. Click OK to confirm the default options.
4. Press Tab for Object mode.
5. Change the object's name to Shape.TPL.
6. Press g, z, then -4 to move the new sphere down a bit.
7. Press F9 for the Edit panels.
8. Click Set Smooth.
9. Add the modifiers and their settings, in the order shown:

   

   Object Modifiers

   These settings use the Bumps and Craters materials from the Material.TPL sphere. That is perfectly fine.

   Try different Levels (2, 3, or 4) and Strength values.

Vertex Noise

Make the Vertex Noise panel always available using the following steps:

1. Split off an area for the Vertex Noise panel.
2. Change the Window Type to Scripts.
3. Scripts » Mesh » Vertex Noise
4. Enable Local.
5. Set Min: to 0.1.
6. Set Max: to 0.6.
7. Set a random value for the seed (hint: click and drag the Seed value).

Fasteroids

Everything is now set to quickly create numerous, different asteroids.

1. Click RMB on the Material.TPL sphere object.
2. Press SHIFT-D to duplicate the sphere.
3. Move the sphere to the right.
4. Press Tab for Edit mode.
5. Click OK in the Vertex Noise panel.

   

   Asteroid-shaped Sphere

6. Click OK a few more times (no more than four).
7. Scale the object to your liking.
8. Press Tab for Object mode.
9. Click RMB on the Shape.TPL sphere object.
10. Press SHIFT-D to duplicate the sphere.
11. Move the sphere to the right.
12. Click SHIFT-RMB on the asteroid-shaped sphere.
13. Press CTRL-l for the Links menu.
14. Select Mesh Data from the menu.
15. Click RMB on the pocked sphere.
16. Click SHIFT-RMB on the Material.TPL sphere object.
17. Press CTRL-l for the Links menu.
18. Select Material Data from the menu.

You should now have an asteroid.

Thanks

Special thanks to MPPIC and the tutorial that was posted online.

THE END - Download