Discovering Custom Hotkeys

Well there are a few things even an experienced blender user may have not run across before... one such thing is: adding hotkeys manually. You know, you can right click on operations in menus to add or change hotkeys, but what about those times when you want to add a hotkey, but your can't add it with the right click menu.

For this example I will use one of my favorite useful add-on: Chromoly's Vertex Slide. It doesn't come with a hotkey assigned. You can find more information about this specific add-on if you wish in this thread.

The first step is to use the spacebar search, a menu or  a button to locate and activate the operation you are adding the hotkey for. When you use the operation and confirm the action. It will print out the operations you just completed. To be able to see the printed operator command you need to drag the top bar down. 

Note: There are a few other ways to view operator commands such as hovering over buttons and menu items long enough will give you a popup that shows you the python command.

Next go to your preferences with Ctrl-Alt-U, go to the
Input tab and go to the
3D View>Mesh key map, scroll down to the bottom of the mesh key maps to where you see the "Add New" button and press it. Then expand the new key map with the little triangle.

This is your blank key map, I am using Alt-V for my hotkey so I added that, the next step is the most important to note, you need to look at the last operation that you performed in blender, just look in the window that you dragged down earlier.

For this example the "mesh.vertex_slide" is the part that is important, the operation is doesn't need the bpy.ops. or the information in the brackets to work, so when you enter the operation into the blank text box it will recognize the operator and give you the options for the operation inside key map.

Note: Make sure the hotkey you intend to use is not being used or you may run into issues with crashing or hotkeys not working. In edit mode Alt-V is a free hotkey.

Now that you have a working hotkey, don't forget to drag the top window back up and save your default scene.

Keep Dreaming, Buddy!

So I decided to pick up an old project that I started for a BWC (Blender World Cup) competition, I was not able to enter it due to some technical issues at render-time, But here is the finished image.

I called it "Dreamer" attempting to imply something about the image, but yeah... the rest is up to the viewer to interpret.

Just knock on the comments if you would like to grab a wallpaper version of the image :)

Sculpting and Painting like an Alien!

My Internet went down at home and I realized that not having it helps get things done, so I decided to do a mini sculpting project of an alien bust. The concept art came from an artist friend and he gave me this a long time ago and I decided to go ahead and sculpt it just for kicks.

Wireframes... Lots of Wireframes!

Ever wonder how to display wireframes, render wireframes and look at wireframes?

As you may not know, there are a few ways to render a wireframe overtop of your model. You may also wonder how to display wireframes in the 3d View. Well both these features are fairly simple to set up.

3ds Max To Blender Comparison

It has been interesting learning the differences between both programs. The workflow is different and the tools are often named different. I have put together a comparison of tools that are often used. Seeing as Blender is more hotkey oriented alot of the tools are accessible with a hotkeys.I have been learning 3ds Max 2011 with the Graphite Modeling Tools, so some things here may have changed from older versions of Max.

Basic Texturing and Materials Step by Step

Sometimes I run into people asking questions about basic material and texturing in Blender, and I don't really know of any extensive video tutorials on this subject. If you do, you can send along the links in the comments :) Here are some basics to get you up and running with textures and materials in Blender.

Another 2.49 to 2.5 (beta) Guide

Well I'll just join in the fad; jump on the band wagon.... here are some of things that changed, moved over, got left out, and still are not added yet in 2.5 (beta). Just note this software is still undergoing changes. They are working on getting it stable.... Hello Beta!
Some of these are new, but most have just been reorganized, and put in locations in the interface that make more sense.

Grey Justice will punch you out... MAN!

Hey everybody!
I got the chance to follow along very closely with this year's Richmond 48 Hour Film Project with the Hand Turkey Studio Team... er... um well... I got to help out, I did some modeling. Last year I followed along with the Tinychat and the IRC channel, but this was a whole new experience.

How to Make a tire with your hands, and a little bit of love

As it happens, almost every vehicle needs a tire, My Subaru model did, so I found some tuts, and built myself a tire. I watched this tut at blendercookie on how to model a tire, to get an idea on how to build one of these things.

It turns out you start out flat, mash together some modifiers, apply a few of them, bend em' around a curve and extrude out the sides, and you end up with a modelled tire. Or thats how I built this tire anyway.

The Trees are Dancing! Oh Really?

Yes! Really! Quite a while ago I modelled and rigged a palm tree, thus allowing you to make the tree DANCE! Well, this rig I made for the tree makes its trunk extensable so maybe its more viable to use this to just duplicate and pose multiple trees, heh. I got the idea to post this because I was browsing blendercookie.com and saw a tut on modeling a palm tree, sparked my memory and well, you can go have your shot at making palm trees dance.