Assignment 8

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Assignment 8 Chess Game
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• In this assignment, we will create a simple scene
  consisting of a chessboard, a few pawns and a few
  move of the chess games.
• Creating a pawn
• To create the pawn we use a technique called
  'Spinning'. We will only need to draw an outline
  of the pawn and then Blender will calculate how
  the object should look based on this outline.
• Start with a new Blender scene, delete the
  default cube
• Switch to front view (NUMPAD-1) and make sure
  you are in object mode.
• Now add a new Bezier curve (SPACE?Add?Curve?Bezier
  Curve)

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• Step 2
• Select the curve and rotate it (press R twice) to
  see the curve better
• Move to edit mode (Tab) and add 7 or 8 extra
  points to the curve by selecting an endpoint,
  holding downCTRL and press the Left Click on
  the mouse
• Shape the curve as shown below, and pay special
  attention that the endpoints on the left are
  located on the blue axis (the Z-axis).
• We will be using the Z-axis as the axis of
  rotation later.

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• When you want to create a rotation object, you
  must indicate the location of the rotation axis
  with the 3D cursor.
• We want to place this somewhere on the Z-axis.
  While still in front view, LeftClick on the blue
  Z-axis to place the 3D cursor there.
• Note that the rotation axis is always
  perpendicular to the screen.
• Now switch to object mode and go to the side view
  
• If the curve is not straight as shown in the next
  slide rotate it to look like what is shown in
  the picture.

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• Move the center of the curve to be in the middle
  if it is not there already.
• To do that press the editing button (F9). From
  the Curve and Surface panel click Center
  button.
• Switch to top view, the curve should be as what
  is shown below a simple straight line
• Move to the front view and move the center of the
  curve to the intersection of the z and x access

Top View
Side View
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• We are almost set to create the pawn. There is
  only one more thing to prepare the spin function
  only works on meshes, and not on curves.
• So first convert the outline curve into a mesh.
• Being in front view, leave the editmode (TAB),
  select and press ALTC. Select 'Mesh' or press
  ENTERto perform the conversion.
• Move to edit mode and in the Mesh tool of the
  Editing Panel (F9) set the Screw degree to 360
  and spin steps to 21
• This value determines the resolution of the
  resulting object
• higher values increase the smoothness.

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• Now select all vertices with A
• Switch to the top view with NUMPAD-7
• Click on the center point of the curve which
  should be right in the intersection of y and x
  access as shown in the picture.
• Now Press the 'Spin' button and watch the result.
  
• The curve has been extruded and rotated, leaving
  behind a complete pawn as you see in the picture

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• All is not ready yet, though. It may not be
  obvious, but there is still a seam in the object
  where the 'beginning' meets the 'end' of our spin
  surface.
• To take care of this, while still in edit mode,
• select all vertices in your object with A
• press W to bring up the Specials menu
• use the 'Remove Doubles' option to weld the
  double vertices together
• After performing this operation, Blender reports
  on the amount of vertices that have been deleted.
  Just confirm it.

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• As a finishing touch, smooth the pawn by clicking
  on 'Set smooth' in the Link and Materials panel
  of the Edit window (F9)
• Go to object mode, and being in the front view,
  switch to solid view (Z). Now The pawn is ready.
• You can make the pawn small by scaling it down if
  you want because you are going to make several
  copies.
• First create a duplicate of the pawn (Shift D)
• Then make one copy black and the other copy white
• Next make 7 copies of the black and another 7
  copies of the white
• You should now have total of 8 pieces of black
  and 8 pieces of white

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• Creating the Chessboard
• To create a chessboard, we start by adding a new
  plane to the scene.
• In front view, add a plane (space? Mesh?plane)
  first.
• Move to edit mode (Tab), select all the vertices
  and extrude the vertices upward a bit (E)
• Then with the vertices still selected, scale them
  down (press S) somewhat to create beveled edges
  (see the top picture)
• Finally scale the entire thing to fill up two
  units as shown in the top picture.
• Also check it in top view and align it with the
  lines in the units as shown in the bottom
  picture.

Front view
Top view
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• Still in edit mode, and being in top view,
  duplicate the square (Shift D), hold down CTRL
  for snapping and move the copy 2 grid units
  sideways down and sideway and snap it with
  original copy as shown in the left picture
• Now select both copies and duplicate it and
  attach them to the other two similarly as shown
  in the middle picture.
• Keep on doing that to get the first half of the
  board. Again make sure that every time you make a
  copy and move it hold the control key to snap it
  perfectly to the other squares. You should end up
  with the picture shown on the right.

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• Before you give it any color, move to object mode
  and make a complete duplicate of the board (Shift
  D).
• Now make the first copy red and the other one
  white or glassy white
• Rotate one copy 90 degree (press R and type 90
  and press return) and place it on the top of the
  other copy as shown below
• Select box (B) around the two copies and join
  them into one piece (Ctrl J)

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• Placing the Pawns on the Board
• Being in top view and object mode, you may scale
  the board down to make it smaller and then place
  the pawns on the board as shown in the picture.
• Add a camera and make the camera to track the
  board to be able to see the board and pieces in
  camera view
• Before we start playing chess, this is how the
  board should look like in all views

Side view
Camera view
Top view
Front view
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• If the camera view does not show the board as
  shown in the above picture, move the camera
  around to set up the view as shown.
• Also before you start setting up the frames and
  playing chess, I recommend you to do the
  following Create two windows, make one a top
  view and the other camera view.
• Then move each pawn around in the top view and
  inspect it in the camera view to make sure the
  pawns are moving on the squares as expected.
• If this is not the case, check the position of
  the pawns on the board in all views to see if
  they all have been set up the same as what is in
  the pictures shown in the previous slide

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• Lets Play Some Chess
• Although we did not create all the pieces, we can
  just make a few moves to generally see how a
  chess games can be animated.
• To start with, make sure you are in the top view.
  
• click F10 to move to editing panels and from the
  ANIM panel click on Do Sequence to turn it on.
• Start from frame 1 and in the top view,
• press A to select everything
• press the I in the keyboard
• select LocRotScale to set the starting keyframe

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• Move to frame 10 and move the third black piece
  from the right two squares up as shown in the
  pictures on the right
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 1, and move the black piece
  back to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• Move to frame 20 and move the third white piece
  from the right two squares up as shown in the
  pictures.
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 10, move the white piece back
  to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• Move to frame 30 and move the second black piece
  from the right two squares up as shown in the
  pictures.
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 20, move the black piece back
  to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• Move to frame 40 and move the forth white piece
  from the right one square up as shown in the
  pictures.
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 30, move the white piece back
  to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• Attacking time
• Move to frame 50 and move the black piece on the
  top of the white as shown in the picture
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 40, move the black piece back
  to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• Move to frame 60 and move the attached white
  piece out of the game as shown in the picture
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 50, move the white piece back
  to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• White wants to revenge. So move to frame 70 and
  move the white piece on the top of the black
  piece as shown in the picture
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 60, move the white piece back
  to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• Move to frame 80 and move the attached black
  piece out of the game as shown in the picture
• Press the I in the keyboard and select
  LocRotScale to set the keyframe
• Move back to frame 70, move the black piece back
  to its original position, if it is not there
  already
• Press I and select LocRotScale

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• Testing your Animation
• To make a simple test of your animation,
• In the ANIM panel set the start to 1 and end to
  80
• Press Alt A. You should see the movement of the
  pieces
• If the Animation is not as expected, it might be
  possible that you have forgotten some steps.

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• You can remove the frames and start again. To do
  that
• Go to frame 1
• Set up the pieces on the board
• Switch to NLA Editor window from the window menu
  as shown in the following picture
• Box select all the yellow points and press x to
  delete them all
• Switch back to 3D view window again
• This removes all the frames and allows you to
  start setting up the keyframes again

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• You can now move to the side view and set up
  lights and camera and plane as shown below. Add a
  sun and a spot light.
•  
•  

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• The Result
• Usually you will want to render an entire
  animation to disk, either as a series of images
  or as an AVI file.
• To set this up, first enter a filename in the
  filename box of the output panel.
• For a series of images (not for AVI files), this
  name will become the base prefix of the
  filesnames.
• For example, entering '/render/pawn' will result
  in a series of images called 'pawn0001, pawn0002,
  ' stored in the directory C/render.

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• Set the correct file format. Selecting 'AVI raw'
  here will cause Blender to store your animations
  not as single images, but as an AVI file.
• Press F10 and in the ANIM panel turn off the Do
  Sequence
• Press Animation to create the slides of the movie
• After this is done you can press Play to play
  your video. This opens a new window pressing
  ESC stops playing.