These instructions will get you familiar with Blender by quickly creating a liquid simulation of a three-dimensional model and exporting an animation.

Excluding time to download and processing your animation, you will be able to complete this tutorial in ~10 minutes

• 0. Preface
• 1. Requirements
• 2. Installation
• 3. Basic Navigation
• 4. Applying Physics
• 5. Recording Animation
• 6. Next Steps

• Other Resources
• Troubleshooting

Blender is a popular free and open-source software used for 3D computer graphics. This powerful tool can produce 3D simulations, animations, artwork, 3D printing models, and many other creations like the .gif of a melting chocolate bar below:

Because Blender is extremely multifunctional, it can be complex given its many features. To focus our efforts in this tutorial, we will quickly create a simple animation that would be difficult to generate elsewhere.

Back to Top

Any computer made in the past decade should be able to run Blender for our tutorial animation.

Blender is available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux; this tutorial uses Windows 10, but most commands should be the same between different operating systems.

Back to Top

Download Blender for you operating system at: https://www.blender.org/download/

This tutorial uses the "portable" Windows version of Blender to simplify installation (portable means that the software just needs to be extracted and does not need to be installed on your system).

Back to Top

When you first start Blender, you will be presented with a default file that has a 3D cube in it. For the purposes of this tutorial, you do not need to manipulate the Cube object other than selecting it by clicking on it (it will be highlighed in an orange outline when selected).

Back to Top

With the Cube selected, go to the Object menu (1) and scroll down to select Quick Effects (2) and choose Quick Liquid (3).

This will create a new object called Liquid Domain, it is represented by the larger orange rectangular outline around the cube.

Reselect the Cube (1) and choose the Physics Properties (1) and scroll down to Fluid menu (3). Change Type to Flow, Flow Type to Liquid, and Flow Behavior to Geometry.

Reselect the Liquid Domain (1), select Material Properties (2), delete the default material (3), create a New material (4), and leave as the default new material Material.001 (5).

Select the Physics Properties for Liquid Domain (1) and under Fluid, select Mesh.

Continue to scroll past the Fluid submenu and under Cache, change End to 30 (1), change Type to All (2), and click on Bake All. Blender will now simulate 30 frames of the liquid simulation on the Cube.

After a few moments, Blender will have finished processing and we can move forward to recording an animation of the physics simulation.

Back to Top

Select the Toggle Camera View (1) so you can see the recording camera's perspective. With the Liquid Domain object selected, go to Output Properties (2) and change End to 30 (3) and you can change the output path if you want (4). For the Cube object, click on Disable in Renders (5) so it is greyed out. Under the Render menu (7), select Render Animation.

A new window will pop up and Blender will start rendering the animation. Note that this is a separate step from the "baking" physics simulation and is what is required to produce the final files used for animation.

After a few moments, you will have each of the 30 frames rendered as separate images in your designated output folder.

With these individual frames, you can use other software like GIMP or ScreenToGif to create a .gif animation or even .mp4 video file!

Back to Top

Congratulations, you've created your first computer-generated imagery (CGI) just like in the movies!

If you're wondering how to make the melting chocolate bar like in the Preface section, you'll have to look into these concepts:

• Using different models: File → Import (See "Free 3D Models")
• Backgrounds: World → Color → Environment Texture (See "Free HDRI Backgrounds")
• Manipulating camera: In Camera View, pan, move, and zoom to the perfect angle for recording
• Surface colors and appearances: Revisit Material Properties from the Applying Physics step and look into properties like Base Color, Metallic, Roughness, etc.
• Changing properties during animation: Change Material Properties and utilize Keyframes throughout the rendering (e.g., surface becomes more mirror polished and color turns lighter)

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

Copyright © 2024-∞ Athit Kao, Terms and Conditions