CGCookie – Let's build a snowman in Blender

If you are looking to build a snowman this holiday season, you’ve come to the right place! The main focus of this course is to learn how to develop models and materials efficiently, procedurally and as flexibly as possible, all using built-in Blender functionality!

The main focus of this course is to learn how to develop models and materials efficiently, procedurally and as flexibly as possible, all using built-in Blender functionality!

From our first model to our final render, we will be applying several non-destructive techniques to provide you the ability to create several iterations of your snowman with ease.

A predominantly non-destructive workflow allows us to work faster, encouraging us to focus more on the fun stuff, rather than getting bogged down on the production of it. We are free to make changes when needed without locking ourselves into a final decision before we are ready, enabling artists to have their cake and eat it too!

Harnessing the power of modifiers will be an endless source of productivity when working in Blender. It’s not always about knowing which modifiers to use, but also knowing how to order and stack your modifiers together to develop the intended result.

Besides getting to know some lesser-used modifiers (Remesh, Skin, Displace), we will also get to learn how we can use the more common modifiers of your workflow in new and creative ways.

A great new tool that has been added into Blender 2.9 is the Cloth Filter brush in our sculpting workspace.

Regardless of your sculpting ability, however, the Cloth Filter brush makes creating believable cloth super simple. Gone are the days of complex cloth simulations and awkward sculpting/modeling hacks.

We will cover how we can quickly and easily set up a scarf mesh for our snowman, and use the Cloth Filter to add the final touches and folds that will make a great workflow for any cloth you’ll need to develop going forward!

Pipes image attribution: https://pixabay.com/photos/smoking-pipe-tobacco-tube-smoking-3081720/

All HDR images are from HDRI Haven, a fantastic resource for free, high quality and professional environment images to light all of your 3D scenes. https://hdrihaven.com/