We now sit one lesson between me and where I stopped last time.

This time through I have notes. If I’m confused on what I should do, I can go to them and find out where I should be, and maybe even what I did wrong.

If school had been this entertaining, I might be something today.

Anyways, this was my second attempt at a crate. I screwed up the first and by the time I figure out what I did wrong I’d already deleted what I had and started afresh.

No biggie.

I noticed my Blender wasn’t working the same way the instructor’s was. Not in a bad way, but in a way that made me wonder if I wasn’t using a newer version of the program.

Might be interesting continuing on.

We begin anew with a low polygon dungeon. This is a barrel for that dungeon.

This part is where I fell off of the lessons. I hope, though, that I have no more problems, as the next thing I’m make is a low polygon dinosaur.

I need to make a low polygon dinosaur.

Need.

Above is my first time making a lighthouse island. I was pretty pleased with it. It wasn’t great, but it was a first try. First tries are never great.

Below is the finished second pass.

I screwed up with it here and there. Somehow I managed to link the island with the ocean, and God knows what else. The lighthouse should be glowing; why isn’t it? I don’t know.

Still, it’s pretty good, I think. Better than the first one. It helps that I got excited and started doing extra stuff to make the whole thing look better. Well, better to me.

Anywho. We move on to the next part of the course: low polygon dungeon.

Below are a few more shots of the island, for the interested.

As the title implies, I moved the lighthouse again. Shrank it, too. Probably won’t do it again.

A few other notes.

I made a church! Fixed up a cross, fought to put it on the right building, the works. Even made a cemetery.

Can you see them?

Me neither.

I also rearraigned the trees some on the middle left. In my fervor to plant trees, I put a bunch on the gray portion of the island. While one or two are okay, ten or so are too much. It didn’t take much correcting.

We are almost done with meddling with the lighthouse. This lesson was coloring it and giving it a light glow up top. Next lesson will be a night scene.

I sort of like it the way it is. But who knows? The night might be better.

Oh! Here are a few close ups so as you get a better feel for the trees. And so that all that work on the crosses don’t go to waste…

I, uh, made a mistake on my tree count.

The file folder I looked at had this number on it: 99. I thought that was the total. That was how it worked on the other folders.

Only on this folder… The 99 had a little + sign on it.

I made more than 99 trees.

I made something like, say, over 600 trees.

639 trees, to be precise.

I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Just paste and place, paste and place. That doesn’t look good over there, let’s reorganize.

Ten minutes, I think. Twenty tops.

Could you imagine having to color all those trees individually?

The mind boggles.

Fortunately, all of the trees are linked, so when I colored one I colored the other 638.

Same with the houses.

Wow.

Anyway. I discussed the lighthouse situation with Mom and net result is a moved lighthouse to a higher locale. I also made it a wee bit bigger so that its light might shine over the high part of the hill.

The lighthouse itself is uncolored as that’s the next lesson.

There’s something intoxicating about creating. Of making something from nothing. Even if the something you made is still nothing.

I fought very hard to get these trees right. Not just in looks. I also screwed up some mechanic and the tree wasn’t placing on the island right. Took some time fixing that, but I got there.

From this distance you can’t really make out the detail, or the effort. I could have just had cones on a cylinder and achieved the same effect. Up close, though, it looks good. Crude, but good

Planting these things was what I thought was going to be a real problem. Wasn’t much of a much as it turns out. Just ALT+D over and over and over and over again. There are almost a hundred trees in that render. 99, to be precise. Had I known, I’d have added one more. Not that anyone but me would have cared.

Let me drop a little knowledge here, to show you I’m learning. ALT+D makes a linked copy of the original object. I fiddle with one tree, I fiddle with them all. Makes coloring them in so much easier.

I keep thinking the lighthouse should be on the top of the hill. I was thinking that with the video Instructor’s lighthouse, and his is enormous. Might move it around later.

Right now? I’m just enjoying the view.

I might scatter the buildings out a bit more tomorrow. They seem a little too close together.

Also, if you remember from yesterday, the lighthouse is smaller. It looked too big to me. The instructor’s lighthouse is huge, much bigger than his buildings, and it just doesn’t seem right.

Oh well, what the hell.

One more thing. Earlier this morning while I was pulling into a restaurant I suddenly realized I could make fir trees. Or pine trees, or whatever. Something in that general shape.

These trees have been already made, but I’m waiting until I finalize what I want the village to look like.

All said and done, this will be a much better image than my first attempt.

First off, this is just a temporary set up. There will be more houses at a later date. Probably the next post, in fact.

A couple of notes.

For some reason I found it quite remarkable how BIG all the buildings were starting this stage. Everything had to be shrunk, and I’m not certain the light house shouldn’t be a wee bit smaller.

Also, I don’t think my original idea for this will work. Not to worry. I’ve come up with something else, similar yet do able.

Okay, so I should have mentioned this is a low polygon count image. Most of what I’m learning now is low polygon stuff. The Decimate Modifier, therefore, was used to lessen the amount of faces the image have.

Down to around 1% of the number I had.

Having a better idea of where I wanted the project to go, I fiddled about after I decimated (kinda) my island. The result is closer to where I want to end up.

To illustrate, before:

After:

While I’m partial to Before, this will make it easier for me to reach my final goal.

The above is the rocky base/island that the houses and lighthouse will reside on. Note that this time it isn’t just lost in a grey void. Over to the right you’ll see some shadow action going on. That’s because this object is now in what will become the sea. Or lake. Wherever this place is set in whatever world it comes from.

Amusingly, when I went to render it for this post, I forgot to tell the program to take out the lighthouse. Leaving a HUGE BUILDING right in the center of it.

This was the only real mistake I made on this lesson.

If I can take a moment to discuss improvements, compare efforts:

With this effort, I’m keeping the hill a little smaller in height. Hopefully this will result in a better final image.

Next comes something called the Decimate Modifier. Sounds like a Doctor Who title.