My House in a Blender

[yovargas]

Last August, I heard that there was this free software for doing 3D modeling called Blender and on a whim, I decided to download it and see what it was. I was immediately hooked, despite having no idea how to do or make literally anything. Something about making 3D stuff really grabbed me and for the next few weeks I became obsessed with learning how to make stuff.

After a couple weeks and lots of YouTube tutorials later, I decided I was going to try and recreate my real house in 3D, thinking it would be a fun little project I could do to practice and learn. I thought it would take a couple weeks, maybe a month. In hindsight, this was insane. This "little" project turned out to be ridiculously complicated and ambitious, especially for a total novice who had no idea what he was doing.

But seven frustrating, exhausting, exciting months later, it is complete. Here is the result of several hundred hours of very, very, very hard work - a full recreation of my entire house in 3D:

[RoseMorninStar]

Very nice!! I bet you learned a TON in the process! Good for you. Do you really live in the middle of nowhere?

[narya]

Wow! I'm a mediocre user of AutoCAD-3D so I really appreciate all the work you did, especially in the bathrooms. And a living room full of bookshelves is delightful! The large screen porch would be a great outdoor bedroom for summer nights.

[Impenitent]

Yov, that is extraordinary!

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

[yovargas]

A few real vs digital comparisons:
(Is 3 really the max number of attachments?)

1IMG_20200327_070656858.jpg (982.27 KiB) Viewed 10362 times

3500.png (493.96 KiB) Viewed 10362 times

[yovargas]

2IMG_20200327_071234231.jpg (967.6 KiB) Viewed 10362 times

2517.png (527.7 KiB) Viewed 10362 times

[yovargas]

3IMG_20200327_071555871.jpg (970.59 KiB) Viewed 10360 times

31530.png (510.29 KiB) Viewed 10360 times

[yovargas]

4IMG_20200327_074500312.jpg (992.67 KiB) Viewed 10360 times

41067.png (462.51 KiB) Viewed 10360 times

[yovargas]

5IMG_20190908_163020029_HDR.jpg (1013.13 KiB) Viewed 10360 times

50347.png (548.33 KiB) Viewed 10360 times

[Inanna]

Ah yes, I remembered those chairs from
Your parents’ visit. Was wondering if it is that same porch! Great job, Yov.

You need more books. I could ship some of mine, they are taking over my tiny apt.

[Maria]

Wow, the stills are really impressive. I can't watch the 3D view yet because my husband needs the bandwidth for work, but .... WOW.

I learned very basic Blender designing 1.5 years ago, in order to design 3D objects to print on our 3D printer, but I never got into the making it look like a real thing aspect.

[yovargas]

Ah yes, I remembered those chairs from
Your parents’ visit. Was wondering if it is that same porch! Great job, Yov.

Wow, it took me a minute to understand what you meant. I can't believe you remember when I bought those rocking chairs about 6 years ago!

You need more books. I could ship some of mine, they are taking over my tiny apt.

Considering what few books I read these days are almost always on Kindle, those shelves aren't gonna be filled with books any time soon unless someone else uses them.


So cool that you've used Blender before, Maria! Were you using for work or some personal projects? Did the 3D printing work well? I've been considering looking into trying that out.

[Maria]

I had it down pat, the things I needed, anyway. Then when I came back to it about a year later, the program was all glitchy and I downloaded the latest version.... and it was ALL DIFFERENT! They changed so much and I couldn't find anything!

So I quit designing things for my husband's 3D hobby and told him he was on his own. He's relearned the new version of the program and has figured out how to do what he wants now. And I can spend more time on my own hobbies.

I don't know if Blender does that all the time or if I just happened to try it right before a major overhaul of the whole program, but I just didn't feel like relearning the whole program just to help out my husband.

But for a while there, I was blendering for hours every evening.

edit: The 3D printing worked out OK, after I figured out how to make sure every single surface depicted was actually solid and no gaps. The conversion to 3D printing couldn't cope with even tiny gaps between walls of things.

[Maria]

One of the projects I spent a WHOLE lot of time on was making a 3D printed leather stamp with the judo club logo. After spending weeks getting it to print out right, we tried using it on leather--- and the plastic wasn't strong enough. It didn't hold up for more than 3 or 4 uses. So we gave up trying to use 3D printing for leather work tools.

[yovargas]

Yeah, there was a big upgrade about a year ago to version 2.8. I started using it after the big upgrade so no need to relearn the interface fortunately!

And I would love to see what stuff you've modelled, like that leather stamp!

[elengil]

That's awesome! I've built my house in Sims before, but outside of Revit have never used any kind of 3D modeling software. The renderings are incredible, and you really got all the details in there!

[Maria]

Gahhhhh! 2.8 drives me nuts! But I was finally able to get some stills.

This is what it looks like in top view:

bigger mats 1.png (332.42 KiB) Viewed 10356 times

This is rendered:

bigger mats.png (453.47 KiB) Viewed 10356 times

And this is what it looks like printed:

20200327_095753.jpg (152.87 KiB) Viewed 10356 times

The idea was to press it into a leather belt over and over again, creating a series of little people throwing each other surrounded by the grid pattern which is supposed to represent judo mats laid out in the proper grid fashion.

Not only was the plastic too soft for repeated use, but it was hard to see the pattern when printed small enough to fit on a belt.

Disappointing all around, really.

[Maria]

Another thing I really wanted to get working was a rotating yin yang judo key fob. The outer part is suppose to stay still, while you can rotate the little yin yang judo players with in the circle. I finally gave up on it. I just couldn't make it work.

Here's the rendering:

judoyinyang.png (348.23 KiB) Viewed 10352 times

I never could get them to print together and have the inner part rotate freely. I did get the inner circle to print OK, though. You can see it on the right side of this group of various things I designed and my husband printed. He's done lots of variations on the two tone "JUDO" key fob.

I'm spoilerizing it, cuz I know it'll be too big.

Hidden text.

20200327_095734.jpg (855.71 KiB) Viewed 10352 times

[yovargas]

Aw, bummer it didn't really work out. It's a really neat idea, and I love the idea of trying to use this digital modeling stuff for something so tangible!

[Maria]

My husband printed out dozens of Judo key fobs to sell at the state games last summer. He also laser engraved leather key fobs and coasters. The leather stuff was so much more popular than the plastic stuff that he's concentrating on leather things this winter.

But he has improved his leather coasters to include a 3D printed thing to make them more sturdy and less slippable. And a 3D printed holder for the coasters. Those are what he designed in the 2.8 version after I quit.

Hidden text.

20200327_103022.jpg (392.97 KiB) Viewed 10329 times

20200327_103042.jpg (292.08 KiB) Viewed 10329 times

Just another way to help support our judo club.

The red and blue coloring is hand painted by him. Laser is, of course, only black.