Rendering#

Rendering is the art of converting a 3d model to a good looking 2d picture or video.

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Blender can be used for world-class rendering. It is completely free and can be obtained from blender

Once blender is installed a scene can be exported to blender directly by pressing the cute blender icon:

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The Base Scene#

The Blender model starts with the blender base model that is included with DAVE.

By default this is a file called “base ocean.blend” which is located in the highest resource path.

The base scene contains

  • the sea,

  • the sky,

  • a material called “Cable” which is used for exported cables and

  • a material called “Ocean” which is used for exported waves

It is possible to start with another base scene. This can be changed by either:

  • Using the GUI

  • passing another file-name as argument to the create_blend or create_blend_and_open functions

  • changing the BLENDER_BASE_SCENE variable (defined in settings.py)

Assets#

All visuals are exported to Blender. All visuals in DAVE are either .obj or .stl files.

During the export DAVE looks for a file with the same name but with the .blend extension. If such a file is found through the resources system then that file is imported. If such a file is not found then the .obj or .stl is used.

This means that for a workflow with a nicely rendered result it is advised to

  1. create your visuals in blender

  2. apply all transforms by hitting A (select all) and then Ctrl+A –> All Transforms

  3. keep the high resolution blender file with shaders, textures, etc. somewhere in a resource path

  4. export a lower resolution .obj for use in DAVE. Use Y forward and Z up during export.

Blog

Blog post : meshing with blender

Blender tutorial#

The blender tutorial from the official blender website.