I construct my figures with bean shapes and other forms, which I envisioned as spinning to see the volume (
instead of learning how to shade to pull out the mass).
Blender now gives me the tools to make those shapes spin on my drawings.
In the above spinning drawing, all the "textures" on the shapes are just the main background drawing projected onto them.
Except for the revolving shape around the head. Here I added a PNG file with a transparent background (the Alpha channel), to make enough of that volume invisible to reveal the eyes while spinning.
All the spinning shapes in the above drawing have the PNG image of the main background figure, texture mapped on them. Since the PNG image has a transparent background, that also made the spinning shapes transparent, or rather partially transparent.
Note that there is a sphere orbiting through the middle of the figure, while spinning also.
BLENDER FILES
for free download
The Blender files for the above two animations are available for download, and anyone can alter them as they like:
The spinning shapes can easily be colored differently, or moved, or easily altered to radically change the character of the animation. I was very conservative with the two animations above, to be less confusing about what is happening.
I noticed that other websites like Blender Nation, offered
free 3D scenes for downloading:
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To Make a Shape Spin
Along its Axis
First change from "Global" to "Local" at the top of the "Layout" workspace:
"Local" refers to the
axis of the shape
Now "Rotation" will apply to the axis of the shape, inside of the whole Cartesian space.
The longest axis tends to be the Z axis.
- Hit the "N" key to open the Sidebar
- The Item/Transform menu shows up
- Click on "XYZ Euler" to open the drop down menu of more options
Make sure to chose an option starting with Z, if you want to spin the shape around it's longest axis. And choose this, the same one, every time you add a keyframe for that spinning object.
Hit the "N" Key
to summon this Sidebar menu
You probably want to use an option
starting with "Z"
to spin the shape around it's longest axis