Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Modeling a volcano

In this module, you will create a volcano using the proportional edit fall-off tool. You should be comfortable with deleting and adding meshes.

Adding a Plane

Delete the basic cube. Add a plane, and  S cale it up by 10. Rotate it so you see it in top-view (make sure it's in Orthographic view too).

Enter Edit mode and subdivide (with  W ) 5 or 6 times. More subdividing will give you a "smoother" volcano, but it also needs more CPU power.

The difference between "Subdivide" and "Subdivide Multi"...

"Subdivide" divides every square in the plane into four new squares. So every time you press "Subdivide" you will have four times as many squares as before. "Subidivide Multi" will make x horizontal and x vertical lines through your existing squares, so the new number of squares is: (squares_old)*(x+1)², where x is the number you enter.

Making the Mountain

In top view, select one of the points in the middle of the plane. With this point selected change to side view. Press the  O , which enables the "Proportional Edit Falloff" tool in the Menu-Panel beneath the 3-D-Window. As seen in the previous tutorial Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Mountains Out Of Molehills when you move a vertex while edit falloff is enabled, all vertices in a defined radius of the selected vertex will align with the selected vertex when its position is altered. How they are adjusted can be chosen in the tab on the right of the yellow dot. I propose using "smooth falloff".

Now grab the vertex with  G . You will now see a gray circle. You can change its size with the mouse wheel. Every vertex inside this radius will be affected by the falloff. Change the size of the circle so almost the whole plane is in it.

Now move the vertex a bit upwards, as seen in the picture. Optionally you can lock the z-axis to make the volcano go straight up by pressing  Z .

As you can see all the other vertices will shift upward. We could keep moving this vertex at the same rate, but that would cause the plane itself to rise and bend, and that's not very good. So press  LMB  to apply the changes, grab the same vertex a second time and repeat the previous exercise as before, except now choose a smaller radius for the circle, about half the diameter of the plane ( G  →  Z  → scroll  MMB ).

Repeat this two or three more times and you will get something like this:

Forming the Crater

Now we're going to create the "hole" on the volcano. First change the falloff to "root". Grab the vertex one more time, change the size of the circle so it's more or less as seen in the picture.

Grab this vertex down a bit, apply, grab it one more time with a smaller circle. You now should have something like this:

Just leave the border jagged and just smooth (Subdivision Surface) the whole volcano cause it is much more realistic. Go to Object mode, select the volcano, go to the "Modifier" menu in the "Properties" Header and just click on "Add Modifier" -> Subdivision surface (you can leave "view" on 1). Do not apply these settings yet.

First we'll do a test-render. Still in "Object mode" Delete the default Lamp point with "X" or "Delete" and place your 3D cursor behind the camera and press  Shift + A  -> "Lamp" -> "Point". With the Lamp Point still selected Click on The Lamp point Properties ("Data") in the "Properties" Header then change "Energy" to "10". Press F12 to enter Render, after adjusting the camera.

Finishing the crater

You can very easily make a nice looking crater. Just go into "Edit Mode", touch "Num1". Make sure "limit selection to visible" is off and "proportional editing" is on and set it to "sharp" falloff. Select about the upper vertices with "border select" (Press "B key").

After that, scale (press "S key") it 'till it's a nice crater with a circle as large as mine.

And that's it, you just created a nicer looking crater.

Adding Magma

Let's add some "magma" using lighting.

1. Make sure you're in "Object Mode"
2. Press  Shift + S  and choose Cursor to Center.
3. Press  Shift + A  and choose Lamp → Point.
4. In the Properties window, click the Data tab.
5. In the colour box (white by default) in the Lamp section, change the color to reddish-orange. (Red: 1, Green: 0.1, Blue: 0)
6. Set the Energy to around 7.
7. Raise the light until it's just above the bottom of the crater ( G rab along the  Z  axis).
8. If the ground level of your plane is reflecting light from the lava lamp this is because the bottom of your crater is above ground level of the plane you created; you'll need to turn on ray-tracing. in the object data menu for the light, open the Shadow menu and click "Ray Shadow"

• Alternate 1: Spot Lamp

1. Change the light's type to Spot.
2. Raise the light until it's covering most of the crater. If the light is not pointing down,  R otate and angle it downwards.You can also scale the radius of the light by press  S  to fit the rim of the crater.

• Alternate 2: Area Lamp

1. Change the light's type to Area.
2.  R otate along the  Y  axis: 180 degrees.
3. Set Gamma to 2.
4. Set Distance to around 5.

Experiment with the values and positioning to get something that works with your volcano.

It should now look like this:

Varying the Terrain

Next, let's set the volcano's material.

1.  RMB  on the volcano plane.
2. Select the "Material" button and press New.
3. Change the Diffuse color to ashen gray. (Red: 0.260, Green: 0.230, Blue: 0.230)
4. Select the "Texture" button and press New.
5. Change the Type to Stucci.
6. In the Influence panel, uncheck Color, and check Normal. Set the Normal slider to 0.5. This will render the texture as a bump-map.

(Note: In version 2.77 you may need to change the texture Mapping -> Coordinates option from UV to Generated before you see bumps appear.)

(Note: In version 2.78c you may need to change the texture Mapping -> Coordinates option from UV to Global or Object before you see bumps appear.)

Older versions:

Select the volcano and press F5. Keep Pressing F5 until the Materials Buttons (symbolized by a red ball) is highlighted. Then add a new material. You do this by clicking the Add New button in the Links and Pipeline Panel. Once you've done that, set the settings similar to the picture below. Now press F6, then add a new texture to the material. Choose a stucci texture, set the noise size to 0.15. Now switch back to the materials-window (F5) and click on the "map to" tab. Deselect the "col" button and select the "nor" button. This will render the texture as a bump-map on the volcano. Set the "nor slider" to 0.5, which should be the default. Switch to the "map input" tab and choose "tube".

If you now render you should get something like this:

This looks really smooth, like clay pottery. To get a more rough-looking volcano, try out these options:

• Option 1: Subdivide and increase the fractal. 5 should do the trick.

• Option 2: Decrease the texture's basis size (in the "Stucci" panel when you select the "Texture" button).

• Option 3: Proportional edit tool.
  1. Press  O  to turn on Proportional Editing mode. Select Random fallout.
  2.  G rab the center vertex, and raise it along the  Z  axis.

Older versions:

Go into Edit mode, select all Vertices, and use the fractal (set from 15 to 30) to really get things looking rocky and mountainous. TAB (Edit mode) → F9 → AKEY to select all → Mesh Tools → Fractal → 15 - 30 (15-low, 30-high) → OK → TAB (Object mode) In Blender 2.5 you can use the random proportional edit tool: use NUM7 to switch into top view, grab the central vertex of your volcano using a large-radius random proportional edit, and pull it slightly into Z-direction.

(A note: Seems there is no need in subsurf at all since fractal tool will dramatically increase vertex quantity.)