Basics of Blender building
I have received a lot of messages about how I build scenes in Blender, so this post will be a quick rundown of my building process. There are quite a few steps, so I apologize if I miss anything. Feel free to message if you have more questions!
I always like to start by importing a random .dae of your sim for reference, just to make sure everything will be built to the correct size and height. If things appear a solid grey or not the proper texture, make sure you have the viewport shading in the top right set to the second to last setting(material preview). Click, hold and drag the scroll button on your mouse to rotate the viewing angle, and hold with shift to move up and down.
2. Start with the front door/entrance.
I most always place the front door first and build off it or position the camera where I want & build within the camera view. Press S to resize, clicking the scroll button to resize along the axis. Press G to move, and R to rotate.Â
In order to add furniture/decor items, you will need to export the mesh of that object from Sims4Studio. It will export from there as a new Blender file, which you can then open in Blender, and then simply export it as an .obj file. The .obj can then be imported to the scene your building. Remember where you got it from so you can give credit for these meshes!
3. Join separated meshes.
Sometimes objects will be made up a multiple meshes, which can make it harder to move the object as a whole, so joining meshes will come in handy. Just select everything you want to join, and either right click and choose join, or press Ctrl+J.Â
4. Add plane mesh for walls.
The easiest thing to use to construct the floors and walls of your scene is the plane mesh. Cubes can also work for walls, but are hard to add windows to.
To add the texture of your floor/walls, we go to the right side menu and select the material prosperities tab second from the bottom. Next click the yellow dot beside âBase colorâ and select âImage textureâ from the pop-up menu. Now youâll be able to open the image of the texture you want(I almost always just use Google to find textures).Â
6. Creating shine/reflections.
In that same Material properties tab, you can also create a shine on your floors if you want some nice smooth marble or something. Just adjust both the metallic and roughness sliders to get the level of reflectiveness you want. Lowering them both to zero will create a perfect mirror.
7. Copy & paste multiple planes to expand floor.
Once youâre happy with the texture, use Ctrl+C to copy that plane mesh, and then Ctrl+V to paste. Copying more than one at a time makes the process of placing the floor much faster. You can also join all these meshes too to make one large mesh for the floor.Â
8. Use the object properties for a perfect 90 degree angle.
Add a new plane mesh to start building the walls. Select the object properties tab(the orange square icon) and change the Y and Z to 90 degrees which will rotate the plane perfectly upright.Â
Resize your wall planes and place them as you want next to the door. You can add a texture to the wall the same way you did for the floor, or you can click the white box by the âBase colorâ which will bring up the color wheel for you to customize a paint color.Â
10. Creating transparent windows in shading.
Now in addition to walls and floors, you probably want some windows too. For this we switch to the Shading page at the very top. Select the plane mesh you want for your window(if no nodes first appear, just click NEW to make a new material).Â
11. Add appropriate nodes.
Next we need to add in 2 nodes; a mix shader and a transparent BSDF. The order you add them doesnât matter, only where you place them.
The mix shader should be dropped in right between the principled BSDF and the material output nodes, and the transparent BSDF can go just below it. Then youâll need to connect the dots as show in the photo above; principled BSDF to the lowest âshaderâ on mixed shader, then the middle âshaderâ to the transparent BSDF.
13. Switch the blend mode.
Lastly, go back to the material properties tab on the right, and find the blend mode drop-down menu. If you donât see it under the settings section, check the viewport display section. Switch from opaque to alpha blend. You should see the plane become some-what clear. Adjust the metallic and the roughness sliders to create the level of translucence you wish.Â
I hope this tutorial will help! Blender skills, like any other new skill, will take a lot of practice & patience, so just keep experimenting and tinkering. In addition, keep in mind the larger of a scene you build, the bigger the Blend file which can become very laggy & requires a lot of processing power. Happy building! :)