# Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Mountains Out Of Molehills

|previous=Bones
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Now that we\'ve created our simple person, it\'s time to give him
somewhere to go. In this tutorial we\'ll create a mountain range using a
few simple, and handy tools.

## Creating a simple plane

![](Blender3DNoobToPro-SimplePlane.png "Blender3DNoobToPro-SimplePlane.png")
First we need a clean area to work with.

-   Start off with a new project, using *File → New*, or hit
    . If you have a default cube or
    plane just delete them now (select them with
     and press
    ).

Our first step is to create a large grid plane that we\'ll use for the
ground and grow our mountains out of.

-   Press to enter top view. This way
    our grid plane will be lying flat when we create it.
-   Press . This sets the 3D cursor
    to (0,0,0) which will be the center of the grid we will add (or
    use -  → *Cursor to Center*).
-   Now add the grid with  → *Mesh*
    → *Grid*. This will be our canvas.
-   Now add more vertices to the grid. In the bottom of the toolbox
    window, change the number of X and Y subdivisions somewhere from 15
    to 20.
-   Change to Edit Mode using 
-   Scale the grid plane up by about 15

:   First put the mouse close to the center of the grid plane and press
     and drag the cursor away and watch
    the numbers in the bottom left of the 3D View. Hold
     while dragging to increment by 0.1
    for a more precise measurement. Alternatively, to enter the exact
    amount yourself, press , then
    simply type **15** and hit .

## First mountain

Now that we have the ground, it\'s time to start growing our mountains.

-   Make sure you have nothing selected
    .
-   Select a random vertex with . I
    usually start at the one that is 4 down from the top and 4 in from
    the left (the 4th vertex if you count the edges).
-   Change to the side view with .

![](Blender-Noob-to-Pro_Proportional_Menu.png "Blender-Noob-to-Pro_Proportional_Menu.png")

-   Press  to change to proportional edit
    mode or use the button which shows a grey ring on the header of the
    3D View. The button will change its color to blue. You can also use
     → *Transform→Proportional Edit*
    (By default this button is located just below the 3D view).
-   Once you\'ve turned proportional edit mode on, another button
    appears to its right, the falloff button. Select Smooth Falloff
    here. Alternatively you can use the menu on the header of the 3D
    View (*Mesh → Proportional Falloff → Smooth*) or, using
     will cycle through all of the
    different falloff types while using the Proportional editing tool.
-   Press  to grab the vertex. We should
    now have a circle surrounding the vertex, this is our *radius of
    influence*. Basically any vertices inside this circle will be
    affected by any changes to the vertex itself.

**Noob Note:** If you\'re having trouble seeing or changing the radius
of influence, try saving your scene and restarting Blender.

-   Use  or
     and
     to adjust the radius of
    influence to include just over 2 vertices on each side of our
    selected vertex. (Depending on your version of Blender, you may need
    to use  to adjust the radius
    of the influence. On Mac, use 
    and ).

![](Blender3DNoobToPro-FirstMountain.png "Blender3DNoobToPro-FirstMountain.png")

-   Move the vertex up about 8 units on the Z-Axis. Do this by dragging
    the cursor up a little, and press the
    ; this should restrain the movements
    along the Z-axis. Now use  to move
    it precisely. Alternatively you can use
     to restrain movements to the Z-Axis,
    type  and hit
    . In older versions of Blender you
    may need to hit  before typing
    .

Congratulations, we just created our first mountain. Now it\'s time to
see what other things we can accomplish with the proportional editing
tool.

## Peaks vs. hills

![](Blender3DNoobToPro-Sharpfalloff.png "Blender3DNoobToPro-Sharpfalloff.png")
The 2.37 and onward releases offer at least 6 types and 2 modes of
proportional editing. The previous release only has 2 of these types:
Smooth and Sharp Falloff. We\'ll take a look at the difference between
these two now.

-   Change to top view again with .
    You\'ll notice that now your \"mountain\" looks like a few
    differently shaded squares in the grid; you\'re looking down on
    shaded tiles, but in the Z axis, they\'re all still perfectly
    aligned with the original grid.
-   Select another vertex away from the first. Let\'s say 4 from the
    bottom 4 from the right (counting the vertices on the edges).
-   Change back to the side view with 
-   Select Sharp Falloff from the menu on the bar of the 3D View.
    Alternatively, using  will
    switch from one to the next of the 6 proportional editing modes
    while using the Proportional editing tool.
-   As before, move the vertex up 8 units on the Z-Axis (*Note: The
    radius of influence will still be the same size as when we last used
    it*).
    -   
    -   
    -   Type  and hit
        

![](Blender3DNoobToPro-SharpVsSmoothFalloff.png "Blender3DNoobToPro-SharpVsSmoothFalloff.png")
Now we can see the differences between the sharp and smooth falloff. The
same number of vertices are affected in both cases; only the degree to
which they are affected is different.

The different proportional editing modes can be selected from the box
immediately to the left of the proportional editing type box. The mode
box contains four options: Disabled, Enabled, Connected, and Projected
(2D). \"Disabled\" means that proportional editing will not be used.
\"Connected\" means that only vertices linked to the selected vertices
will be affected by the radius of influence. \"Enabled\" means that all
vertices will be affected.

## Shaping the world

![](Blender_proportional_smooth_before_rotation.jpg "Blender_proportional_smooth_before_rotation.jpg"){width="300"}
Now that we\'ve created a couple of Mountains, it\'s time to see how we
can use proportional editing to shape them.

-   First make sure we\'re in side view
    ().
-   Then on the smooth falloff mountain, the first one we created,
    select the vertex that is immediately down and left from the topmost
    point.
-   Press  to rotate, scroll the
     to change effective radius so it
    includes other points. Your screen should look like the photo to the
    right.

You can see the size of the proportional editing circle, and that there
is only one vertex on the mountainside selected.

-   Next hold  and rotate everything by
    -90. Alternatively, use ,
    , and type **-90** and press
    . Your mountain should now look
    like this:

**Noob note:** be careful about the range of affected vertices. If the
range is too small, then rotating will affect just the selected vertex.
If the range is too large, it will rotate everything together. You can
adjust the range by using .

![](Blender_proportional_smooth_after_rotation.jpg "Blender_proportional_smooth_after_rotation.jpg"){width="300"}
Notice that the vertex itself did not move; since it is at the center of
the circle it had no effect. The adjoining vertices within the edit
circle were rotated around it in decreasing amounts the further from the
center they are. Try doing it again with a larger proportional editing
circle. Feel free to play around with scaling or rotating from different
view points (don\'t forget that you can also use
 to move vertices vertically or
horizontally).

Try viewing your world from top view while rotating with a large
effective radius. You will see the nearby vertices move close to the
full amount while vertices further away move less.

## Smoothing things out

![](Blender3DNoobToPro-RoundedMtns.png "Blender3DNoobToPro-RoundedMtns.png")
Now that we have a couple of budding mountains, you probably think they
look kind of choppy. Sure they would be good if we were making an 8-bit
console game, but we\'re working with 3D here, we want things to look
sharper (or maybe smoother) than that. There are a couple of approaches
to this. The first is to use more vertices when we create our plane. And
I won\'t lie, it works. But it\'s also a HUGE resource hog. It would
take your home computer hours of work just to keep things updated, let
alone run it. So instead, we fake it. The easiest way to do this is to
turn on *SubSurfaces* (we saw this in Detailing Your Simple Person
1.)
For our purposes, let\'s set the subdivision (*Levels*) to 2. Also,
ensure our SubSurf algorithm is set to *Catmull-Clark* (this is the
default setting).

Now, you\'ll notice that with SubSurf on, we lose a lot of hard edges
that we had, essentially we have no sharp corners any more. I don\'t
know about you, but to me that doesn\'t make for a very interesting
mountain range. So to restore our corners, we are going to use *Weighted
Creases for Subsurfs*.

-   First turn off proportional editing with
     , and ensure we\'re in side view with
    
-   Next, while still in edit mode, change to *Edge Select* mode with
     and select *Edges*.
    Alternatively press *Edge Select Mode* button at the bottom of the
    object window.
-   In the Tool Shelf at left, select the Options tab, then under Edge
    Select Mode, choose Tag Crease.
-   On our Sharp Falloff mountain, the second one we did, select the two
    edges on the right. *(see image
    below)*![](Blender3DNoobtoPro-SharpMtnCreasing.PNG "Blender3DNoobtoPro-SharpMtnCreasing.PNG")
-   Press  or
     → *Edit → Edges → Crease
    SubSurf*, then move the mouse away from the edge until the edge
    *Crease* reads 1.000 in the 3D viewport header. If moving the cursor
    there seems to be impossible, just hit 1 and enter.

As you move the cursor away from the edge you will notice two things.
The first is that the edge becomes thicker as we move from it; this is
showing how much of a crease we have (with *Draw Creases* turned on).
The second is that you will notice the subsurfed mesh moving closer to
the edge as the sharpness increases.

## Naturalness

Press  to enter Edit Mode and
select vertices. Then go into front view
. Select the second vertex from the top
in the centre of our Sharp Falloff mountain, then go into side view
. Hold 
and drag the vertex inwards, not too far or your mountain will come out
of itself on the other side. Just bring it in enough to make a small
indent.

Then grab the top vertex and pull it down a small amount. You will
notice that there is a small \"crunch\" in your mountain.

Don\'t forget to select all with , then
 *Shade Smooth* button to smooth
everything out.

OK, so your mountains are starting to shape up. But they still look a
bit too neat. You could spend time moving each individual vertex but the
chances are your model will still lack the natural feel. What we need is
some chaos. Thankfully this is quite easy to accomplish. Firstly select
the vertices that make up your mountains, all of them and a few around
the base (box and circle select will make this easier). Select a few
vertices between the mountains too. Next we use something called
fractals. Fractals are chaotically (i.e. randomly) generated variables.
In short you can use these variables to give your mountains a \"wobbly\"
look.

!Fractal option in
2.72 In
the Tools tab of the Tool Shelf, press Subdivide (under Mesh Tools),
then look at the Subdivide submenu below. The value in the Fractal box
is the strength of the fractal. 1 is very low and will barely change
your model. 10 is very high and will twist your models into very odd
shapes indeed. Have a play with different values until you find one that
you like. Around about 4.0 should do it. Hit OK and presto, your
mountains have been transformed from clinical neatness, to lumpy chaos.

-   If you make too many fractals, your computer will slow down.
    However, the more you add, the more bumpy and realistic it looks!

Repeatedly using the fractal tool seems to rapidly multiply the amount
of vertices on your canvas. I suggest using the tool once, and if the
result isn\'t satisfying, undo the result
() and try it again with a different
fractal strength. Helpfully, even after undo, your selected vertices
remain selected.

Now go back into Object mode and view the result.

