Creating a Modular Kitbash in Blender

A short introduction video plus all the resources you will need.  This includes all the texture maps, references, and the human. obj.

In this lesson, we will go over the basics of Blender 2.9. This will help you visualise the course in your mind as I show you the animations we will be using throughout the learning process. This is a short introductory video into 3D modeling basics and I include it as part of my courses to provide you with a short lesson that will prepare you for the 3D modeling process we will go over.

In lesson 2, I will show you how to set up the references that come with your ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ resource pack within Blender 2.9. We will go over the process of building 3D models and assets using references.

This lesson will focus on teaching you about edge loops in Blender 2.9. We will also be starting to build our first castle wall, thereby beginning to layout our medieval castle kitbash.

In this lesson, we will learn about mirror modifiers. You will also work on and complete the greybox for the first type of castle wall we will be making.

In lesson 5, we will make a start on our second type of castle wall. This ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ castle wall will include slits. As you are building this, imagine the bowmen that could be firing out of those walls. Also, as part of this lesson, we will use the array modifier to ready a mesh, reading to use a boolean modifier in the next lesson.

This lesson will see us finishing the modeling process for all of our castle walls. We will make use of the Blender 2.9 boolean modifier to create our castle wall slits.

In this lesson, we take our first look at how we create a kitbash. In other words, I will show you how to make individual 3D parts so that they fit together. This will allow us to create castle walls of infinite height by stacking them.

In lesson 8, you will learn all about seams and sharps, how to UV unwrap, and how to smooth objects off within Blender 2.9. This is a short introductory video into 3D modeling basics and I include it as part of my courses to provide you with a short lesson that will prepare you for the 3D modeling process we will go over.

This lesson will focus on learning how to create materials using the node wrangler in-built Blender 2.9 addon to quickly import all texture maps. You will also learn about texture resolutions and the power of Eevee renderer.

In this lesson, we will start marking seams and sharps on our medieval castle wall extensions. We also apply the materials that we have created to these respective castle walls.

In lesson 11, we will continue working on our medieval castle walls. We will mark the seams and sharps and add materials to them again.

This lesson will see you learn how to fix UV errors within Blender 2.9. We will complete the process of marking seams and adding materials to all four of our medieval castle wall variations.

In this lesson, we will learn how to line up our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ castle wall bricks. This will allow the bricks to be seamless when they line up, and the process will improve how realistic the medieval castle wall design looks. We will also look at beveling edges without a modifier.

In lesson 14, we will learn about the bevel modifier within Blender 2.9. We will refine our 3D modelling skills by repeating the steps we completed over the last few lessons.

This lesson will see us completing the 3D modeling process for our medieval castle walls. This lesson’s highlight is creating the rampart stone floor asset.

In this lesson, we will have the first chance to render out the new ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ parts we just finished creating. We will also bring in our HDRI sky for real-world lighting.

In lesson 17, we make a start on our Tudor era medieval walls. You will also learn how to make good use of proportional editing within Blender 2.9 to give our wooden planks good character.

This lesson involves creating our Tudor era wall materials; the iconic wood, wattle and daub (i.e., wooden strips covered with clay). We will also apply them to one of our walls. The rest of the lesson will focus on using Blender’s 2.9 node system. We will learn how to use the hue and saturation node.

In this lesson, we will learn about transform orientation in Blender 2.9. We will also create other variations of our Tudor era walls in different sizes.

In lesson 20, we will finish our Tudor era walls. We will also take a quick look at how they look together, experimenting with the kitbash building process.

This lesson will focus on creating the door openings for our Tudor era walls. This process will be completed using the boolean modifier in Blender 2.9. We will also be using proportional editing to make the walls more stylised.

In this lesson, we will finish building the walls and openings for all of our Tudor era wall variations. We will also pack UV islands and make sure every UV looks different.

In lesson 23, we will start building the roofs for our castle keep lower-level buildings. We will learn how to merge vertices in Blender 2.9.

This lesson will see us finishing the 3d modeling of our small roof greybox. We will learn how to separate meshes within Blender 2.9 as part of this lesson.

In this lesson, we will continue to work on the small roof greybox we built in lesson 24. Since it is untextured, we will be working on adding materials to it in this lesson. We will use a mixture of bisect and edge loops to create the top of our small roof.

In lesson 26, you will discover what you can do using the Blender 2.9 knife tool. We will use the knife tool to create a 3D illusion on our round roof tiles.

This lesson will be an introduction to normals in 3D modelling – their purpose, how to use them, and how to create high-quality normals. We will also be 3D modeling the large roof greybox for our Tudor era buildings. As part of this lesson, we will learn how to recalculate normal faces.

In this lesson, we will complete the greybox building process for our large Tudor error building roof.

Lesson 29 will cover an integral part of professional 3D modeling workflow. Nip and tuck is part of any 3D modeling process. As part of troubleshooting, we will be covering how to clean up loose geometry in 3D models. We will learn how to clean up vertices on meshes within Blender 2.9.

This lesson will see is finishing the materials for our large Tudor era building roof. We will work on our square roof tiles and we will make sure they line up correctly.

In this lesson, we will start work on the towers of our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Kitbash’. As part of this lesson, we will be setting out a tower template. This will allow us to use it for the remaining variations we will 3D model later.

This lesson will allow us to complete the building process for our tower top block medieval castle asset. We will learn how to line up our UVs for complex faces.

In this lesson, we will finish modeling the square tower tops.

In lesson 35, we will begin modeling another tower asset. Our focus will be on creating the wooden surround greybox. As part of this lesson, we will make sure that our wooden supports are structured in such a way to be able to hold the weight that they intended to support and to add realism to our overall medieval castle keep scene.

This lesson will utilise the wooden surround greybox we created in the last lesson. We will be applying materials to it, and we will add bolts to its design to make it more realistic. You will learn how to create just the right amount of metallic and roughness finish for your bolts.

In this lesson, we will finalise all work on the wooden surround tower asset for our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ scene.

In lesson 38, similar to how we created the wooden surround greybox, we will be proceeding with making a stone variation of this asset. We will 3D model a greybox of it. We will work on our stone tower using a mixture of extrusion and solidify modifiers within Blender 2.9.

This lesson will be another tutorial into troubleshooting in 3D modeling. We will cover how to know when to restart a mesh.

In this lesson, we will finalise the square surrounds for our medieval castle tower buildings. This lesson will cover both the wooden and stone variations of these. We will create the stone tops ornamentation, and we will also test the stone top out against our tower to make sure it fits right.

Lesson 41 will see us laying out our large tower idea. This tower will include a set of steps leading down to it. We will start planning out the steps using our human reference to make them realistic.

This lesson will allow us to revisit the 3D modeling workflow and troubleshooting. We will focus on solving different problems. Our building focus will be working on the stone surrounds for the steps, as well as the steps themselves.

In this lesson, we will be using the untextured large tower model that we created in the last lesson. We will add materials to it. You will learn how to create meshes that give the illusion of being more than they are (i.e., we are creating a walkway but you cannot see around the corner of it).

In lesson 44, we will finalise our large tower asset for our medieval castle scene. You will be able to try out our newly-created tower and we will make a start on our trap door.

This lesson will help you expand your 3D modeling skills further. As part of this lesson, you will be learning all about the mesh extras Blender 2.9 addon. You will find out how to create hinges the easy way. Finally, you will also learn about the pipe Blender 2.9 addon.

In this lesson, we will finish working on our wooden trap door. This will also allow us to go over different shading options. You will learn an excellent way to create handles within Blender 2.9.

In lesson 47, we will be creating the greybox for our wooden window. As with all buildings, windows are essential, but for ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Kitbash’, this window will be only one of the options that you can use to diversify your medieval castle models.

This lesson will be similar to the previous one in that we will be laying out the design of a window. This time, the design will resemble a half-prism and the window will be made of stone. We will give the windows the illusion of depth because we cannot use glass as it would take away from the realism of our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Kitbash’ scene.

In this lesson, we will be creating notched bars for our medieval stone windows. You will learn how to do this using the array modifier in Blender 2.9. We will also create the knobs for the windows.

In lesson 50, we will be testing how well our medieval windows integrate into the 3D assets that we have built so far.

This lesson will be the first part of working on our second type of walls for our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ lower quarter. These walls will be wooden and they will be made up of planks laid parallel to one another. We will be focusing on the 3D modeling process here.

In this lesson, we will be setting up the plank material for our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ wooden lower quarter walls. We will take special care to make sure that the housing looks more suitable for lower-economy citizens as part of the storytelling element of the course.

In lesson 53, we will be creating the doors for our wooden plank walls. We will learn how to automatically pack all of our textures into one Blender file.

This lesson will focus on a counterpart of the wooden plank walls we just created. Like every house, we will also need a roof. We will be focusing on creating the wooden plank wall roofs as a greybox. Finally, we will start working on the most difficult parts of the build – the hay roof.

In this lesson, we will work on the wooden part of our roof. These planks of wood will be located under the hay. We will also be testing how our wooden plank buildings are working together.

Lesson 56 will see us working with alphas to create the hay that will lie on top of our wooden plank wall roofs. As part of this, we will learn about sub-division modifier, and we finally bring in our hay alphas. We will create 6 hay pieces and use displacement to bring all the little hay pieces out and make them look 3D.

This lesson will allow us to finalise working on our hay roofs. You will also learn how to make sure that the lighting is as it should be for the hay.

In this lesson, we will be 3D modeling the greybox of our first tower roof. Its design will be consistent with our other Tudor era walls and roofs, featuring the same white walls and black wooden plank details.

Lesson 59 will see us testing out whether the alcove roof assets we created work the way they were intended to for our kitbash.

This lesson focuses on creating one large roof and using it as a template to create two other variations of it that are smaller. You will be able to apply this process to your future projects for models that could be alternated in similar ways. You will also learn how roof mid-sections can go together without overlapping.

In this lesson, we will be working on our small tower roofs. These are the roofs that we created in the previous lesson using our large roof template. We will also add character to our roofs using the Blender 2.9 proportional editing tool.

Lesson 62 will complete the building and texturing process for our first tower roofs reminiscent of the Tudor era architectural design. We will also take a first look at the castle doors and look at how we are going to create them using our references.

This lesson will be the start of our door creation process for our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ scene. We will make a start with all three-door variations. Using the Blender 2.9 pipe addon, we will create door handles.

In this lesson, we will complete the modeling and texturing process for our three wooden doors. We will look at how we can manipulate the roughness values in our models.

Lesson 65 is focused on creating our stone doorway for the three wooden door variations we created in the previous lesson.

This lesson will allow us to test whether our wooden doors with stone doorways function the way they intended to when we integrate them into other assets of our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ scene.

In this lesson, we will 3D model the greybox for our stone castle wall steps in Blender 2.9. We will model them in such a way that two sets of steps can be placed next to each other at different levels so that they look like they follow on from one another.

Lesson 68 will see us completing the castle wall steps and texturing them with stone bricks. We will pay special attention to make sure that the stones are put on the steps evenly.

This lesson will focus on 3D modeling our round tower greybox. Like the square castle tower asset we created, this tower will also feature stairs, but this time they will be spiral stairs. We will also look at how to get the most out of cylinders based on vertices.

In this lesson, we will focus on 3D modeling the spiral staircase of our round tower asset. You will learn how to use empties and array modifier to create the spiral.

Lesson 71 will involve creating the stone wall on top of our round tower assets. This is the area of the tower that protrudes out of its basic design and allows people to ascend onto the top of the tower. We will finish off our spiral staircase with stone blocks on top.

This lesson will be all about adding materials to the round tower asset we created for our ‘Blender 2.9 Creating a Medieval Castle Kitbash’ scene. As part of this lesson, we will start to mark sharps and seams, and start adding textures.

In this lesson, we will complete the remaining tasks that will allow us to finalise the design of our round tower assets. This will also include work on the extension tower.

Lesson 74 will see us creating the top part or, otherwise called, the crown of our round tower asset. This will provide fortification to the tower and is integral to medieval architecture. The design of this castle crown is what I would call a classic castle design.

This lesson will be similar to the previous one, but this time, we will be creating a variation of the previous tower crown. This one will feature different decorative details. We will focus on making sure that the top stone part is realistic and built as though it is supportive of the weight it will need to hold.

In this lesson, we will create another tower crown. This time, it will be wooden. We will be using the skills we have learned before, and the Blender 2.9 creation process should be streamlined.

Lesson 77 will let us use the wooden crown we created as part of the previous lesson to learn about creative ways to UV unwrap.

This lesson will be the first of two lessons during which we will be creating a tower top extension. This extension will take our tower assets to new heights and add a lot of character to their design if you choose to use it. We will use our cursor to place our wooden supports.

In this lesson, we will finish working on our tower tops. We will also be making sure a lot of the parts are named.