Hi, everyone.  Here's my second tutorial video for Blender.  This one is just a basic exercise, focusing on some techniques, and working with a few useful modeling features in Blender.  This is one of those "topmod" style objects, using the Bridge Edge Loops tool to create a high genus polyhedron bow.  It's a quick example, and just one of those "fun" demonstrations that might be a good way to practice using hotkeys, or experimenting with different combinations of modeling tools.  I try to model at least one object a day just for fun, even if I i'm in the middle of a project, as a warm up for the day.  This is the kind of thing I'll usually play around with.  Here's a link to the video:

http://youtu.be/BHlSFl00SSo

Have fun with it, and feel free to experiment on your own at the end.  Try stacking modifiers, or editing the surface polys and creating some fun shapes!  Might even come up with something useful as a pendant for a necklace, or earrings for a character?  The possibility is yours.

Unfortunately, as with the previous tutorial, I haven't yet fixed my mic, but there are annotations through this video, clarifying all of the steps I'm doing. Be sure to have Youtube annotations enabled.  Hope you enjoy it. 

This is one of the possible results you can get, after applying materials, and rendering with Cycles...

Great stuff!  Yeah, I can picture that as some kind of necklace ornament.  Interesting workflow there, and definitely shows off some nice features in the bridge tool in blender.  VERY useful tip in there about unifying the normals too.  Thanks, man!

Very cool. The repeat command is the one I forget to make use of but it can really save some time and effort. Thanks Lux  :)

Again thank you for sharing another tutorial have yet had a chance to view it completely but looks really good from the bit I watched.

Tres bon!  I use a close technique to create mathematical objects for abstract.  This is smart, and I now think to use the repeat history for more things in my work!  Merci, luxxeon!

nice tip !! I've never looked at options for bridge ;-) lol I didn't even know it had any but guess that's my fault for not looking

I'm with heddheld on this one!  I never knew there were additional options for the bridge tool like that. Opens up a lot of possibilities, so it seems!  And of course the repeat thing is a good tip.  Thank you!

Blender is one of the few polygon-based modeling applications which can be used to achieve this type of geometric shape very quickly and easily, out of the box.  Self-looping bridge extrusions like this can be done in almost every reputable modeling package one way or another, but Blender's parameters make short work of the task, in some situations.  It does depend on the direction of the vertex normals, and the face angles, which is why it's usually necessary to extrude the faces before executing the bridge edge loop command for this type of result.

Well done video, LuxXeon! I for one have no issue with lack of audio, which you've more than compensated for with your excellent annotations.

On another note, I find it indeed gratifying and enriching for modelers proficient in non-Blender packages to come to Blender: these individuals more often than not grow their base skills quickly and then ask process-focused questions which Blender developers should carefully listen to. If someone says: "In xyz-programme, I do this... is there a way to accomplish this in Blender?" the answers reveal much about features I never knew existed in Blender but also bring to light possible improvements for the future.

Well done video, LuxXeon! I for one have no issue with lack of audio, which you've more than compensated for with your excellent annotations.

On another note, I find it indeed gratifying and enriching for modelers proficient in non-Blender packages to come to Blender: these individuals more often than not grow their base skills quickly and then ask process-focused questions which Blender developers should carefully listen to. If someone says: "In xyz-programme, I do this... is there a way to accomplish this in Blender?" the answers reveal much about features I never knew existed in Blender but also bring to light possible improvements for the future.

Thank you, RobynsVeil.  I think it won't be long before you see a larger influx of very capable users from other software packages experimenting with Blender openly, and making tutorials for it as well. It's not there yet, but I see some changes occurring with the addons and improvements in 2.73 which, once standardized in future releases, will make Blender much more attractive to mainstream modelers and other CG specialists.  I've certainly found it quite impressive, and fully capable of any modeling task I currently do in my native 3d software, with only some differences in workflow.  I wouldn't wish to replace my current package with Blender for a variety of reasons, but I also wouldn't be fearful to do so, if I ever had to; with the knowledge that most of the work I do there, I can do here, in a relatively similar time-frame.

Well, thanks to Cybermonk and Luxxeon over in the modelling forum, I just learned that I can assign keyboard shortcuts to each subelement in edit mode.  So instead of clicking on the vertex, edges, or faces icons, or using the CTRL+TAB, then picking an element from the menu, you can just toggle between them using keyboard shortcuts!  I didn't know this was an option before, and literally, it has increased the speed and productivity of my workflow in Blender, beyond words!  Just this one tip has potentially saved me hundreds of clicks per modelling session.  I'm totally excited by that.  My modelling workflow is much closer now to what I was used to in 3dsmax.  Thank you again, guys!

Thanks! This was a very good tutorial. It taught me a few things about Blender. The Bridge Edge Loops feature reminds me of Top Mod. Good to know I can do this in Blender!

Neat process. Coming from Wings3D, I remember ggAliens having some plugin that could do geometry like this in a generated manner. Manifold labs stuff. :) On the Blender side, I wonder if the Sverchok plugin could make these kind of things based on a given set of a few input parameters? (Don't have any experience with it though.)

Other than that, I wonder if there's any plugins that would allow macros in Blender? Chaining a few commands even when manually modeling would likely make this go a lot faster.

Thanks! This was a very good tutorial. It taught me a few things about Blender. The Bridge Edge Loops feature reminds me of Top Mod. Good to know I can do this in Blender!

Thank you.  Keep in mind that the Bridge Edge Loops will not behave like the Topmod handle feature in all cases. The internal algorithms are very different.  Topmod uses a clever Hermite Curve, and morphing algorithm to create the handles by interpolating the loop between two given points, which is very predictable and smooth.  Blender's Bridge Edge Loops uses bezier curve profiles, which can be quite useful, but not as "intelligent" in all situations.  Still, this is a feature which is far more convenient than standard bridging operations would be in some other packages, where performing the same type of modeling function wouldn't be nearly as quick and painless.

Neat process. Coming from Wings3D, I remember ggAliens having some plugin that could do geometry like this in a generated manner. Manifold labs stuff. :) On the Blender side, I wonder if the Sverchok plugin could make these kind of things based on a given set of a few input parameters? (Don't have any experience with it though.)

Other than that, I wonder if there's any plugins that would allow macros in Blender? Chaining a few commands even when manually modeling would likely make this go a lot faster.

I remember Manifold Lab.  I used it extensively when I first began modeling, because I was very much into the parametric and generative process of modeling complex forms, and ML was focused on creating a generative workflow.  GGAliens was doing some great work with Voronoi stuff in ML at the time.  I still peek in on his latest Youtube additions once in a while.  When I moved on from Wings, the procedures I learned in Manifold Lab really helped understand the mathematical, procedural processes that could be had with other packages, like the modifier stack in 3dsmax, or the powerful specials, and modeling combinations in Blender. The only macro recorder project I've heard of in Blender is this, which came out with Blender 2.6: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Development/Macros_Recorder

This will record commands to a text block, and allow the recall of certain procedural object workflows.