Quickstart
In this tutorial, we will get to know the basics of working with DTPBlender and its UI. Even though it's labelled "Quickstart", it assumes more or less profound knowledge and experience with Blender as a 3D tool.
In the end, we will try ending up with a variation of the following menu for a little (but very good) chinese restaurant:
Setting up the document
Fire up DTPBlender. The default document size is already set at A4 (which this menu is), so we don't have to change mm X / mm Y.
As you may notice, this design is divided into three columns horizontally. So, let's create guides for this!
Creating a 3-column layout
The procedure for this is slightly "different" to common programs, but very interactive and - to a blender user - quite obvious: select (RIGHTMOUSE) the left margin so that it turns orange. Press SHIFT-S - Curs->Sel. Now the cursor appears and the pivot mode automatically switches to "Around cursor".
Note: DTPBlender shows the 3D (well, 2D :)) cursor only if it's actually useful - i.e., if in around-cursor mode. Also, placing the cursor in any way (LEFTMOUSE, SHIFT-S menu) automatically switches to around-cursor mode.
OK. Activate "Translate only (align)" in the view header. Now select the right margin, press ALT-D to duplicate it, press S to scale it towards the cursor (which is at the left margin), press X to constrain to horizontal movement, enter '0.333', press ENTER.
Now, the second margin. Duplicate the right margin again, but this time use 0.667 :)
Just in case, we should now see something similar to this:
Setting up the background
Now, we have a greenish background with a bit of noise in it (this strange panda bear or whatever it is). First, the basic color:
Unlock the layer with the background (it's locked by default) by pressing the lock icon on it:
Select the background in the view, and switch to the material buttons.
Note: DTPBlender has a revised UI with strong emphasis on efficiency and speed - there are no button "contexts" anymore. All button windows are available at a single click in the header.
Note on object selection: In DTPBlender, unselected objects are always kept completely "noise-free" in order not to clutter the view (no centre points, no parent lines, etc.). When selecting with RIGHTMOUSE, the object that gets selected will briefly flash in orange so that you have an idea of what got selected. If you absolutely want the selected objects to be clearly visible, you can always turn on "Outline" in the View->View properties header.
Adjust the color of the background to something greenish.
Now, we need some distracting panda bear image overlay in the background. I've kindly provided this image to you as a b/w mask:
Add a new texture, switch to texture buttons, switch to type "Image", click "Load Image", and find the panda-bear image.
Note: You will notice that the preview is quite coarse. DTPBlender has a limited preview resolution for gradients and images (or materials in general). To increase, go to the editbuttons, and increase the SubDiv level. Set it to 7 for our tutorial.
We only want this image to shine through slightly, so go back to the material buttons, and set the "Col" slider at the bottom-right to something more conservative like 0.100.
Note: To get a full resolution / quality view of your document at any time, you can just press F12 to render it. Try it now!
The small grey border around your image is the "Bleed" area. Most
print
shops tell you to reserve a certain border area around your image for
cutting. By default, DTPBlender hides this area with this grey border. When
you would render your final image for taking it to print, you would (apart
from setting the rendersize to 100% :-)) disable Layer 19 (BLEED) so that
the background comes through. The bleed area size is adjustable in the
render buttons.
We can lock the background again now (press the lock icon on the layer).
The "chinese" border
Now let's make this slightly complicated decorative border on the right. Turn on absolute grid snapping and display the grid, by turning on both of the grid icons in the view header. Also, turn off snapping to objects and guides, as both modes don't work together:
Absolute grid snapping, as opposed to normal Blender's "relative" (CTRL) snapping, always snaps all selected points to the nearest absolute grid point, also during transform. This is very useful for working with 2d shapes.
Now, zoom in to the lower right corner, far enough so that a finer grid stepping appears, roughly like this:
Note: In DTPBlender, you can just pan around the view by holding middlemouse, and zoom by holding CTRL and middlemouse.
Now, let's try to model that beast. With the mouse in the view, SPACE->Add->DTP->Line.
Note: DTPBlender lets you interactively place new primitives. By default, they are layered on top of the last active object. More on layering later in this tutorial.
Enter editmode (TAB). To make sure all CVs are initially on grid positions, select all, and SHIFT-S Sel->Grid. Now, select a CV, and extrude until you get the right shape (it's not easy - those chinese people are somehow sick)... to help you, there's an "Extrude draw" mode in DTPBlender, which is invoked with E2. You can abort it with ESC or RIGHTMOUSE.
You can adjust the line width by switching to the editbuttons and adjusting the "Outline:" button.
Note: You will probably have noticed by now that DTPBlender does live UI updates while you move float-type number buttons. This is incredibly helpful when adjusting things like offsets, font sizes, etc.
After some experimentation, I ended up here:
Some parts of this are slightly bent, so we need Beziers. Select all CVs, and press "Bezier" in the editbuttons. Adjust CVs slightly to get a bent shape:
OK, exit editmode, and get a full view of our document by pressing NUMPAD0. Now, you'll probably have to resize (don't forget to turn off "Translate only"!) and reposition the object until it makes one corner of the border, roughly like seen here:
Now, let's duplicate this for all 3 corners. This is pretty easy:
Place the cursor in the middle of the right column so we can use it for mirroring. Select both the right margin and the guide dividing off the right column, and press SHIFT-S Curs->Sel. The cursor should now be centered horizontally between the guide and the margin. Be sure that Translate-Only is turned off!
Now, select the border-piece-object, and press ALT-D, S, X, -1, ENTER. Voila! ;-)
Now, select the top and bottom margin, SHIFT-S Curs->Sel. Select the two bottom pieces of the border, and ALT-D, S, Y, -1, ENTER. Voila #2!
Notes on Borderselect: Borderselect works completely different compared to regular Blender: 1) It only selects objects which are entirely inside the border (a behaviour I often wished for in regular Blender anyway) 2) It can be invoked by just dragging a border with LEFTMOUSE. In this mode, it replaces the current selection instead of extending it (to extend, hold SHIFT while drawing the border) 3) If only a single object is inside the border, it will automatically become the active object.
Now, to connect all border pieces, let's just join all 4 objects (select all of them, CTRL-J), and then just move the corresponding CVs until all lines reach to the next border piece and slightly overlap.
A curved piece of text
Let's do the curved "China Asia Imbiss" "logo". With the mouse in the view, press SPACE->Add->DTP->Text. Go to the editbuttons, and load a similar font with serifs. I chose Times (which this probably is).
Note: DTPBlender only supports PostScript fonts. You need to load each style (regular, bold, italic, bolditalic) individually (just like in current bf-blender), EXCEPT that there's a neat trick :-) Say you have a directory which contains all of your PS fonts. Now, make the following subdirectories in it: b/, i/, and bi/. Next, move the bold, italic, and bolditalic files of each font to these directories, and RENAME THEM TO HAVE THE SAME NAME AS THE BASE FONT.
Example:
Arial.pfb ArialBld.pfb ArialIt.pfb ArialBlIt.pfb
Arial.pfb stays in the main directory. ArialBld.pfb should be moved to b/Arial.pfb, ArialIt.pfb to i/Arial.pfb, and ArialBlIt.pfb to bi/Arial.pfb.
Sounds complicated, but you only have to do it once.
Note: Be careful when loading fonts if you don't have the aforementioned setup: When you press 'Load', DTPBlender will always use the selected font file for the currently selected style (B/I/BI/Plain). So, if you want to load a font for plain, deactivate both the B and I button beforehand.
Now that you've chosen the right font, choose the right material. Assign the same material as used for the border ("Default Outline").
Enter editmode and enter "China Asia Imbiss". Exit editmode. Scale and place accordingly.
To bend the text, we'll use a lattice (yes, lattices work for text objects in DTPBlender!). Add->DTP->Lattice, place and scale so that it encompasses the text, like here:
Make the lattice parent of the text (select text, shift-select lattice, CTRL-P).
To bend the lattice, you can of course use any technique you want. I would place the cursor in the middle (both horizontally and vertically) of the column, enter editmode, and then warp (SHIFT-W).
If the lattice bothers you, just move it to a different layer (it's enough to press the little arrow button in the layer manager with the lattice selected) and deactivate it. I normally keep one layer for all "helper" objects:
Adding images
I've provided the bear/plants/chinese-letters logo for you as an image with alpha channel:
Add->DTP->Image, you'll get a placeholder image. Switch to the texture buttons, click "Load Image", and locate the PNG file.
Note: DTPBlender does a few hidden things here which you might want to be aware of: 1) It automatically single-users the material when you add an image 2) It automatically resizes the object's aspect ratio to match a loaded image 3) The material is setup in a way that makes it suitable for alpha channels, shadow and outline effects - which is why you might find the material settings relatively strange. You can of course adjust them in any way you like - but be prepared for non-working effects.
Note: The resolution of images in the preview is - as with gradients - limited and quite coarse. To change the resolution, go to the editbuttons and adjust the "Subdiv:" value. High Subdiv values might get very slow, depending on your graphics card.
Place the image, scale it (I also had to squeeze it a bit vertically), and we should be here:
Centering and snapping
Apart from this, there's just a lot of text on the page. First of all, a paragraph of three centered lines.
Centered in respect to what? To the current column! Right, so, let's add another guide for centering the objects inside the column correctly. Select the guide dividing the column off, and SHIFT-S Curs->Sel. Set to "Translate only", select the right margin, ALT-D, S, X, 0.5, ENTER. Voila, a center guide.
Now that we have the guide, let's center all of the objects correctly. Select both the "China Asia Imbiss" text and the panda image, and press "Centre New" in the editbuttons so that their reference points get moved to their geometric centres.
Turn on all of the 4 snapping controls in the header, and increase snap distance to 0.2.
Select each of the objects individually, and move them until you see a red dashed vertical line. The object's centre point snaps to the guide (it looks a bit whacky with the text because the lattice doesn't move - in reality, we should have moved the lattice instead!).
Note: If you like, you can play around a bit with the snapping. Red lines denote snapping of object centres (reference points), blue lines mean snapping between boundboxes. You will notice that snapping is very versatile and useful in DTPBlender. Also, a text object's baseline is considered a reference point, so you also have baseline snapping.
To disable snapping temporarily, hold SHIFT.
Next, the paragraph of three centered lines below the logo. Add->DTP->Text, choose an appropriate font (this is actually ITC Tempus Sans), go to editbuttons, set to "Center", and snap it to the centre of the column.
To get a green material, go to the material buttons, make single-user, and click on the color swatch (not the preview) or use the RGB sliders.
Note: If there are already too many guides for your taste, you can of course always move some of them to a different layer and only turn it on when necessary. That's what DTPBlender's layer manager is for :)
Of course, you can also always turn off the default guide layer (Layer 1).
More text
Well, the rest of the page should be pretty straightforward. Let's quickly add the reddish "Lieferservice" in a bold, sans-serif font. It's easiest to just duplicate the existing text object (the 3 line address) with SHIFT-D, move it down with middlemouse constraining, and then choose a different font, make the material single-user, make it reddish, and then edit the text:
You should be able to add the rest of the text yourself :)
More margins
Before adding more text to the other columns, let's first give them margins which we can snap to :) ALT-D each of the margins and move it 5 mm towards the inside. In the process, also add center guides for each of the columns like we did before (an alternative, faster way is to just select the left and right guide, SHIFT-S Curs->Sel, then ALT-D one of them, and SHIFT-S Sel->Curs).
I also moved the center guides to a layer of their own.
You should end up with something like this:
A few notes on the layer manager: You can select/deselect the contents of an entire layer by pressing the lasso button next to it (use SHIFT to add/substract). The active layer (the layer where new objects get placed) is chosen explicitly in DTPBlender by holding CTRL and clicking on the layer number. The active layer is denoted by a '=' sign in the view header, and by cyan buttons in the layer manager.
Columns of text
Let's now make the actual text with the dishes. We have 3 different columns here: One with the numbers, another with the description/name, and a third containing the prices. All this again spread over two columns.
Text objects support multiple frames/columns through which text flows continuously. We will use this in a smart way: Each of the three column "types" (numbers, names and prices) will be a seperate text object, each of which will contain two frames, one for each main "column" of the layout. Oh well, I hope you'll get what I mean later on :)
SPACE->Add->DTP->Text, choose font/material appropriately, and place in the upper left corner of the left column (respecting the margin, though):
Enter editmode, and with the mouse in the view, press CTRL-S to resize the default frame (it's initially zero-sized and thus not shown). Resize it so that it is as high as the vertical margins. Press "Insert" in the editbuttons to insert another textframe for the second column of numbers:
Place it at the left margin of the second column using CTRL-G.
Note: New textframes are placed below the active textframe and have the same size. This has a reason: You often need to place a few text frames under each other which only differ slightly in size, for approximating the outline of an image, shape, etc. that is to the right of the text. This behaviour is useful for speeding up the workflow.
Textframes by default have a baseline grid, so you don't need to worry about the exact vertical placement (you can turn it off if you like, though).
Your view should now look roughly like this:
Now you can simply start entering numbers into the textframe, and they will automatically flow into the next column. Just do this, and leave a few vertical spaces in between for later placing the headlines for the sections. Yes, unfortunately, DTPBlender's text objects don't support various fonts/font sizes inside a single text object.
Note: DTPBlender automatically names text objects by their content. You can turn this off by using the "Auto Name" toggle in the editbuttons.
I ended up with this:
Next, simply SHIFT-D this text object, and move it to the right (constrain with MMB) so that we can start our "names" column. Enter editmode, and make the textframes wider, and also delete all text.
You can now add the names of the dishes. Should you need more than one line for a particular dish, you'd of course need to insert the corresponding line in the other (numbers) text object, too.
Note: With lots of text, text object editing will get a bit slow. To remedy this, you can either decrease the interactive resolution of the text (DefResolU button in the editbuttons - note that DTPBlender has seperate settings for interactive view and render), or set the text object to "Fast Edit" (also in the editbuttons). With Fast Edit, DTPBlender will only render the outlines while inside editmode, which is multiple times faster. This can only be toggled outside editmode.
I've put together all my fantasy and inspiration to end up with a marvellous selection of dishes:
The prices column works exactly the same: SHIFT-D the "numbers" column. Set it to Right-align in the editbuttons, then move it horizontally until it snaps to the right margin. Put in some fantasy prices.
OK, let's render this to get a beautiful view. Press F12, and the result is something like this:
Note: Rendering will by now take considerably longer because DTPBlender has to remake the (large) text object with the dish names in the higher (render-quality) resolution setting each time you render.
Let's add a few more random headlines. It's easiest to just SHIFT-D duplicate one of the objects from the right column (the address object, for example). Using the center guides and snapping, move them to the other columns and edit them a bit.
A few more images
I've included two nice images that you can place between the paragraphs to make the menu a bit more lively:
Add->DTP->Image, and choose the corresponding file with "Load Image" in the texture buttons. Place it somewhere where it partially overlaps with text.
Layering
Now press G, then Z. Move the mouse up and down and notice how the image pops behind and in front of other objects. This can be used to layer any object behind or in front any other, interactively. Remember GZ as one of the most important key sequences.
Tweaking images
To make the images a bit less "in your face", we will give them less alpha. This is very simple because we have the full power of Blender's material system at hand: Simply go to the material buttons, and reduce the A slider.
Of course, if you wanted, you could also do any other kind of trick, like adding a gradient (there are pre-defined gradient textures at your disposal), or transform texture space to scale/move the image in-place without changing the shape of the image frame.
More detail on this in another tutorial...
Coming to the end...
Well, that's it for now :) We covered the most basic aspects of doing a basic layout using DTPBlender, and you should now try around a bit more to get more practice. Maybe by now, there's also more documentation on our website at http://dtpblender.instinctive.de which you can browse.
For taking this to print, you would turn off the BLEED layer so that the cut area is filled with background, set the render size to 100% (and maybe set the resolution to 600 DPI :-), and hit F12.
Note: DTPBlender correctly saves the physical size of the document in PNG, JPEG and BMP files. You should be able to print them directly.
Have fun with DTPBlender :)
Blend file (fonts not included, images expected to be in the same directory as the .blend):
Note: Obviously, all fonts will look the same, and there won't be any bold/italic/etc. styles, because the fonts are not included, so the default font will be used for all text.