Creating a Room in Blender

Final Render of a basic room in blender

In Blender, we use rendering to complete the creation of our 3D scenes and objects. It is used to showcase the scene with all applied textures, materials and lighting, in order to give it the realistic appearance we aim for. We used this process to complete work with the highest standard possible.

In this tutorial, we will be focusing on the actual rendering of the scene. To begin, I will create a room scene, and ensure that the lighting is correctly added, as well as the materials and textures to each object. I will provide a walk-through on how I go about creating this room scene.

Step 1: Making the Tabletop

My scene will mostly be made up of planes, which can be added by pressing shift + A. The plane is located in the ‘Mesh’ dropdown. For this tutorial, I started with a table, and scaled it (S) by 2. Then lift the table on the 'Z' axis, by pressing the 'G' key, then 'Z', then type '2.5'. This will lift the plane higher and give room for the table legs. 

Added Plane

You may want to extrude the tabletop, so as to make it thicker as well. To do this, select the table and enter edit mode (tab). Ensure that Blender is in 'Face Select' (located at the bottom of your screen), and extrude the tabletop (E). You can make it as thick as you want it to be by entering a number after pressing 'E'. My tabletop is '0.1' extruded.

Extruded Tabletop

Step 2: Making the Table Legs

Once we have scaled the plane, go into edit mode (tab) and ensure that the 'Face select' is on (located on the bar at the bottom of the screen). Once you're sure it's on, I would advise using Isometric view by pressing 5, then pres Ctrl+7 to view the bottom of your object, then click subdivide (located on the left in edit mode) three or four times, depending on how wide you want the tables legs to be.

Scaled plane in edit mode

Subdivided plane, with corners selected

Once you have finished subdividing the bottom of your table-top, press shift + right-click each corner face. You can then extrude (E) these faces and in doing so, create your table legs.

Extruded table legs

Step 3: Making the Table Cloth

You can then add a table cloth over the top of the table. In order to do this we must simply add another plane, and scale it up. For this tutorial, I scaled mine by 3. Then grab it (G), and bring it up over the table. You can do this by pulling it up by the blue arrow on screen also.

Cloth plane added

After you have moved the cloth, go into edit mode (tab) and click 'Subdivide' around 5-6 times. This will divide the plane's faces, which will play an important role in giving it the fabric-look we want it to have. Go into the 'Physics' tab on the right hand side of the screen.

Edit Mode Menu

Cloth plane subdivided

Cloth Physics

Add the 'Collision' and 'Cloth' physics to the object. You should then select the table and enable the 'Collision' physics for that as well. These physics allow the cloth to fall onto the table and register the table as something to make contact with in the scene.

Once this is done, select the 'Play Animation' button at the bottom of your screen (or use Alt + A). You should see the table cloth you had previously created drop onto the table and take the appearance of a realistic piece of fabric.

'Play Animation' - Middle-Right play button

You may notice how the cloth may still look slightly unrealistic, as shown below:

Unrealistic Cloth

To fix this, simply select the cloth and select the 'Smooth' button underneath the 'Shading' dropdown on the left hand side of the screen.

Shading Settings

The fabric will then appear as shown below, which is much smoother and realistic:

Realistic, 'Smooth' cloth

Step 4: Making the Floor

Once the physics have been applied to the table cloth and table, you can move onto making the actual room. This requires only three planes, each scaled up to represent the walls and the floor.

Added Floor

Add your first plane. This will be the floor of the room. In my own scene, I scaled it by 10. It's far easier working with even numbers when creating room scenes. 

Scaled Floor

Step 5: Making and Moving the Walls

Once you've scaled the floor, you need to add two more planes for the walls. Again, add a plane from the 'Mesh' menu. Rotate it on the 'X' axis ('R', 'X') by 90 degrees. Then proceed to move the plane along the 'Y' axis by 10. It should appear as follows.

First wall moved

The next step is to scale the wall to fit along the floor, and make it taller. To scale it to fit the floor only, it's important that you only scale it on the 'X' axis. This will increase the length of it only. Do this by pressing the scale key (S), then 'X', and finally scale it by ten. Then proceed to do the same again, except on the 'Y' axis and by 5. You should then grab the wall, and move it up on the 'Z' axis until the bottom of the wall is in line with the floor (follow this sequence for accuracy; 'G', 'Z', 5)

It should appear as follows:

First wall scaled

After you've finished this, you need to repeat the process of creating a wall, only this time, things should be done the other way around. Add your second plane, and rotate it on the 'Y' axis this time. Then move it on the 'X' axis by 10. 

It should appear as follows:

Second wall moved

Then proceed to scale the wall on the 'Y' axis, by 10. Again, you will see that this will make the plane as long as the floor. Make this wall the same height as the other by scaling it on the 'Z' axis, just as you had done before, and move it up on the 'Z' axis by 5.

It should look like this:

All walls added

Step 6: Adding Materials and Textures

Once you've finished the room, you will probably want to add materials and textures. To do this, you must select each object and add a material to each. This can be done in the materials tab on the right hand side of the screen, as shown below:

Materials tab highlighted

Texture Tab highlighted

In this tab, select the 'New' button. This will give the object a material. Materials have to be added to an object in order to use textures to make the object appear more realistic.

After the material has been added, proceed to the Textures tab, which is directly to the right of the materials tab. Then select the 'New' button, and use the 'Open' selection under the 'Image' dropdown to open whichever texture you wish to use from your computer. Do this for each object.

If you were to select the 'Rendered' view now, you would see the room with all it's textures and materials added to each object, however, you may notice that each object may an unrealistic shine to it - depending on where your lamp placement is. If you want to get rid of this and produce a more realistic scene, simply select an object, go onto your 'Materials' tab, and turn the 'Intensity' under 'Specular' down to zero. This reduces the shine of the objects in your scene. You will need to do this for each object.

Specular in Materials Tab

Step 7: Lighting

Before you complete your final render, you may want to change or alter the lighting in the scene. For this tutorial, I used a 'Sun' light, which is a light that does not originate from a certain point, but simply from the sky in Blender. It acts as general sunlight, and can create shadows, which is the reason I did not create a roof on the scene.

Sun Light

You may want to experiment with your own lighting, by selecting the lamp and trying out the different options.

Step 8: Final Render

Finally, we can render our scene. To render the scene, press 'F12' on your keyboard. This will give you a rendered view through the camera on your scene. If the render is not centering at the point in which you want it to, you can move your camera around on the 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' axis'.

Camera selected and moved

Once you are satisfied with your camera placement, you will end up with a final render that you feel is the best, probably something like the following:

Final Render

Final Render 2

Final Render 3