# Blender Notes: Chair Tutorial

## Part 1: "Shop Setup" and Chair Leg
Video Tutorial to Follow: https://youtu.be/Hf2esGA7vCc
- 1st step with a modeling job such as a chair is to "setup shop" with proper references
- open a new blender project, delete all the stuff it loads with (cube, light, camera), and use "shift + a" to add image references
- it is helpful to work with these references in a way that you can see through them. with image selected, go to "object data properties" tab, check the box labeled "opacity" then set to 50% -- repeat this for each reference image
- these are blue print images which is why the instructor is having us load them directly into blender. we also want to load up solid reference photos in a free program called "pure ref" to display solid reference images neatly
- add cube mesh
- switch to wireframe view by pressing the button shown here in the top right
- align view for good sight on blue print -- scale down cube
- go into edit mode. enable xray mode as well to make sure you don't accidentally not select any vertices. drag top vertices of cube up to match the outline of the blue print
- now with the leg selected in the scene collection (in top right corner) we are going to add a "loop cut" to it. to do this we press "Ctrl + R" and then a yellow indicator will show up on the leg to show us where the loop cut will base itself. once we click, we then click again to set where we want the loop cut to end, which is along the bottom of the horizontal chair base
- the loop cut will give us extra vertices to play with (shown below), which will be necessary. also note view of chair leg changed to solid from wireframe+xray in top right corner (just to show the below sceenshot, we switch back to wireframe+xray after this)
- now we are going to Extrude out the new vertices as shown below:
- check front facing view of blue print reference, we are going to grab the chair leg and move it over, then scale it down. select chair leg, press "G" for move, then press either X, Y, or Z (depending on how you setup blue prints) to move only on the appropriate axis in order to move chair leg over
- now use the scale function (along with X, Y, or Z -- depending on view setup) to scale down the chair leg to match width of reference model. be sure not to accidentally scale the wrong face. do not worry about rotation yet, that will be done later
- now we are going to use the Subserv Modifier to fix the issue of this chair being rounded on blue print, but not rounded on our leg thus far
- exit edit mode by switching into object mode (top left there) or just hit the tab button. go into modifier properties tab and add modifier
- we are adding the "Subdivision Surface" modifier. the modifier will make the chair leg go brrr
- part 1 ends with using two loop cuts on the chair leg to control the brrr of the subdivision surface modifier in order to make it look more like a chair leg

## Part 2: "Edge Flow"
Video Tutorial to follow: https://youtu.be/px0sJElIUGc
- The first thing we want to address with our current chair leg is how in the reference photos and blue prints, we can see that we need less rounded edge's
- the reason for the roundness is due to blender "averaging out" spaces between vertices, which creates the round look
- to solve this issue we will add more vertices in order to give blender more to work with in "averaging out" which will create our desired look
- add two more loop cuts and bring them in close to the edge as shown in the next two pictures
- the result is our chair leg edges look much better and closer to the ref, but now the instructor wants to clean up the corner a bit more
- the corner is a bit messy because of how blender is averaging out these two sets of 3 vertices
- Select the entire edge of one of the problem sets of vertices, making sure to deselect the front two vertices of the edge (pointed at in the picture below)
- Double Tap G to activate edge slide (with these vertices selected) and then slide the vertices up to essentially "put them on top of" the other verticies you are sliding them into
- Select the entire mesh of the leg (hover mouse over the leg and press "L")
- with the entire mesh selected hit the "M" button for "merge" and then select "by distance" -- notice that blender will tell you it removed 4 vertices with this merg
- now repeat this process for the second set of problem vertices identified earlier. the result will give us a corner that matches almost perfectly with the corner in the blue print ref, but now we have to take care of the areas identified here to match them with the blue print as well
- add loop cut again to create new vertices and give our corner a more pronounced edge (like the blue print)
- now we are going to use a mirror modifier to make working going forward easier, not having to duplicate efforts. before we do this, in object mode, right click the leg, then "set origin to geometry"
- the mirror is a bit tricky to setup
- you want to move the chair leg a bit away from where it was, that seemed to help me get it to work
- mirror the X axis only -- use loop cut, delete one side of the vertices, the mirror should be setup okay

SIDE NOTES
- In edit mode you can move between Vertex, Edge, and Face select using 1, 2, and 3 (respectively) on the keyboard (not num pad)
- Double Tap G = "Edge Slide"
- Hovering mouse over an object and pressing the "L" button will select the entire mesh of that object