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I've made a 3D reconstruction of a church where I've worked and I would like to use this to illustrate my work (technical analysis on mural painting). I've some data to show regarding the building and some additional photos . So I would like to create a presentation with blender adding text and other things directly into the 3D model, and navigate through it to show the data and my considerations. I would like to make something like Prezi with Blender. How can I do that? I've seen one tutorial but I would like to know, which is the best way to organize the data? How can I make a presentation with different "slides" so that I can go to the next or the previous?

Of course I don't want a step by step tutorial, I want a general procedure to know how to organize the project to make this kind of use of Blender.

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    $\begingroup$ Blender is not a presentation program or tool. Why not just render out fly-throughs and stills of your work, then put all that into a nice presentation. $\endgroup$
    – Derek
    Commented May 16, 2014 at 19:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Derek I know, but in fact is a very common problem in architecture I would like to present the work inside the 3D model eventually then exporting to video and using another software for video presentation... $\endgroup$
    – G M
    Commented May 16, 2014 at 19:54
  • $\begingroup$ Interesting question but an answer would be very much based on opinions. Depending on how the scene or model is build you could use the blender game engine to navigate around the scene and add text etc (could use keyboard to spawn effects or use near sensors etc). Of cause this would require some knowledge about bge. $\endgroup$
    – user2859
    Commented May 16, 2014 at 20:38
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    $\begingroup$ I can see your point. BGE would be a nice choice for that kind of use if you want to use blender to get 3D effects that PPT and Prezi cannot do. However, this is more like a tutorial request, since introducing BGE would be a huge task for others. I suggest that you can find more BGE introductions and tutorials on Wiki or Youtube yourself. Good luck. $\endgroup$ Commented May 17, 2014 at 2:57
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    $\begingroup$ So little thinking outside the box for this to be a computer graphics QA site. This is an awesome idea, +1 $\endgroup$
    – MDMoore313
    Commented Nov 12, 2014 at 19:11

2 Answers 2

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I've seen this done before (yes, Blender as a power-point replacement).

Using Camera Switching

Blender can use timeline markers to switch cameras.

This means you can jump between markers to switch slides.

You can have 3d text in each view, and animate the visibility if you rather they don't display in every slide.

This also has the advantage that you can press Play and watch the full presentation.

See: How do I cycle through the camera views?

Using Scenes & Screens

You can configure each screen in blender to be a slide in a presentation.
Then use Ctrl + Left/Right to switch.

Each screen can point to a different scene (or the same scene with different cameras in each viewport).

You can also make use of background sets (the ability for many scenes to share one common scene as a background). - see scene buttons.

Using background sets means you can have a common scene for the detail, and other scenes can overlay text or any elements you don't want to enable all the time.

Using Scenes & Outliner

This just means adding one scene per slide, and using the outliner to change between them, The small disadvantage here is you need to have the outliner open, so you can't switch slides fullscreen.

With this method you can still use background set-scenes, and its rather quick to setup. If you wanted to you could always add a key binding or addon to switch scenes without using the outliner.

Hints

  • Enable 3D View -> Display (Panel) -> Only Render
    This stops cursor, manipulator and other info widgets from drawing, so you can focus on the content
  • You may find 3D View Full screen useful to play the presentation,
    its setup to minimize distractions.
    • If you want to get rid of the header too - this can be toggled with Alt+F10.
  • This Python command will cycle to the next scene:

Code:

from bpy import context
context.screen.scene = bpy.data.scenes[(bpy.data.scenes[:].index(context.screen.scene) + 1) % len(bpy.data.scenes)]
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Create your models. Make sure, everything is scaled properly. Light up your scene, composite it. Add Cameras for various views. Animate them (use key frameing on Cameras). Render out your scenes. Then in VSE add up your images, give them effects, transitions, add text , pause, rotate, move , add sound and your have a nice package to show off as presentation (non-interactive).

You can create a lot of animation stuff in blender, you just need time and skills.

Search youtube for VSE tutorials.

By the way, given link is mostly 2d stuff, you need to use a 2d program to create the visuals, after that you can import them in blender (2d plane-Image plane) and animate.

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