How to create a rolling ball with Python in Blender?

Question

My friend told me that you could create games in blender and it has an game engine in it. Now I want to do some simple things with blender such as rolling ball, the topic now in this question.

Basically, my problem contain

Problems

1. a learning problem and reference-request.

2. I am using DVO -layout where many keys such as " and ' are broken -- and many hotkeys are broken (things are apparently hard-coded to QWE -layout).

3. I find it hard to find help about using python inside Blender, besides broken window-paste-board in X, lack of TAB as auto-completion and lack of good examples.

Helper questions

1. what kind of modules and functions does it have to edit and tune the Blender -objects?

2. How can I do a rolling ball such as from (-500,0) to (50,0) with 7-turns in 7 seconds?

3. Is it possible to handle basic operations in the Python console?

4. Where can I find Blender-Python code to see examples?

5. How can I render and open up the render-result to a new window with the console?

Answer 1

Answers

I. a learning problem and reference-request.

Please, see very good examples here. The code can also become useful here. Good tutorial video here. Main docs here.

II. I am using DVO -layout where many keys such as " and ' are broken -- and many hotkeys are broken (things are apparently hard-coded to QWE -layout).

Press AltGr + <quote key> or select no-dead-key-keyboard, keys such as shift-space tend to interrupt with Blender -keys.

III. I find it hard to find help about using python inside Blender, besides broken window-paste-board in X, lack of TAB as auto-completion and lack of good examples.

The key is auto-completion (not with TAB for some odd reason but CTRL+SPACE) and the key command is $ bpy. I haven't yet found a solution for the clipboard, investigating.

Example 1: specify a ball to origin with Python in Blender

Select your ball in 3D mode and then:

$ bpy.context.object.location.xyz=[0,0,0] 

so you have your ball in origin.

Animation

It is not easy to explain this so some puzzles while also working on it.

Puzze 0: show the details about things

>>> for object in bpy.data.objects: 
         print(object.name + " is at location " + str(object.location))

Puzzle 1: create cubes (source)

 >>> mylayers = [False]*20
 >>> mylayers[0] = True
 >>> add_cube = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add
 >>> for index in range(0, 5):
 ...     add_cube(location=(index*3, 0, 0), layers=mylayers)

Puzzle 2: perhaps useful things

>>> bpy.context.object.animation_
data
data_clear(
data_create(
visualisation

Related Questions

1. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10972637/how-can-i-access-bpy-in-standard-python-console-bpy-is-the-blender-python-thin/10973302#10973302

2. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3924294/blender-python-scripting-tutorials?rq=1