How to Animate a Propeller in Blender (Tutorial)

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Important note: When you add the driver, MAKE SURE THE PROPELLER IS SELECTED.

[@cargobroom9898]

I just want to say that this video and the tracer bullet videos have been invaluable - excellent tutorials and I wouldn't have been able to create my first animation without them! Thank you so much!

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Wow, thank you so much for your nice comment! It really thrills me that these tutorials are both helpful and beneficial. Good luck with your Blender endeavors!

[@allenm1024]

Awesome tutorial!! I had problems getting mine to work, solved by using Ctrl+A to apply rotation to my propeller at frame 0 (in case anyone else had the same issue). Then it worked like a charm.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@allenm1024 Glad you were able to get that working!!

[@haraldschjlbergevensen4561]

Awesome video! :D But: KEEP IN MIND THIS METHOD IS ONLY ACCURATE FOR CONSTANT SPEED PROPELLERS! If you for example have the throttle to 0 (y-axis position 0), and immediately set it to 1 in frame 2, then in frame three the propeller will have rotation 2 (throttle 1 * frame 2 = 2). So a rotating speed of "2 rotation per frame" for that frame. However if you have throttle at 0 until frame 100 and set it to 1, you will get it to have rotation 100 in frame 100. "100 rotation per frame" in that exact frame, as it speeds to "catch up". So you cannot control the speed of the propeller using this method, unless you have a constant speed. Earlier this year I had a commercial project where I needed to animate the speed of the propellers on a drone. That is, not just making it spin, but making the speed at which it spins change over time, like throttling up and down. I initially tried your method (didn't find your video before now so giving my advice here now), but I ran into the challenge I mentioned above. The answer was a simple python script for solving the propeller position for each consecutive frame. So essentially, using the Blender python api (bpy), grabbing the local space position of the throttle (which was parented to the drone), and multiplying it with an arbitrary scaling constant, and adding this value to the rotation of the previous frame to get the rotation of the new frame. I ran this script every time I made a change to the animation in order to get the throttling up and down just right. The pseudocode looks like this: frame_0_rotation = 0 for frame in scene: next_frame_rotation = current_frame_rotation + current_frame_throttle_position * scaling_constant using the Blender python api to access and edit any involved variables. Also, in addition to enabling motion blur like in the end of the video, if you want that "bendy" propeller look like there is in one of the examples in the video, you need to enable rolling shutter. I hope someone somewhere will be able to get past a problem thanks to this comment :)

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Thank you very much for this very informative comment!! Back when I made this video, i didn't have any understanding about like coding and python, I was actually trying to make a modern version of this tutorial from one that had been made in like 2009 using something like Windows 2000! 🤣 Anyways, once again thank you for this awesome info. I may have use of it for myself in a later project!!

[@bigshot102]

Thanks for this. It seemed complicated at first but everything worked out well. I'm a happy camper.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Great! I'm happy to hear that!

[@indieartsmidwest4042]

Great method and easy to understand. Thank you this was super helpful.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

You're welcome! Thanks for leaving a nice comment!!

[@ManuelHoferer]

Thank you! Still golden ;)

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@ManuelHoferer You're welcome! Glad the video helps!

[@GarciaDorelion]

Thank you very much JB!!

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

You're very welcome!!

[@shivammittal344]

Hey can u pls tell how to this fan to move fast ? Like I want to make a car wheel to rotate faster? Cause it's slow

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Oh okay. Well, the farther forward that you move the cone empty, the faster the object spins. Now it won't look like it's rotating very fast in Blender, but when you render the animation, you will notice that your object will be spinning very fast. How this helps!

[@Mortom83]

Thank you very much man! So simple, so effective!

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Thanks for leaving such a nice comment!

[@tar5us452]

Would be nice if you told us how to set the point of origin if we had to separate the propeller from the object.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Okay, just go into edit mode and line the object up with the point of origin. Then go back to object mode and the propeller will spin in the correct place. If you need any further assistance, I'd be glad to help!

[@BibleMan251]

Brilliant. Thank you

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

No problem. Glad it was helpful!

[@GoofyGoober7582]

How do i also stop the propeller for landing animations?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Great question! What you do is set a keyframe for while the cone empty is further forward (as it should be when the propeller is spinning) then after several frames (I recommend about 100), pull the cone empty back to a zero location. In other words, bring the cone empty to where it was originally to make the propeller stop. Set a keyframe here and the propeller shoud look like it slows down to a stop.

[@GoofyGoober7582]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Ok thank you so much for that and also thanks for the tutorial

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@GoofyGoober7582 You're very welcome! I'm glad I could help!

[@Iskefisk]

when i make a driver keyframe on the plane, and go to the driver window and select my proppelar my driver menu dont show up. and i also dont know how to parrent my plane parts together (cant find any tutorials) my plane has difrent folders for the difrent parts of the plane.

[@marufkilichev98]

Hi thank u for your help !!!I saw your lessons and i decide that your video tutorials way easier to get than others, i have a request for u , could you make a video about modeling Helicopter Mi-8 or fither f22 in higth poly mode , with detallization , thank u in advance !

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Hello! Thank you for watching and leaving a nice comment!! I'm very glad my tutorials are helping you! Unfortunately, it's not likely that I'll be able to upload a tutorial on modeling those objects due to the fact that I honestly wouldn't consider myself a good modeler. Also, college has made me really busy, so my uploading speed has unfortunately slowed way down. 😕 However, there are probably still many KZbinrs who have made amazing tutorials covering how to model those objects!!! Once again, thank you for your nice comment and for providing me feedback. It's much appreciated!! Let me know if I can be of any help!

[@marufkilichev98]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 thank u ! hope you will get rise in your ways !

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@marufkilichev98 Thank you!

[@mavikaktus5712]

I want to turn my propeller on the Z-axis but I couldn't manage it. It turns on the Y-axis for all the selections of X-Y-Z Locations of throttle. Could you please help me about that?

[@ArandomHitman]

Hey, how do you speed this up? I also have two propellers on my plane so I want to reverse the direction of one of the propellers.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Keep in mind that it may appear like your propeller is spinning slowly... in reality it could be spinning very fast but the frame rate at which Blender displays the animation as well as the lack of motion blur can make it appear to move slowly. A good way to check this is to enable motion blur and render a quick animation to see how it looks. I don't remember how to reverse the direction of a propeller, but I'm pretty sure you could just create a completely new empty and repeat the process in the tutorial but negate some of the values (e.g., y = 5 -> y = -5).

[@ArandomHitman]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 goddamn you are fast. I will absolutely try that, just one more question: Is there any way to make it start slow and then gradually get faster? Im rendering a cinematic for a quadcopter drone and I need my first person view to show it start up slowly instead of just activating in mere seconds.

[@ArandomHitman]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Alright so I just tested it and its somewhat fast, but the animation isn't really too fast for what I need. Any idea how I can increase the speed?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@ArandomHitman Yeah just set keyframes for the position of the cone empty and have it slowly move forward (which controls the throttle/speed of the propeller). The further forward the cone empty is, the faster the propeller spins.

[@ArandomHitman]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Yep, just found that out. Interestingly enough, that caused one of my textures to glow like the sun, but I guess that's a me issue for now. Thanks anyways.

[@burgerwithcheese]

Thank you sir!

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

No problem!

[@andyklyen6885]

Thanks for the clear examples. Everything worked first time! I have one question if I may? To adjust the propeller speed you just slide the empty up and down the Y axis? I can't seem to get it to spin really fast.. Thanks!

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

I'm glad it worked out! Yeah to adjust the speed of the propeller you slide the empty up and down the Y axis. Keep in mind that moving it even a tiny bit will adjust the speed tremendously. Also it will seem that it isn't spinning any faster, but this is because Blender is displaying the frames to you at a certain frames per second that makes it difficult to determine how fast it's really going. You get the same phenomenon when recording a helicopter's blades. It will seem that they are spinning very slowly or sometimes not even moving at all. Just adjust the empty to a place that seems to make the propeller spin faster and remember to turn on motion blur for realism. I've run into the same problem, and the best thing to do it just keep experimenting with the empty. Hope this helps and if you need anything else, just let me know!!

[@andyklyen6885]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Thank you for the swift reply - I'll have a play around...

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@andyklyen6885 For sure!!

[@wesjones6370]

What if you select the propeller and then go to drivers and nothing shows up?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

It probably means that at 1:48 you didn't have the propeller selected when you added the driver. The video is somewhat wrong here because it shows the BF 109 selected while I'm adding the driver.

[@eternalself]

Great tutorial. When I export as an mp4 I still don’t see much blur on my propeller. It looks good when it’s rendering image by image with eevee, however. Is there a way to make it look better? Thanks

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Hmm. I think that if you increase the distance of the cone empty that will increase the speed of the propeller and will make it blur more. However, if that doesn't work then you can try decreasing the distance. Also, try increasing the motion blur setting in the render tab if you haven't already. Hope this helps!!

[@eternalself]

Thanks, I’ll give it a go! Which particular setting in the blur render menu? I’ve been messing around with all of them

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@eternalself No problem! The motion blur setting should be under the render tab somewhere, unless Blender has changed in a new update... I've been so busy recently I haven't been able to get on in a very long time.

[@eternalself]

Thanks for your help!

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@eternalself You're welcome!!!

[@abrahamjunarno9395]

do you have also a tutorial how to do that flying bullet? in the air? like firing in the warplane.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

I don't have one yet but I can easily make one! Do you mean the kind of bullet that was in my animated movie, "The Altercation"?

[@abrahamjunarno9395]

JB BlenderBreakdown yes pls create some tutorial about that.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@abrahamjunarno9395 Okay will do!

[@abrahamjunarno9395]

JB BlenderBreakdown thank you so much!! I will wait.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@abrahamjunarno9395 No problem! I'm making it right now and I'll have it out as soon as possible.

[@layrik-7951]

when i press n 2:33 a different menu pops up says show cursor and the left menu there is nothing to select

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Hmm... Pressing "N" should bring that menu up unless the shortcut was changed in the User Preferences. I don't know why it isn't working for you, but I will let you know if I find any answers. Sorry about that.

[@layrik-7951]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 first it worked when pressed n and i clicked something and the menu gone guess i clicked something wrong

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

​@@layrik-7951 Oh, okay. You could try to do the whole process again. Maybe that would work.

[@layrik-7951]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 i closed without saving and open new project agin but not helped

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@layrik-7951 Man, I wouldn't know what to do at this point. The "N" key should bring out the properties panel, but if it isn't doing that for you then something isn't right. I don't know what to say here, sorry. I will still let you know if I find the reason for this error. But thanks for the feedback, I do appreciate it.

[@tonilawas]

From Aurora 9 years old. what music that you use?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

I used the music from my editor, CyberLink PowerDirector 12.

[@tonilawas]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668(from Aurora 9 years old) oh

[@lucaszhou2306]

Hi, a question, how did you parent the propeller so that it rotates around the point of origin?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Just drag the center of the propeller in edit mode to the origin. Then go back to object mode and the point of origin should be in the center of the propeller.

[@harshitrao8729]

Just press ctrl + p

[@kampferadib7155]

The propeller is not moving along with the plane when rotated or moved. Need help

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@kampferadib7155 Be sure your propeller object is a child of your plane.

[@kampferadib7155]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 many thanks

[@nathanbarraud4349]

Nice !

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Thank you!

[@sickobamba3214]

nice very helpfull

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Thank you so much!

[@kuangluzhan]

good

[@LucasTrys]

Hello, how did you make the clouds for this. Thanks.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Hello! In my animated movie, "The Altercation" kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2bah5KHnr2oiNU I used an HDR Image for the world setting. This Image was quite realistic, with great detail in both ground terrain and clouds. That way I wouldn't have to make the clouds, which would've slowed down my render incredibly.

[@LucasTrys]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Thanks for your reply, do you have that hdri for me tou use if possible, would be hugley appreciated.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@LucasTrys You're welcome! This is the image I used: www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/backplates/hdri/item/868-hdri-dome-loc00184-22-above-clouds It was a free download when I downloaded it, but I am not sure if it still is. Let me know if you need any further help!

[@LucasTrys]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Thank you so much, i just found something very similar like this for free. Did you make the hdri into like a dome?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@LucasTrys Yeah, something like that. I went to the world settings in Blender and selected "New". Then next to the color option, I selected the tiny dot and clicked "environment." Then I clicked open and then my downloaded HDR Image, and it worked amazingly!

[@zuxavi]

How would I make it rotate the other way?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Excellent question! To do this, at 4:55 move the cone empty in the other direction (to the right). This will make the propeller spin the opposite way. This worked for me, and if you need any further help, just let me know!

[@zuxavi]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 thank you, it fixed my issue :)

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@zuxavi Awesome no problem!

[@hieuphantrung6542]

Can I have a model please?

[@naufalrazanhalim8071]

that was really good and helpful sir, and can i ask you a question?, im new to blender(still two days), i want to ask like.. how did you make the uhh aircraft and its propeller separate and when you move the object the propeller still on the aircraft and not going anywhere ?, i know you've been told it in the video that the object was parent or already linked, but how?, sorry for my bad grammar

[@naufalrazanhalim8071]

it will be really helpful sir, cause when i download model like tanks, it all separate, but when i tried to rotate the canon, its going somehow uhh(its rotating but with a big radius rotate, also the canon leave the tanks behind) i just want to know how to make it rotate, but in the place that it should be, im sorry for asking this

[@naufalrazanhalim8071]

and also hahaha, i know im still need to learn the basics, i use element 3d before, but it was totally hard to animate in element 3D(coz u cant just like do lke blender can do), talk about element, i should use c4d then, but i wasn't, some say it more harder than blender, so yeah

[@naufalrazanhalim8071]

and just like obj file, the object.., when i clicked it, i clicked the whole object(not the side that i want to click), but when i go to edit mode, i can touch everything

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Hey, I will try to help as much as I can, however most of the knowledge that I gained about Blender came from just watching tutorials mainly from Tutor4u's channel: kzbin.info The idea is to keep learning and experimenting. Over time, you will learn how Blender functions and little tricks to make your work faster. I found that downloading models can help you understand how to use edit mode, along with basic animation. Because the Blender community is so large, there is basically no question about Blender that is unanswered both here on KZbin and on Blender's website. My highest recommendation is to just follow beginner tutorials like I did, and this will help you to know and understand Blender. By the way, to link an object to a parent, just go to the outliner and drag and drop one object onto another while holding shift. And also, your grammar is just fine 👍 Hopefully this helped you, and if you need anything else, just let me know!🙂

[@naufalrazanhalim8071]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 thank you very much sir for your advice, i will ask again about something that i don't know later, now i know a bit to separate object without leave it behind(like when u move the main object, the object that have been separated will follow too), yea you're right, need to go to edit mode(and mess with things there), take sometimes too to do selection to the dot and right click then seperate

[@indrakomara6966]

thank you..

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

No problem!

[@gammr3227]

wait so you just dont explain HOW to do the one thing i need? awesome great turtorial. literally just needed to know how to make a propellor independent to my plane but still move with it. You say i need to do that but you dont say HOW.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

I understand. It's been several years since this tutorial was uploaded and Blender has updated since then. I don't remember how to remove a part from a model off the top of my head, but you would need to go into edit mode, select all of the vertices of the propeller, and tell Blender to remove that from the model. Just look up a recent tutorial on KZbin about how to do that. To make the separate propeller move with the airplane, just make the propeller a child of the airplane (which would then be the parent). If you don't know how to do that, there are numerous tutorials on KZbin about how to do that. If you have any further questions, let me know!

[@nurazraiaidil7528]

i might have broken my thing for this video becuz the propeller keeps going somewhere else everytime it goes to the next keyframe

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

That is really strange.

[@nurazraiaidil7528]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 I don't know if u said in the video but is the plane peices separated or connected

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@nurazraiaidil7528 The propeller should be a child to the rest of the airplane, that way the whole airplane moves around as one piece but Blender still considers the propeller as a separate object.

[@Enzi_Meteori_902]

that's a Bf-109, my favourite WWII plane

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

It's one of my favorites too! 😊

[@tonilawas]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 me too!!

[@Bidarius]

My favourite is the p40.

[@Enzi_Meteori_902]

@@Bidarius smart choice i like that too

[@cedric1731]

Before animating a plane you will need to make it first a wise man once said

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

That's right! Making this German BF 109 took me a little while but in the end I thought it turned out well.

[@revcus7437]

For some reason it only rotates once.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

That's very strange. I'm not sure at all how that could happen. I'll let you know if I think of something though.

[@revcus7437]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Could it be because im using 2.93 instead of 2.8?

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@revcus7437 That's definitely a possibility. But I'm pretty sure the settings used in this video weren't changed dramatically and so should produce a similar result. I'm not sure though.

[@revcus7437]

@@jbblenderbreakdown4668 Even by not following this tutorial I cant even spin it more than once apparently.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

@@revcus7437 That's so strange.

[@tonilawas]

(from aurora 9 years old) Thankyou VeryMuch!

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

You're welcome! I'm glad the video was useful!

[@Editingpremiere]

does not work

[@PabinongTV]

Thank you for the informative video. Subscribe and like. Press it. 자주 방문하겠습니다.

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

Thank you very much!

[@baykus790]

I see you use Icecream Screen Recorder, which makes me sad...

[@jbblenderbreakdown4668]

I did have Icecream Screen Recorder on my laptop while making this video, but I did not use it to record this video or any others on my channel. I'm sure this software has some potential, but as of now the free version is way too limited.

[@legofilms6090]

Midas vn