How to Make Phospholipid Bilayers and Cells in Blender 2.8

[@RBGRafael]

Omg, how can this be so underrated? Very clear, easy to follow, and overall an awesome tutorial! Looking forward for more videos like on this subject! :)

[@sciart1512]

I agree! One of the best tutorials I have seen!

[@raminomidvar7250]

Awesome tutorial. Based on your nice, easy-to-follow tutorial, I've drawn 3D bilayer vesicles with different lipids. Thank you

[@maciejdoczyk8196]

You deserve multiplied thumbs up!

[@the_bioway]

Incredible work Joe👏👏👏 After watching the introduction by Brady on using Blender in Biology...I was really fascinated to see its immense application in the field of teaching too! Being a Professor in Biochemistry, I have been striving hard to make studying macromolecules kind of engaging and interesting for my students. Made a DNA molecule video using Blender and also made a AR model of the same (uploaded on my KZbin channel)!!! Keep up those great tutorials coming in... and Thanks for sharing this knowledge. You are awesome😎🙌

[@alejandroalvarezuribe2173]

Thank you very much! This is exactly what I was looking for.

[@fangao2332]

Oh, wow, it's a wonderful channel. Thanks so much! Great videos!!!

[@lauralopez4108]

I just discovered blender and this is the first tutorial I've followed! Would it be difficult to insert proteins in this pre-made membrane? Congratulations and thank you for your content!

[@CGFigures]

Hi Laura, welcome to the Blender community! You could definitely insert proteins directly into the membrane or inside the envelop. How easy or hard that is depends on how you want to make the protein. If the protein is one big model then it's fairly simple, if it's a whole collection of models (say for each atom) it would be a bit more challenging (but still doable). I've been meaning to do a followup to this tutorial for awhile so this sounds like a good opportunity.

[@lauralopez4108]

@@CGFigures thank you so much, I will keep "playing" with it and I will definitely follow your tutorials!

[@ShanilPanara]

You make it all so easy to follow! Thank you!!

[@peterbalogh2646]

Awsome, it really did the job.

[@kiolh_19880]

Your videos are Awesome 👍

[@guerreronikelaos2838]

Ima try it! Just searched for the scientific applications of blender!

[@largestbrain]

how did you do that animation at 0:01? it looks like a Boolean but for particle systems. any help?

[@bestezengin2666]

This was amazing and really easy handle😀thanks a lor

[@velvetskiesrecording]

Excellent tutorials, thank you so much for sharing! I was wondering if you might know of any Blender tuorials out there for animating a cell internalizing something like an antibody? I've been able to create some nice looking cells with lipid bilayer on a sphere, but getting the cell surface to bend internally to internalize an object has been a challenge. Thanks in advance!

[@CGFigures]

This specific goal is something we've discussed a decent bit on the blender[dot]science discord. I've seen beautiful versions of the effect in Houdini and I believe there are some working versions in Blender that use simulation nodes. I don't know if I've seen any tutorials for it yet though.

[@velvetskiesrecording]

@@CGFigures Thank you very much for your response, I really appreciate it! Much respect to you and all that you've done to help others. I've learned so much from your content!

[@the_bioway]

Joe I ran into one problem...I made the bilayer successfully but when I exported the selected bilayer in .glb format as I plan to incorporate that into my PPT presentation using the 3D Models option, It only shows the icosahedron layer but not the whole bilayer! Kindly help with this.

[@CGFigures]

Hi Vishal. If I understand correctly then this is a problem with Blender not exporting the particles. There is a solution but it's a bit messy and high poly. You'd have to use the convert option in the particle system. This will make each phospholipid its own object. You then need to unlink all of them (discourse.threejs.org/t/what-is-the-right-way-to-export-particles-in-gltf-from-blender/14385). If you do that you should be able to include all of them in your glb but based on how the particles were made in this tutorial I think that might not be the best idea. If you're planning to animate them you might be better off doing it in Blender and then exporting the video. Less flexible, but more likely not to crash Blender with millions of verts.

[@the_bioway]

@@CGFigures Hello Joe! Thanks for the solution, As per the steps given the .glb model I exported worked very well in the powerpoint

[@autonomydesign]

wow! great! thanks!

[@anthonylafargue9860]

6:08 , I have a problem, the phospholipids layer is not oriented on the exterior and interior of the sphere, but parrallel to it.

[@CGFigures]

This is usually a problem with the rotation of the phospholipid being scattered. If you apply the rotation with Ctrl+A then you can usually play around to get everything to align properly though this tutorial does use a bit of an older method and these days I would recommend trying to use geometry nodes instead.

[@anthonylafargue9860]

@@CGFigures Like in your GSscatter tutorial ? I will try, thank you for response

[@alexisjose7515]

Excelente, muy bonito

[@timothybradley2513]

Great tutorial, thanks a lot! I've been trying to copy the way individual phospholipids disappear in your intro. Would you have any tips on how to achieve this effect?

[@CGFigures]

Hi Timothy, glad you enjoyed it. This video is a bit older and the effect here was definitely done using a boolean with the particle systems. I believe there is another video on the channel that describes the setup. These days I would recommend using geometry nodes because the effect is a lot cleaner. My most recent video on cell-builder describes it in part and so does Brady Johnston's most recent video.

[@timothybradley2513]

@@CGFigures Thanks, I'll take a look!

[@parulsingh9181]

can i put all other components of cell into it....pls pls pls reply i have to complete my project

[@ravindrajoshi4111]

Thank you for this tutorial. In 6.08 min Phospholipid option is not coming in my blender 3.6. Please guide me how to bring Phospholipid in my system

[@CGFigures]

This is a bit of an older tutorial if I remember correctly so I'm not sure it will work with Blender 3.6. For a more current approach I would check out the asset library I recently released. (kzbin.info/www/bejne/aoWmYoqggM6ArbM)

[@dandeelyonn]

I am doing this with Lipopolysaccharide, and it keeps making the vesicle inside out. Any idea how I can invert this? I am very new to blender and realluy appreciate these tutorials!

[@dandeelyonn]

I found a way to do it by flipping the face by selecting all vertices in wireframe mode and pressing alt + n

[@odie8689]

do you know if there's any way/method to animate endo/exocytosis in blender too?

[@CGFigures]

This is a big on-going topic in our discord. I don't think we have a flexible solution yet but it's definitely something people are working on

[@pabloguerini1208]

Wow! Beautiful job! This 3d model is available for download?

[@CGFigures]

Hey Pablo. Thank you. This specific model isn't available for download but I do have a more recent video on "cell builder" (kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYGle5qopql8h68) which provides a tool for making these very quickly

[@pabloguerini1208]

@@CGFigures Thank you! Your recommendation has helped me a lot. I love the work that you guys do. Greetings

[@mrhansenable]

I made this membrane. Now I want to fill it with little proteins and make a video of it jiggling together. However I can't get the membrane to behave as a static rigid body physics so things bounce off it it. instead they go right through.... any suggestions?

[@CGFigures]

My best advice is to check out one of Brady Johnston's tutorials or one of my more recent tutorials for making these types of structures using geometry nodes. Physics can be a bit tricky sometimes and I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to achieve. It sounds like you want to put proteins in and have them interact with the membrane through the physics. For that every particle would have to be made into a piece of geometry with its own physics. That's very computationally intensive and the geonodes approaches will probably work better.

[@ThePenwell2000]

Would you happen to know a good website to aquire space filling molecules such as a phospholipid structure and other chemistry structures.. that we can import into blender

[@CGFigures]

Hi Laura. I actually have a number of models including phospholipids, glassware, and some common molecules. They're available on gumroad or blendswap if you search for CGFigures.

[@ThePenwell2000]

@@CGFigures yeah, I was able to download your assets. Very helpful. I was looking for a phispholipid model model showing each and every molecule in the structure. Thanks for all the great videos and freebies

[@severinneko1144]

This is awesome. How can I do this using geometry nodes?

[@CGFigures]

I made a prototype "cell builder" node in 2.93 and I've been told it works well. I'll definitely be doing a refresh on several tutorials with the new geonodes system though. Hopefully wrapping up the basics tutorial this weekend.

[@Diligencio]

Jas jas con este video aprendí a usar blender

[@guerreronikelaos2838]

theres not many information about this blender applications tho

[@asentientmonkey4860]

I don't know why my cell keep its shape, phospholipids keeps running away from eachother

[@CGFigures]

I might be mistaken but this sounds like the displacement modifier strength is maybe too high. Try lowering the strength a bit

[@3anandatria]

Too fast, can't do it anymore