Lightsaber advice...

[Lord of the Rings Junkie]

I know how to make a very nice looking LS blade thanks to BenJuro's little tut, but now I want to make a handle to go with the blade. I've only been at Blending for a couple weeks now, so I'm still fairly new to the program. What I'm wondering is, with this reference image, how would you go about starting to model the handle? Are there any tutorials on lightsaber hilts?



It's obviously been done in blender before, because I found this image:



I would like to end up as close to this as possible. Thanks!

[DwarvenFury]

This is a really good video tutorial on learning about subsurf modeling.

Subdivsion Surfaces by GreyBeard:

http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/mytut/subdiv.avi

For the lightsaber, I'd probably start with a circle, and extrude and scale it to get the shape of the glossy metal part, and then add more objects to make the various other parts of the saber.

Have fun with your project.

DwarvenFury

[Cire]

LotRJ:

Looks like you have everything you need right there. You've got 2 photographic angles & 5 views of a 3D version. Check out the tutorial DwarvenFury refered to & give it a go.

Tip: Start by modeling all the seperate parts according to the basic shapes they resemble (mostly cylinders, a few boxy elements & some squashed spheres).

If you get stuck, ask for help . . . I'd be gald to pitch in.

[Lord of the Rings Junkie]

Darn it! Trouble already. First I made a cylinder, then scaled it up to the right size. I hit "set smooth" and did a test render, and everything came out goofy. I thought "Okay, just recalculate the normals outside". Did it, and nothing changed.

[Cire]

Your problem is the fact that Set Smooth is applied to the entire mesh, including the top & bottom edges of your cylinder (which should have a sharp edge). Use Auto Smooth in the same Panel (Tab on the right, I think).

Remember . . . check out any tutorials on modeling you can find & read the manual, if you haven't already done so.

LotRJ - You say you have only been 'blending' for a couple of weeks . . . but you joined this forum back in January '06. With about 150 posts you're ranked at Guru level. What gives? :-?

[Lord of the Rings Junkie]

Really? That long? Hmm. :-? Seems like a much shorter period, but I have also been working on learning Alibre design, and have only recently shifted the majority of my attention to blender. WOW does time fly... Wasn't yesterday new years? %|

[Edit] Thanks, the auto smooth took care of it. BTW, what exactly is different about the auto smooth from the set smooth?

[Cire]

Originally Posted by Lord of the Rings Junkie Really? That long? Hmm.

That's what your stats up top say (although, I just noticed that it was late Jan., so it's about the same time I joined). Just seemed weird . . . a groupie guiding a guru (not that these rankings tell a whole lot).

As for the smoothing functions:

SetSmooth applies smooth shading to all selected faces (entire object if in Object mode), regardless of topology. AutoSmooth smooths adjoining faces based on their relative angles (i.e. If 2 faces are basically flat, they're smoothed; if they form a sharp angle, they're not).

BTW: You can set the angle which determines the degree of smoothing, and AutoSmooth only works for faces with SetSmooth applied.