background image for tracing

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hello,

I’m a modelling beginner so I apologise if my question is not clear or stupid…

I’d like to model an aircraft with the help of some 3-view drawings I have. I can’t figure out how to get the images into the side, front and top views of Blender so that I can use them to accurately model the airplane with the right size and proportions.

Just setting the background image doesn’t seem to produce the right result. It would be nice if I could texture a plane or cube and see the texture as I model. So I looked around for over an hour and can’t find any Blender examples of how to do this (plenty of 3DS Max ones, though…).

Is this the right approach to use with Blender and if so how do I model against images in this way?

Many thanks,

Matt.

#2

to put a texture on a plane, prees F-6. then under texture type choose image. other buttons will appear and press “Load Image.”
then just get a pic from your computer.

here is something that you will use alot. i hope this helps.

http://download.blender.org/documentation/html/book1.html

not sure about the background image.

#3

http://membres.lycos.fr/bobois/index_anglais.html

Look for “Projection Box”

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#4

Thanks guys.

I’m getting somewhere now :smiley:

#5

Let us know how your aircraft comes. :wink:

#6

I will do :wink:

It may get completely ‘re-built’ yet. I started with a large cube and subdivided it until I thought I had enough faces to cover the fuselage. This was probablly the wrong thing to do as I got to parts in the middle of the mesh and realised that I didn’t have enough vertices to make the smooth curves. Does Blender let you add another set of vertices between two existing selections made with the ‘B’ key?

If I can get some pictures of the cross sections along the fuselage I thought it might be better to start at one end extrude along the length of it, altering the mesh as required between each extrusion. The nose of the plane has some nice curves and air intakes which I’m afraid I may not be able to make with mesh alone… maybe NURBS is the way to go?

I’d like to make two versions of this, one to be rendered and one to go in FlightGear as a low poly model.

I have a lot of work to do :expressionless:

Thanks for your help and interest.

Matt.

#7

you can try to subdivde your selection it will add vertices, You can also trey CTRL+R It is quite a useful tool for modelling technical things.