Beginner tutorial for box..err cylinder modelling (shotgun)

[TRexian]

Building a shotgun in Blender, part 1.

Ok, in this tutorial, I’m going to make a shotgun. Specifically, my grandfather’s Winchester Model 1897. (His isn’t actually from 1897, but from about 1917 or so.)

First, I’ll start with a reference pic. This is the profile.

Then, I’ll open up Blender.

We could start with a cube, but that would be rather combersome, methinks. So, delete that by pressing x and erase selected.

At this point, I like to hit the Num1 (number pad 1) to put it into the “front” view. This will lock in the y axis. Trust me, alot of times, it’ll be easier to adjust stuff if we’re locked into two dimensions.

Ok, now, we can either start with a tube or a cylinder. I’m choosing a cylinder. So,
Add>mesh>cylinder

It will prompt for how many vertices, and I like 12. I think that gives a good amount of roundness without going overboard on the number of polys. At this point, let’s add the background image by going to View>background image.

This will bring up a dialog where we can navigate to our background image.

And one thing you’ll notice is that I’ve already made a miscalculation.

I probably should’ve locked into the Num3 Side view. Oh well, we’ll rotate the model. This is probably a good time to make sure you’re in edit mode - hit tab if you’re not, or select it in the bar in the middle. Now, hit R to rotate, then z to lock in the z axis.

And rotate it around until it is as close to straight across as you can get it.

Now we’ll want to scale it down for the barrel. Hit s for scale, and make it about the right diameter. You may have to zoom in and do this a couple times.

We’ll eyeball it at this point until it gets to be about right. Then hit scale, then x to lock in the x axis and make it longer. (Oh, also hit the little hand button to turn of the annoying 3 color axis thing. And yes, I find it annoying because I don’t know how to use it.)

Now, at this point, we’re thinking ahead, and we know we’ll need another cylinder for the magazine tube. So, we might as well duplicate this one since its about the right size. So hit shift-D and move the “new” tube someplace for safekeeping.

Now for starting to get things to line up! Hit A to deselect whatever might be selected at this point. Then select the left most ring of verts on our first cylinder. You can do this by hitting B then making a box around the rings, or holding down the ctrl button and lassoing the verts.

Either way, we end up with something like this.

Now, if you didn’t get all the verts, make sure you’re in wireframe mode, so you get whatever verts are visible.

Now hit G for grab, and move all the verts from that end to the end of the barrel.

Then grab the verts of the other end and move them to where the barrel goes into the action. (Be sure to hit A to clear the selection, first.)

Now, we’ll do the same thing to the magazine tube. Grab one end and move it, then the other end until you have this.

Ok a break for the two most important things about dealing in Blender:

1. hit A to deselect stuff. If you’re not sure something is selected, hit A until EVERYTHING is selected, then one more time to deselect everything.

2. I haven’t told you this, but ctrl-Z is the undo. :thumbs:

Ok, back to the shotgun. At this point, lets make sure our barrel and tube are lined up in the z axis (up and down). Hit 3 to change the view to the side.

Well, I gots good news and I gots bad news. The good news is, they are indeed still aligned vertically. The bad news is that the angle makes it look funky. Oh well, the '97 is set up so the two are angled a bit differently. So, its realistic. Go back to the 1 view. Then zoom in on the end of the magazine tube. I’m not going to worry about the tube cap. The skin can replicate that pretty well, and I think it’ll be a waste of polys. We will however, work on the bracket that joins the tube and the barrel.

Now for one of the neatest tricks in Blender. We can add a set of verts where we want it. It is with the ctrl-R button. Its a 2 step process. First we hit ctrl-R then move the cursor over the edges until the bright yellow line is in the right plane that we want it. I find it easier to have some of the verts in the same plane already selected. (The edge it is focusing on will have a blue hilight.)

Click the left mouse button and then a bright blue set of verts will appear in the object. You can move these around until they are in the right place. We want them to line up with one edge of the bracket.

Then do this again until you have both edges of the bracket on the barrel and on the mag tube.

Then do this again until you have another set just outside the first set. A total of 4 lines of new verts on the barrel and tube.

Now select the inner rows of verts. I find the lasso tool (ctrl-LMB) easiest to use for this.

Then we scale it just a little bit so it extends up over the barrel and down under the tube a little bit.

Now we need to add the tab between the to cylinders of the bracket. We do this by making new faces.

To do this, we select the 4 verts that we want to make the new face/poly. This is a bit tricky with this model because the verts we just scaled are still very close to other verts. It may take some trial and error, zooming and rotating of the view, to get the right ones. The first one should look something like this.

Then hit F to make the face.

Then do that so that there are new polys going all the way around the “middle” of the bracket.

End of part I.

[TRexian]

Ok, now we get to undo something. We’re going to take out the back part of the little bracket and join the verts between the barrel and the tube. So, rotate so you’re looking down the tubes. I like face select for this kind of stuff because we’ll be deleting faces, but leaving the verts.

Now, you’ll want to delete back face, so select it, then hit x and only faces.

Now, we’ll make faces to box in the area that goes the length of the barrel. Ideally, I think it would be a good idea to select the verts next to the bracket, not the verts that make the bracket, but really, this is probably inconsequential.

So, you end up with this.

And now its time to work on the action part. To make this easier, I think we need to delete the now-enclosed faces.

Go back to the Num1 view. Select all the verts at the back, and make sure you’re in the show-vert mode. Then hit E for extrude, and region, and x to lock it into the x axis and move the new verts/faces back to about the rear tang, or just in front of the trigger guard.

Now we’ll get it so the profile looks about right. Just grab verts/vert pairs until it approximates the profile. You can use the ctrl-R technique to add new vert rows for places where the profile changes. I ended up with this.

Ok, now we get to fix the shape of the thing. I forgot to get a pic of this view, so we’ll have to kinda eyeball it.

I’ve gone into the solid display and face select mode because I feel like it gives me a better view of what’s going on overall. Basically though, we’re just selecting faces and verts and moving them so they look more like the rectangular part of the action housing.

You may notice some funky triangular polys on the inside. You can delete them if you want, or just leave them. They’ll never get drawn, so I’m not sure its a big deal. DM or Gargs can correct me on that.

So, I go about grabbing and moving. Remember, that when you’re in a funky angled view, you can hit g (for grab) then x, y, or z to lock in a certain axis. That’s very helpful. Same thing with scale, if you want to move several verts out from the center.

So hey… this is starting to look like a shotgun!

Now we’re going to extrude down to the beginning of the stock. We’re going to leave the trigger assembly alone for now (mostly because, as I’m writing this, I’m not sure how I’m going to do it).

So, we select all the rear verts and extrude them. We don’t want to lock this into 1 axis, so it is best to select the 1 view so things will only move in 2 axes. If it seems like it is locked into a funny axis, it is because it is trying to figure out which direction you want to move. Hit x 2x to clear it. Then just approximate where you want the verts.

Then grab and move them until you have the right placement. Also be sure to look at the rear view to get the right taper that you want.

That looks pretty good. I realize now, I don’t really need those verts on the inside of the object we have now, so I want to delete them. I select them, then hit x then select vertices.

Ok, now we’re going to work on the stock, because I’m still contemplating the trigger assembly.

Maybe I should google it and find out if there’s a variant that didn’t have one? I’ll save that idea for later.

Really, the stock is just more extruding and placing of verts.

This time, though, when we hit extrude, we only get 2 options: edges and verts. We want edges.

We’ll also want to use the ctrl-R tool also, to get the curve just right.

Also, I’ve decided to basically do this in 2 extrusions, although you could probably do it in 1, then use ctrl-R a bunch of times.

The second extrusion and placing.

Ok, so we’ve got the stock - w00t. Almost a full weapon here! Just some things we need to finish up to gear up for the trigger. First, we need to add a face to the butt. Hmmm…sounds like one of Jim’s weekends with DM.

Anyway, select groups of 4 verts and hit F.

Eventually you should have this.

Now, for something kinda cool go to object mode (tab) and go to top view (Num7). You might have to zoom out until you see the camera.

Hit A to unselect, then select the camera with the lasso or box and move it to where it is more perpendicular to the shotgun.

Then hit r for rotate and z to lock in the z axis and point it to the gun. Then hit Num3 (side view) and make sure it is pointing at the gun. And deselect the camera and select and grab the light (the little yellow circle) so it illuminates the camera-facing side of the gun (or move the camera to the lighted side).

Then hit F12 for render.

That might show some rough spots that you can touch up and smooth out. OR you can set them to smooth by selecting the verts and hitting the setsmooth and autosmooth buttons.

Ok, one last thing before part III and the trigger - joining some faces.

It seems like we have alot of faces in the stock that don’t need to be there. My technique is brute force, pretty much - select a bunch of them, and hit J and see what happens. Sometimes nothing happens. No big deal, I figure.

Ok, there’s still the pump on the front. That’s really just a matter of ctrl-R and scaling or extruding as you see fit - like we did with the bracket. I can post how to do it as part IV if people want. Otherwise, I’m just doing the trigger assembly for the tutorial.

Part III to follow.

[TRexian]

Ok, Part III

I think the best way to tackle this is by subdividing. First select the faces where the trigger

group is going to go.

Now, make sure you have them all across the bottom by rotating the view a bit.

Then hit the subdivide button 2x.

[CAVEAT: this creates alot of little faces along the side, too. After I wrote this, I got the same effect by doing the ctrl-R thing and extruding, rather than subdividing and extruding. So, do it that way. Otherwise, this works.]

What I’m planning on doing is basically extruding both of the roots of the trigger guard down, then

have them meet in the middle, then join the vertices to make one continuous object. Then we’ll do

the actual trigger by subdividing again and extruding.

So, I need to line up the verts with the roots of the trigger guard. The front ones aren’t bad, but

the back ones could use some lining up. Then I’ll start with extruding (region) the rear ones.

Then ctrl-R and placing until I have half the arc.

Then do the same thing for the front part of the guard. When you get to where they match up, try to

get the verts as close as possible to the ends of the other ones - right on top of them. And when

you do that, try to stay in the Num1 view, so they aren’t offset in the Y axis.

I’ve marked where the two arcs come together.

Now we get to merge vertices together.

You’ll have to zoom in close and rotate around to make sure the verts are very close together -

ideally on top of each other in every axis.

I’ve got some work to do.

For this, it is helpful to work in 1 axis after you grab things.
Z-axis

X-axis

And voila:

To join them, pick the pairs of verts and hit alt-M (for merge) and choose at center.

Then do that for all the pairs.

Now, it looks like we have a set of faces within the structure, so we should delete that.

Now, I think this is too bulky for how the real thing feels, so I’m going to scale it down a bit in the y axis, starting with alot of verts, then selecting and scaling more a bit lower.

Now, for the actual trigger, just select the face where it is and subdivide and extrude.

Then scale it so it is “inside” the guard.

Well, I think there are more polys within that trigger than the whole rest of the gun! Tried joining them, but it didn’t work. Only thing I can think of is to move a whole lot of verts and merge. Save that for another day.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Basically the finished product. 857 faces.

[thelonesoldier]

Two comments:

1. The images have been loading for six minutes, and I’m on a cable connection. It’s a shared connection, but for God’s sake, too many images. And you should host it somewhere, not put it here.

2. You made the entire model crooked instead of rotating the picture so it was straight. Very foolish.

[TRexian]

@thelonesoldier

Two comments:

1. The images have been loading for six minutes, and I’m on a cable connection. It’s a shared connection, but for God’s sake, too many images. And you should host it somewhere, not put it here.

2. You made the entire model crooked instead of rotating the picture so it was straight. Very foolish.

2 responses:

1. The pics are on Photobucket. I do not have a place to host them. If you’d like to volunteer some space, I can FTP them if you’d like. I have dsl and it takes about 30 seconds to load them.

2. The point is to make sure the entire model is in scale with itself. I do not see any inherent value in the angle of the picture. Plus, the gun itself does not consist of perfect right angles, so again - I’m not sure what inherent value there is in “lining it up.”

But, as I said, I’m still new at this - learning myself. My idea was to take things that I’d seen in other tuts and on other sites and combine them.

I’m a visual person, and learn best visually. Given the nature of the site, I’m sure I’m not alone here. Many of the tuts I’ve looked at have too FEW pictures and refer to buttons or options that are not immediately apparent.

Thanks for the advice, though.

:thumbs:

[thelonesoldier]

The model will inherently be less accurate as it is much more difficult to line up curves than straight edges. There are also other problems that can arise, such as the fact that the front end of the barrel is at a weird angle because you skewed the barrel and didn’t rotate the ends afterwards. When the majority of the object follows an axis, it’s much more logical (and simpler and more accurate) to make the model straight along an axis, instead of crooked like that.

[digital_me]

Crooked model aside, I think it’s a good tut. Finally, we have some new tut making blood! I hope you continue to improve your skills, and make more tuts!

[TRexian]

@thelonesoldier

When the majority of the object follows an axis, it’s much more logical (and simpler and more accurate) to make the model straight along an axis, instead of crooked like that.

This is the part I don’t get - the entire model is (reasonably) accurate along the longitudinal axis - from the back of the stock to the end of the barrel, it is entirely “in line.” For instance, I hold the gun to my shoulder and look across the hammer (yes, this model has an external hammer) and down the barrel, and it looks very similar to what I render from the same angle.

Yes, there are tweaks that can be done to increase the accuracy (for instance, I didn’t model the ejection port at the bottom or every seam), but overall, for something to get someone into taking a basic shape and making it into something else, it serves its purpose.

But thanks for the tips.

[thelonesoldier]

I guess if it looks good to you, then it doesn’t matter as much, but I want to have it as accurate as possible, not just reasonably good looking. And again doing it at an angle adds complications, such as the ends of the barrels being at the wrong angle, as I already pointed out, and also things like this ,
where you see overlapping vertices from a certain view and it’s much more difficult to just select one shape. When making parallel lines, it will be much more difficult to actually make them perfectly parallel, while when the picture is level, it’s as simple as dragging only on one axis.

[TRexian]

@thelonesoldier

… but I want to have it as accurate as possible, not just reasonably good looking.

And every artist measures his own “close enough” eh? I mean, would you really model every crease and inset along the side? That’s alot of polys to achieve a “look” that a decent skin should be able to show, too.

And again doing it at an angle adds complications, such as the ends of the barrels being at the wrong angle,

Do you mean how the end is not 90 degrees to the axis of the barrel? That’s fair. And that’s easily remedied.

and also things like this [pic removed], where you see overlapping vertices from a certain view and it’s much more difficult to just select one shape.

With all due respect, I don’t see how that problem is alleviated by lining the top of the barrel up with a gridline. In fact, doesn’t that make the “problem” worse with verts lining up on “top” of each other?

Regardless, that’s why the BlenderGods invented other views, eh.

Hey - whilst I have your attention, could you indulge a question? Why is it that some materials only show up in renders, and not in the textured view (either object or edit mode)? Not with UV maps, but with “procedural” (I think that’s what they’re called) textures.

[Woodman5k]

Great tutorial! I see a few parts of the mesh that are a little unstable but this is not an organic object so who the hell cares! hehe, just wanted to say very nicely done

P.S. the images loaded up for me before I could even scroll down the page %|

[thelonesoldier]

In fact, doesn’t that make the “problem” worse with verts lining up on “top” of each other?

Uh… no? I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

Hey - whilst I have your attention, could you indulge a question? Why is it that some materials only show up in renders, and not in the textured view (either object or edit mode)? Not with UV maps, but with “procedural” (I think that’s what they’re called) textures.

This is asked constantly. As far as I know, only UV maps show up in the textured view.

[scotths]

Brilliant tut. Keep it up, man.

~shs~

[Haker]

No offense or anything, but don’t you think that is a lot of uneccessary polygons? Also there are quite a few tri’s. Good tut though

[lirmont]

In fact, doesn’t that make the “problem” worse with verts lining up on “top” of each other?

Topologically, your model is symmetric, right? If I cut it in half down the middle (read X-Axis), I’ll have two equal yet mirrored sides; won’t I? Now, if we consider that both sides need to be relatively the same (your “good enough”), then having them stacked on top of each other in one out of the three orthographic views (side in this case, but could be side, front, or top) is exactly what we want to happen. These are called loops, and, in most cases, it’s more important where the loops are placed than where the actual vertices are placed in the loop (that’s the “set of verts” you refered to). You’ve done it in the tutorial, too, probably without even noticing it (because it’s common sense in modelling).

Now, let’s consider that all models have three things: length (X), width (Y), and depth (Z). Refer to your first picture, which you have said is the profile of the gun. The way I model, that means that the picture gives me an length and width, so I’d start modeling this in top view (no Z). It really is just a preference of mine, that’s not the point I’m trying to get across. The point is that, if I had another picture, (either one that gave me Y & Z or X & Z) I could finish the model by adding depth to it in another orthographic view with the new picture. This topic is actually called “projection” and is a drafting technique that has been used for a LONG time. Why shouldn’t you deviate from this time-proven technique? A, because, if you’re not modeling in orthographic mode, you’re modeling in perspective mode, and I hope you know that that is a very BAD way to model (what you see is not actually what is there length, width, and depth-wise). B, if you still don’t believe me, read up on this drafting technique and why it works. C, having stacked vertices means easy selection with the B (box select) key. D, why have a reference picture in blender if you’re just going to wing it? (Well, your case is special because of the properties of circles; i.e. you got depth because of height). E, why be different? Are you one of those people that just likes to be unique? C’mon, everyone else is doing it… No, but, seriously, try modeling something that isn’t primarily composed of cylinders; it won’t be easy (or correct), and that’s why it’s a good practice to set things up in a “stacked” manner in one view. It allows you to switch over to a complimentary view and edit the loops properly (no one is constricting you to one view).

Sorry that was so long,
–lir

P.S. you can back procedural textures to UV points with a script so that you can see it in the textured mode, though I haven’t found a need for that yet

[DMarkwick]

Guys, one thing to bear in mind is that this particular modeller has only been modelling for a couple of weeks. That he has

a) Learned all he has in so short a time and
b) been able to put together such a comprehensive beginner’s tutorial

is I think remarkable. This is a tutorial for beginners, and as such fits the bill perfectly. If anyone requires a more detailed tutorial (while somehow cutting right down on images) then please, go ahead. As long as it fulfills the criteria that complete beginners can follow it then its in, right?

[TRexian]

@lirmont

You’ve done it in the tutorial, too, probably without even noticing it (because it’s common sense in modelling).

Thanks - I think.

I used the tool that made sense.

The way I model, that means that the picture gives me an length and width, so I’d start modeling this in top view (no Z).

Isn’t that basically what I did, except on the side - no Y? It gives me length and height - and since I started with a cylinder, I have width, and with the Y “locked” the width will be static. I thought this was worthwhile, because the barrel and tube are basically perfect circles, so as long as I scale the Y with the Z, the ratio should remain the same.

Why shouldn’t you deviate from this time-proven technique?

I don’t think I did deviate from it. Or at least not very much!

C, having stacked vertices means easy selection with the B (box select) key.

This part I agree with, at least to a point. And with the shotgun, from the “front” and “top” views, the verts are all stacked (except for the stock where things get funkier).

D, why have a reference picture in blender if you’re just going to wing it?

Winging it can be fun, but I don’t feel like I really did that here.

(Well, your case is special because of the properties of circles; i.e. you got depth because of height).

“Special” as in “unique,” or “special” as in “rides the short bus”?

E, why be different? Are you one of those people that just likes to be unique? C’mon, everyone else is doing it… No, but, seriously, try modeling something that isn’t primarily composed of cylinders; it won’t be easy (or correct), and that’s why it’s a good practice to set things up in a “stacked” manner in one view. It allows you to switch over to a complimentary view and edit the loops properly (no one is constricting you to one view).

That’s kinda my point, too. From the side, looking down the barrel of this shotgun, if you line up the verts in the barrel, the verts in the tube will be misaligned, and if you line up the verts of the tube, the verts of the barrel will be misaligned. That’s not the model’s fault, that’s the way the gun was engineered. Once you get used to it, its more ergonomic I think than the straight-slide of modern shotguns.

Sorry that was so long,

Dude - I’m the last guy you need to apologize to about having a post get longer than you first intended.

[lirmont]

“Special” as in “unique,” or “special” as in “rides the short bus”?

“Special” because it worked out for this model.

Here’s what I’m talking about: http://darkabstraction.com/blender/gun_setup.gif

The two views on the left are my orthographic top and front views. Again, this is just a preference of mine, but the point is that you do need to handle whatever dimension you don’t get in the reference picture. I’ll post the blend if you want me to. I read through your whole tutorial, but I modeled this how I would have done it on my own. I ended up with 372 polys (375 verts).

Keep up the good work,
–lir

[TRexian]

That’s awesome. What you did with the stock is much better - I think that’s where you gained alot of polys on me. How did you do that? Loop cut in the right places? (You also probably used alot fewer in the trigger and trigger guard, and of course, you don’t have the hammer… yeah… that’s it…)

BUT - yours probably took about 1/10 the time of mine.

And I think we’re basically in agreement about taking into account the “other” axis/dimension. I think we’re really talking around each other a bit. :thumbs:

Thanks for the tips.