Hello. I’m new to the Blender and have completed the tutorials on Beginning Modeling found at the online wikibook http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro Before I continue with the wikibook, I need some feedback from the community about my skill level so that I need to determine my progress so far. Please evaluate my model and these screenshots for the following:
I demonstrate an ability to navigate in 3D space. 2) I demonstrate an understanding of the basic parts of a 3D model, such vertices, edges, and faces. 3) I demonstrate an ability to create form in three dimensions. Please assist me with any feedback on my model, keeping in mind that I am an absolute beginner still. I appreciate your help.
Ok, so I follow instructions to the letter (sometimes on the 2nd or third go…).
Here are some screenshots and pictures of my first ‘project’. I suspect it will be a very long time before I am anywhere close to complete. I have been using Blender for about 2 weeks, and spend a month prior to that playing with the 3ds trial (Blender, btw, IMHO blows 3ds out of the water - serious kudos to the programmers and testors) Aside from that I have 0 experience with 3d modelling (although a bit with physical kit modelling).
This started as an ‘easy’ way to create a development for paper modelling, although my sheer joy at creating items in 3d may lead it a tad further than expected… I appreciate any feedback.
On the two (dorsal and belly) mandibles I discovered (just after I posted) two edges on the starboard side that were like what you describe. Is there any easier way to catch those? I’d been wondering about that dark line for about a week… maybe experience will just teach that…
BTW - On the interior torus I deliberately removed faces so that I could see and manipulate the interior detailing a little easier without destroying the general shape of the torus. Again, I have no idea if there is a better way.
A couple of suggestions for making your modelling life easier:
Try putting the hull in one layer and the interior in another layer. You might even want to put differents parts of the exterior and interior in different layers. This will allow you to easily hide the exterior so you can work on the interior.
Another thing you can do is hide faces and vertices. Select the vertice(s) or face(s) that you want to hide and press the “H” key. ALT-H unhides all hidden vertices or faces.
Sometime a mesh can be pretty complex and you need to hide one part to be able to manipulate another. I do this all the time.
Thank you for the suggestions; I find layers very helpful, although the ‘hide’ function looks ueful it only retains the hidden value while editing. I want to be able to see inside objects when editing other ones.
In general I having fun with the modelling. I suspect it will be a longer(and more painful) learning curve getting textures and materials to work well. Parts of this model will be on hold until I understand how mechanical animation works as well (I want to have retractible landing gear, for example).
jestmart - I think I understand your reference now; do you mean the compound faces on the mandible, where some weird angularity is showing up on the object? I don’t know how to align vertices to a plane - Is there a way to set a vertice or selection of vertices to align to a specific spot?
In addition to H and Alt+H, there is an Alt+B toggle. This will box select a section of the 3D workspace to be visible. It’s very useful for getting inside something to edit something else.
You can align vertices along an axis (ie: to a plane perpendicular to the axis) using scale. Select the vertices you want lined up, press Skey, then x, y or z key (to specify the axis), then Zero.
The vertices will line up at their average position along whichever axis you picked, so you may need to nudge them into alignment with surrounding objects. Since they are still selected after the scale operation, Press Gkey, then x, y or z key, and hold down the shift key to get fine control over the movement as you drag the vertices into position with the mouse.
There’s also an old sticky in the Basics & Interface forum, which is worth scanning every month or two. It’s packed with useful tips and shortcuts, most of which won’t apply to what ever you’re working on now, but will surely come in handy later on.
Thanks. A long time indeed… I’m giving myself(tentatively) a year. That hopefully includes time for setting it aside in frustration and making other models in the lag…
Any of the greeble (detail) bits bigger than a 1/2 meter or so I intend to model. The rest I will likely content myself with texture. As I mentioned, I want to turn this into a paper development; and the cardstock thickess (to scale) will turn out to about 2.5 cm by itself. That really limits the assembly size.
Good question; absolutely. I belong to a community of miniature gamers who share 3D artwork for gaming: www.swminiatures.com. It will be posted there for certain; although by the end I may get my own site and make it available in both places.
In your second screen shot look at the area where the cockpit would be. Those faces that stick out like cooling fins are manifold faces. Judging by the wireframe of the model it appears you have these through out the model. the select menu has an option to select manifold faces but you will clear them manually. I’m sorry I couldn’t post a picture to better point out the problem.
Ah, I understand now - thank you. The two edges are overlayed rather than connected. I may just scale the interior ones down. When I am making objects that abut one another I try to duplicate the 1st object and just place it overtop exactly by hitting Enter; this seems to work most of the time but occationally it seems to adjust the copy slightly. Is there a better way to align two objects relative to one another?
I am having a slight problem with the cockpit area - I have no idea how to fix the odd shading on the faces. I have tried flipping normals but I cannot seem to get it to look right. It is one of the few meshes thus far on the model that I built by hand, so to speak, as literally each face was generated by selection. It looks fine in the render; aside from so excessive lighting in some areas, so I don’t even know if it is something I need to worry over at this point.
