Got it working, need help on the rest of it...

Support Modeling
1

Hey all;

I’ve been working on a , started with a cube and been extruding, and now I have some edges I want to connect to the body.

Here’s some screenies:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/JTM3/marine-1.jpg
marine-1.jpg800×600

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/JTM3/marine_side.jpg
marine_side.jpg800×600

See what I mean?

It’s in edit mode, and it’s ONE, not TWO objects that I’m trying to connect, but the extruded edges.

Thanks

LC

2

Select 3 or 4 vertices, or 2 edges, and press F.

Or, select 2 vertices, press W and use Merge.

Or, if you place vertices over each other you can remove double (in the W menu).

Mystery

1 Like
3

Cool. I figured out one way to connect them, but I’ll try that sometime.

Is there a better way to go about ing that or does it matter?

4

If you’ve created the entire shape, including where it touches the mesh you want to attach it to, use the merge tool. If you’ve created all but the last faces or edges (the connecting faces or edges) use the make face tool.
Unless your connecting vertices are doubles, using merge will alter the shape somewhat. Make face, of course, leaves all your vertices in position, and fills in between them with new edges and faces.

5

Yup, I used the merge tool to “stitch” each vertex to the body.

So now I have it connected, but it’s still giving me grief:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/JTM3/meshconnected.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/JTM3/meshconnected.jpg800×600 71.9 KB

In that pic you will see I have it all “stitched up” but I have too many faces in weird places and it’s just all whacked out, making it so I can’t work with the way I need to.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/JTM3/deform.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/JTM3/deform.jpg800×600 95.6 KB

That pic shows that I need to do some scaling but can’t because of how Blender decided to divide up the faces.

Is there a work around so I can make it have the faces I want?

6

bump

Hello? :confused:

7

hi.

haha (laughing)
hahahahahah (laughing -hard)
hahahafarthaha (laughing cut the cheese)

so, can I help? First off, go to Edge select mode, and select those unwanted edges, and X them into oblivion. Then, what do you want to scale?

8

Oh, I should’ve been more clear :wink:

I’ve found a way to connect the parts I want, but now I need to scale the nose section, so that it’s smaller than the rest, it’s suppose to taper, but when I scale that funky(bad) things happen to my geometry.

9

This is not the way to model the geometry you want. The first thing you need to do is decide where the vertices need to be. Then you put the vertices there. Then you make faces between the vertices.

That’s how I start my students on modeling. They can learn shortcuts and faster techniques when they’ve mastered this step, but I always find it’s best to think about where vertices need to be first. I even get them to draw all over their model sheets or designs so they know EXACTLY where they want the vertices to be.

Blender doesn’t put vertices, edges or faces anywhere, YOU DO. If it does put some in the wrong place, delete them and put your own in.

10

Not sure I follow…

I guess you’re saying I’m using bad technique by using a cube, subdividing the cube, and then extruding the edges to fit the outline of the blueprint?

Makes sense; that’s probably why it’s not working :smiley:

Can you elaborate on the vertex thing, what would I start from?(An unsubdivided cube?)

Then what?

Thanks

LC

11

You can extrude, you just need to position the extruded vertices to follow the surface as you go. So, starting the the sub in side view, outline the profile using vertices, placing the vertices at every joint or angle change. then in front view, extrude them sideways. With them still selected, go back to side view and scale them inward, since this shape of this hull is like a sphereoid. Go back to front view to see if they follow that perspectives outline/profile. Then back to side view and adjust the vertices to follow the contour precisely. Then extrude again as before, scaling them down until finally, after like 5 extrudes, they all come together in a line, and you remove doubles and have a completed side mesh that follows the surface in a smooth way, as you built it.

Start with something simpler, like a ball. Model a mesh for a ball using this process, such that it actually turns out to be a ball, and you will see what she’s talking about. With a ball, all your edge verts should come together at a point. And if you compare your modeled mesh to a UV Sphere, you will see why the UV Sphere mesh lookslike it does, and you will have a much better idea as to how to model rounded surfaces.

If you’re modeling like a face, there is the purist way in that you define key points of the face by placing individual vertices in 3d space, and then connecting them with edges, and then filling in faces. Tedious, but pure. Then there’s box/face modeling, which is what you are trying to do and what most of us do because we are lazy and like the faces/edges made for us as we go. And then there’s plagarist modeling, where you just hijack someone else’s mesh (MH) and tweak it a little.

12

To make an outline of your model by adding vertices :

  1. Go into a view where you can see the blue print as the background (I would guess the front view) .
  2. Space -> add -> Mesh -> Plane . When you are automatically in Edit Mode delete all veritices on the plane . Now you are in Edit Mode with nothing to edit … So …
  3. While holding down the Ctrl button LMB in the 3D window . You have added a vertex .
    You can grab and position the vertex any where you want .
    If you continue holding down the Ctrl button and click with the LMB you will start adding new vertex points connected by an edge to the previous one .
    This automatic edge creation only happens if a vertex is selected while adding a new vertex with Ctrl LMB .
    If for some reason you don’t want an edge created with the previously created point, just deselect all vertices before you add a new one .
    You can in fact just add vertex points where you want them without edges then add the edges later on by selecting the two vertices you want to connect and then hitting the F key to connect them .
    You can also select more then one vertex and use Ctrl LMB to add more then one vertex at a time . If the two selected share an edge you will get a face . If they don’t you will get two edges . You can select a hundred if you want but beyond two you usually wind up with a mess .
  4. Now you know how to add vertices one by one, simply add them according to your blue print (like where there is an angle in the shape) but it looks like you know how to do that .
  5. Now filling in your outline with faces is the hard part . You can add additional inner outlines for parts you want to extrude in/out later on first then figure out how to fill in the empty space or just add quads (4 sided faces) neatly as possable and worry about that later .
    But if you want to apply operations like scaling without it screwing up parts you don’t intend to affect make sure you have organized proper loops in the outline - This is a long complicated subject so just as a simple rule of thumb : stick to the grid when ever possible and avoid using triangular faces .
    And remember that Blender does not support Ngons (more then 4sides) only tris and quads . Though you’ll find that out quickly enough …
    Filling in faces properly to get the easily editable mesh is the “art” part in CG modeling (especially with this method). This kind of only comes with experience …

You might also want to hit N and get the Transform Properties window open while you work . If you followed the above steps your object will be named “Plane” (because that is the proxy object used to enter into Edit Mode) . You might want to change that to “Spaceship” or something like that for better organizational purposes .

13

The last two posters have elaborated really nicely what I was trying to say. I teach my students the method of creating a plane then deleting it and adding their own vertices, whether they’re using Blender or any other software.

You don’t have to create ALL the vertices for your model in one go, just do a section of it, then create polygons. You can do all that in one view and then move them around in the other views to create the 3D shape. Once you have the first section of the model made, you can start extruding. But it helps to have the first section of it created exactly according to the model sheet or blueprint with the correct structure to keep building on it.