having trouble modeling this gun

[magnus28]

Hi everyone, thx for the help in the past…

I loaded an empty and set view to “1”.
I watched several tuts on modelling guns using images, i’m trying to model the MG81z which looks like this:

however, the only detailed version I could find with a side view was this:

which is the single barreled version.

I started modelling this by starting at the handle, and creating a small box, making it retangular, and extruding,grabbing, and rotating. When changing the angle to make the curve of the handle, I loop cut a few times, and then extrude a tiny bit, then grab the extruded bit and curve it to the desired angle.

when I was done doing the handle, I noticed a lot of artifacts and pieces that don’t line up. When I try and take a small section and connect it to a larger section, I can see tons of jaggys and lines of daylight through the model.

I know practice makes perfect, but I have started again 5-6 times and tried to take my time, however there is maybe a shortcut i’m not getting or a method to manipulate the pieces so it all fits nicely.

I tried smoothing under shaders, and it made it look horrible! Best I could make it look, was just select all then subdivide. I even made sure to delete all doubles. Really frustrated!

I watched maybe 4 pr 5 tuts on modelling a gun, the best one was this one I found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HKu5_KO5aw&feature=related

I tried to mimic this guy but he goes so fast and I don’t know what shortcuts he is using…

best I could do with my handle is here:
(link to my blender file)

http://www.mediafire.com/?2jrrmqzbvmop550

It’s horrible!

Please I would appreciate help on doing this!
I have no idea how to make this easier to construct!
Then I need to figure out how to model the rest of the gun.

my plan is to texture the gun with the same image used to model it, so I want the model to be as close as possible to the image.

Also, can someone tell me how to make holes in the barrel? (just in case I decide not to texture the barrel, but instead make it so you could see through the holes.)

thx so much!

[ridix]

I looked at your model. First off, I removed all doubles vertices. There were 102 of them! There are overlapping faces all over, even after I removed all the double vertices. There are internal faces as well. You can’t do that.

Looks like you are selecting face, hitting “E” key, and doing nothing to it. You need to pull the face out or scale it down.

Try rebuilding but just keep it to simple segments; all faces connected and facing out

[Ray_Cornelius]

As for putting holes in the barell so you can see through them. This technique posted here. watch from the 20 min mark; Should suffice for the need. Just make the circles as big or as small as you need them.

[revolt_randy]

You have several overlapping faces, I’ve circled some I see in this pic:

Then I see part of your problem is the fact that the gun isn’t square with the 3d world:

Notice how the gun is tilted compared to the grid? It’s very hard to work this way, as normally one would extrude and move along the 3d world’s x,y,z, axis and you can’t do that with the gun tilted like it is. With everything tilted it would be almost impossible to model.

The strange look in set smooth:

Could be caused from a few things but is most likely the result of extruding and then cancelling the operation without moving the extruded parts. Example: if you press the e-key to extrude and left click the mouse or press enter, you’ve extruded and not moved the vertices, so now you have vertices on top of vertices which can cause those problems in the pic.

I’m curious as to how much modelling experience you have. Modelling from a single side view would be a bit challenging for someone with with imtermediate skills. Normally you’d want at least a top, side, and front views of the item to work with. Without those it would be hard to do. You also need to load the image into blender to work with so you can follow the outline of the subject.

I’m sorry that I can only point out what’s been done wrong and really can’t point you at a good starting point to learn what you are after. I do see a need at pointing out how to do somethig like this, but alas, I’m a bit too busy to do it now…

Maybe someone else can help…

Randy

[magnus28]

thx everyone for the detailed and welcome help.

I have very little modelling experience.

Randy, I did load the image to blender to work off of.

I could import a top and front view but the weren’t 90 degrees.

The reason that I want to work from the side view is because once I am done the model from the side, I can easily finish the top from reference points and by referencing pictures. I also want to texture my model from the side view picture I provided in the original post. Not sure how to do this, but I have briefly skimmed over a tut on that method of texturing, and I will post and questions or problems that I have when I get to that point - and in the appropriate sub-forum.

I am aware of the 102 doubles that I have, I just didn’t save before making the changes when I uploaded the file.

As for the overlapping faces - that was intentional. I tried dragging faces up and down to try and hide the gaps in my handle. When I would render, I would see gaps of daylight where faces weren’t lined up. I didn’t know how else to fix the mess!

As for lining up faces so they are connected, I wish I knew how to do this!!! Maybe you guys can help me?

For example:

• take the very bottom of the handle. The bottom edge is almost flat, so by extruding and sizing a cube, I could make a rectangular, thin box and then keep extruding upwards and subdividing when I need to make small angle changes. But on the lower right side of the handle, see how it curves near the back? What I would do is take the bottom right side of my elongated box, and extrude just a tiny bit, then hit the grab button and change the angle of the little extruded bit and match the angle of the inserted reference picture. after copying the exact line of the picture I could continue up the back. But the center pieces are horizontal and are flat, then trying to connect with an angle piece that is not 90 degrees to the horizontal piece.

I don’t know how to change the angle of an extrude piece and have the next piece coming long top of it connect the face flush.

__/
_/
______/

see how the / sides don’t connect the _ faces ?
this is what’s happening to me, and I have all these faces that aren’t lining up, and that’s why when I try and smooth, it looks like crap.

Thx in advance for your help!

[magnus28]

2 follow up questions:

• I watched the afore mentioned tut on adding holes, but how can this be done on a cylinder? I tried doing it blender by just creating a cylinder and adding a circle mesh, but it didn’t ask me how many vertices to create, and I had difficulty loop cutting the cylinder the way I wanted to.

• and in the side view picture I posted of the MG81, the inside of the handle tapers at about a 30 degree angle (the textured grip) How can I add this taper to my model while ensuring the faces all line up? Or can I just add the texture from the picture so it will simulate the angle?

TY