How to make windows for a starship

[Hunter_G]

Someone of my deviantart page requested a tutorial on how to do this, so here it is. First of all, this tutorial was made assuming you all know how to do some basic modeling. Here we go.

First, get the object you’re adding windows to and hide everything else. This will make doing the windows easier. I will be using a cube to demonstrate.

First, add a circle, or whatever shape you want the window(s) to be.

Move it outside of you’re object.

Extrude the vertices into the other object.

[Hunter_G]

Sorry that this isn’t complete. I had to wait for this thread to approved before I posted anything else. I’ll have the rest of the tutorial up tomorrow.

[wccrawford]

Sorry that this isn’t complete. I had to wait for this thread to approved before I posted anything else. I’ll have the rest of the tutorial up tomorrow.

Tomorrow was yesterday!

Anticip …

[Hunter_G]

Sorry I didn’t get this up yesterday, I had a lot going on. Anyway, lets continue where I left off.

So, here’s how things should look so far (your window obviously doesn’t have to be a circle).

Now add a boolean modifier to your window object. Set the operation to union, and the object to whatever you’re cutting into. In this case it would be the cube (from now on, when I say cube, just think of it as your object). You can go ahead and apply the modifier

You will also have to delete the original cube after you apply the modifier. Although, a good suggestion is to just move it to another layer, in case you want to redo the windows. (I learned that the hard way).

[Hunter_G]

Go into edit mode and select the loop of vertices shown and delete them…

so it will end up like this:

Select the outline of the window shape and hit shift s and “snap cursor to selected.” We will be adding a new object next that will become the actual window

[Hunter_G]

Ok, now go back to object mode, and add a new object to be the window. Model it as desired. I’m not going to go through
the modeling process, as all it was for me was simple extruding and sizing. Depending on the shape of your windows modeling might involve more than that (again, I’m assuming you know the basics about modeling). What I came up with was this. that indentation is where the “glass” will go.

[Hunter_G]

Now, to make the window pane, all you have to do is add a circle, and position it to be in that indentation there. Next is a handy trick that might be useful in the future for you. So, with the circle selected in edit mode, hit extrude and click, so the new verts don’t move. Then hit alt m and “merge at center”.

Anyway, here’s what I did. I put the circle right in the indentation, and made two of them, to imitate the thickness of the glass.

[Hunter_G]

Now it’s time to add the materials. The one’s I’ll use here will the basic, since this is more for modeling purposes. Here’s some basic settings that still look decent, even with close-ups.

Also, if you want to see the transparency, go to the object panel, and it has that option right there. Be warned though, it doesn’t look the same as when it’s rendered.

[Hunter_G]

Add a material to the window object as well,

then join the two meshes with control j.

[wccrawford]

Thanks! It seems like a good tutorial. I can’t try it right now, but I’ve filed all the info away for the next time I want to do something like this.