Ok, i am a total noob when it comes to 3d or for that mater any graphics on computers I have played around with Photofire and gimp 2 and now some with blender. I can visualize the steps I can even se the wireframe in my mind and how I want to manipulae it. I have figured how to get a refrence picture in the background.
I just cannot get Blender to do what I want, I want to start at a point in free space without any shape loaded and trace Vertices from the refrence picture and merge them with side views but I cannot seem to find out how to do it and the info I have found just leaves me blank.
I really have a strong desire to do this but am lacking in techinal know how. If you could just point me in the proper direction it might help, then again might not…lol.
I have garnered so much and from what i have seen and read I can see it in my mind just cannot get it to pop up on the computer…/grin.
Split the screen by right mouse button on the bottom devider bar and selecting “split”, drag up and drop, then split that new devider so that you have 4 3D views.
then you need to set up the 4 views to reflect the “Front Top Side and Camera” views. To do that hover your mouse over the top left “box” that you just created and press the numberpad “1” key. that sets it to the Front view. Then do the top right with numberpad “7” for the top view. then the bottom left with numberpad “3” for the side view. And finaly the bottom right is set to numberpad “0” for the camera view.
now keep in mind if you click down on any of those views and drag your mouse the view will rotate so u will have to set them back to the "correct view while your lining up the “point” in space.
now that your views are set up you need to load the background image in the different views. You should have a front for the front view (top left) a top view for the top view (top right) a side for the side view (bottom left)
you said you know how to load those so i wont go into detail.
You now need to set up your camera and lights so u can see whats going on. First when you create a new file you get 3 items with it. You get a camera, a cube, and a light. the cube is easy to find. Press the “Tab” key to make sure your in edit mode (will say Edt or OBj for edit and object mode at the top right of the screen with the small numbers in the grey area) also you can see the small “points” called vertices when your in edit mode.
anyway once you are in edit mode you can press the “a” key to select all the little vertices of the cube. press it a few times untill they are all Yellow. Press it again to unselect them (they will turn pink.) you want them to be yellow. then press the delete key to remove the entire cube from the screen and click “vertices” when it asks what to delete.
Now go into object mode (the tab key will switch you back out of edit mode) and click on the little circle with the lines coming off it. that is the default light. you can delete that for now. use the delete key and confirm delete.
so what your left with is jsut your camera.
Move your camera around in Object mode by clicking on it. when you have clicked on it it will turn pink. Then use the “g” key to get it to move around. Go ahead and hover your mouse in the view you want, select the camera and move it around with the “g” key and the mouse. When you have placed it back down you can use the “R” key to rotate it. Keep in mind that becasue you have different views, depending which view you rotated it in the camera will rotate a different way.
ok now you need to add that First “.” point that you will be moving around. In blender you could lose track of a single point if your just starting so the only way to add just one in to start with is by pressing the spacebar. Then select add then select Mesh, and select Plane. this will add a square to the views. Find one of the 4 views where you can see all 4 points in the square. Make sure you in Edit mode. Then click on three of the 4 points one at a time and press the delete key. then select “verticie” when it asks what to delete.
you will see that your left with just one point, you can now look at your 3 views and line that point up where you want it to go. then you can turn that point into a line as you trace your image by holding down the CTRL button and clicking with the mouse (make sure your in edit mode.) that will add a new verticie (point) where you clicked. you can keep doing that to trace your entire image.
but be carefull to watch the pictures you loaded in the background to make sure you move each point you add into the correct place.
now you can also press spacebar, add, lamp to add a light back to the sceen where you want it. move it close to your object and make sure its lined up in the 4 views. then look at your bottom right view (the camera view) you should see a box. that box is what your camera will take a picture of. if the object your creating is not in that box you will ahve to move the camera around in the other views and rotate it (r key) to make sure your picture will be good.
when you ahve your light and camera set up and you want to check on what your making press the (F12) key while your mouse is hovering over one of the views. This will “render” the image (take a picture of it)
The default settings with Blender use RMB for selecting objects / vertices / faces, etc. LMB is used for a few extraordinary cases however, as detailed below.
Thank you so very much Highcommander and Mike S your information has freed my mind. it just started flowing like mad. I will post some of my efforts here and let you know of my progress. If you can think of any thing else please do not hesitate to post. Thank you much again…/bow.
