Book Image

Blender 3D Incredible Models

By : Arijan Belec
Book Image

Blender 3D Incredible Models

By: Arijan Belec

Overview of this book

Blender is a massively popular and powerful 3D program, with versatile modeling abilities that make it a great way to enter the 3D modelling world. Blender 3D Incredible Models is an extensive guide for those new to hard-surface modeling with Blender, helping you understand the complete range of tools and features it offers and how to employ those efficiently to create realistic models. You’ll be led through progressively more challenging modeling projects— from an assault rifle and an army tank to a sci-fi spaceship model—giving you a glimpse of all the skills you’d need in Blender’s vast ecosystem of features and functionality, ranging from textures, rendering, and UV mapping to lighting, rigging, and beyond. Each engaging project builds upon the last until you’re equipped with everything you need to tackle your own modeling challenges, whatever they may be. By the end of this Blender book, you won’t just know how to create the models covered here, but you’ll be able to turn your own concepts and references into 3D Blender models too!
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Introduction to Hard Surface Modeling
3
Part 2: Modeling an Assault Rifle
7
Part 3: Modeling a Sci-Fi Race Ship
10
Part 4: Modeling a T-72 Tank

Painting normal decals

In this section, we will combine normal map baking with texture painting to create custom normal decals. This technique is useful for creating additional small details on a surface without adding any new geometry.

Baking a normal decal

In the following few steps, we will create a shape and bake it as a normal decal:

  1. Create a new file in Blender and model a simple metal hatch.

Figure 6.51 – Decal modeling

  1. Add a plane above the hatch. We will use this plane to bake a normal map, as we did with the carbon fiber pattern.
  2. Create a material with a new image sized 512 px x 512 px so that we can bake a new normal map.

Figure 6.52 – Creating the decal image

Baking a normal map will sometimes produce an odd result, as shown in Figure 6.53. This means that the normals of the mesh are not oriented correctly:

Figure 6.53 – Incorrect normal decal

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