Book Image

Blender 3D 2.49 Incredible Machines

Book Image

Blender 3D 2.49 Incredible Machines

Overview of this book

Blender 3D provides all the features you need to create super-realistic 3D models of machines for use in artwork, movies, and computer games. Blender 3D 2.49 Incredible Machines gives you step-by-step instructions for building weapons, vehicles, robots, and more. This book will show you how to use Blender 3D for mechanical modeling and product visualization. Through the pages of the book, you will find a step-by-step guide to create three different projects: a fantasy weapon, a spacecraft, and a giant robot. Even though these machines are not realistic, you will be able to build your own sensible and incredible machines with the techniques that you will learn in this book along with the exercises and examples. All the three sections of this book, which cover three projects, are planned to have an increasing learning curve. The first project is about a hand weapon, and with that we can image a small-sized object with tiny details. This first part of the book will show you how to deal with these details and model them in Blender 3D. In the second project, we will create a spacecraft, adding a bit of scale to the project, and new materials and textures as well. With this project, we will be working with metal, glass, and other elements that make the spacecraft. Along with the object, a new space environment will be created in the book too. At the end we have a big and complex object, which is the transforming robot. This last part of the book will cover the modeling of two objects and show how you can make one transform into the other. The scale and number of objects in this project are quite big, but the same principles as in the other projects are applied here with a step-by-step guide on how to go through the workflow of the project.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Blender 3D 2.49 Incredible Machines
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface

Mirroring the spacecraft


The mirror modifier in Blender is a great tool for symmetrical models like the one we are creating because everything can be created in only one side and copied to the other. Now is a good time to add this modifier and take a look at how our model will be when it's complete. Before the application of an extrusion modifier, we have to make sure that the center point of the object is really at the center.

Change the view to see the model from the top, and select all of the vertices at the right of the model, as shown next (section A). This selection can be made with the border select tool, which is the B key.

Press the S key and the X key to constrain the scale to the X axis. Now, if we press the 0 key from the alpha numeric keyboard, the scale will be set to zero and all vertices will be aligned at the same plane (section B).

If the center point of the model is not aligned with those vertices, press the Shift+S keys and choose cursor to selection. In the editing...