Help with Blender modeling.

[Nova Reclaimer]

I'm having a problem in blender. I've been trying to learn 3D modeling in Blender, and I'm a little stumped. When I mirror the 3D view and model a helmet using reference pictures, it doesn't stay uniform to the opposite side. Is there anything I can do about this?

Also, do recommend modeling by connecting vertices or another method?

 

[Kasaron]

I find the best way to do hard-surface modeling is to use a plane and control the verticies and edges. I'm not entirely sure how symmetry works in blender; so I can't tell you either way on that, but it might be a good idea to model half of the model first then mirror it afterward.

 

[Smiggly]

Found this: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro Check it out, it might have the answers you're looking for. Good luck!

 

[Nova Reclaimer]

Thanks guys. I've been using noob to pro but I was confused about the subject on guide images. I might use a plane instead of a cube.

 

[Sky Dragon]

What I did for my latest file (still an unreleased UA-Buckler) was build half of the model using planes, then once you're happy with the result, you can copy it (Shift+D i believe) and then scale it across the x axis or y axis, whichever you need mirrored along. With your snap feature set to vertex, you simply grab the other side and snap it to the exact same point on the parent side. Seems a little easier because I never got the mirror function to work properly. I could get pictures if you need

 

[Nova Reclaimer]

Pictures would be nice. I think that's a better method, because the mirror is not doing it for me.

 

[rundown]

You probably rotated the object. You have to go in edit mode to rotate yoyr mesh.
Then it will keep uniform and nicely mirrored.

 

[JMann]

One thing you may have done is that your vertices are going beyond the object point of origin (orange dot) as it uses that spot to mirror across. If you have it too far away you will have happen what is in A. If your vertices are on both sides an overlap occurs like B. C and D are ways to use the clipping option as the mirrored vertices on top of each other are merged. You can even pull it away and those vertices stay merged like in D. One thing tho, if you have a very high detailed model you may need to alter the merge limit as if it is too high it will start doing very weird things like merging adjacent points rather than just the mirrored ones. Hope this is your question and it helped

The point of origin can only be moved by selecting the object in 'Object Mode' rather than edit mode.

 

[Nova Reclaimer]

Thanks, I see what you mean. I didn't enable clipping.

 

[Sky Dragon]

Alright, well here is my mini tutorial for Blender 2.49 (I'm used to the interface, so I didn't ever upgrade to the 2.5 beta for windows 7 64 bit...)
Step 1: You have your one half of the model complete, and you are going to end up joining it. Those are the next steps-

Step 2: We are going to do a Shift+D to duplicate the object, and then grab it and move along the axis (G, X was the axis I used in this tutorial) (the picture explains that better). At this time we can click the magnet button - it's highlighted in the pic - and that will help us snap things together later.

Step 3: We are gonna scale this other half of the object so it is the same size, just a mirror image (Keyboard: S, X, -1) and it will mirror it so it's facing the other side.

Step 4: Now we can grab the second half and drag it near the parent object. Holding Ctrl will allow the objects to snap together to their corresponding vertices as such in the picture.

Step 5: Both objects have now been transformed into one essentially mirrored object! I'm not sure if the same will apply to other versions of blender, but this was the easiest way I was able to perform it in 2.49.

Hope that helps, it's a useful tip if you can't get the mirror function to work properly.

 

[Nova Reclaimer]

Thanks a bunch mate. I'm also using blender to 2.49. The 2.5 version doesn't install properly on my computer. And you said you use planes, does this mean you connected vertices together and then added faces?

 

[Sky Dragon]

For the little tutorial I put together, I just used a cube. But for my modeling, I use planes. There is a little learning curve, and I had taken a class a few months ago that went over the basics of Blender. I make sure to have 2 windows up, one for X and Y directions, the other for my Z direction. And for the planes, I usually subdivide once, then delete the inside vertex. You get 8 points that you can move to your liking, and then when you need to make a plane with them, you select a few vertices and press F and it automatically makes a plane in the selected area.

 

[Nova Reclaimer]

Whoa, sounds complicated. I'll try out the cube method and see where that takes me. This modeling is tough.

 

[Sky Dragon]

Whoa, sounds complicated. I'll try out the cube method and see where that takes me. This modeling is tough.

I just added my UA-Buckler to 4shared if you want to see how a finished model looks by using planes - http://www.4shared.com/file/0vMN_Z33/Wrist_Redo.html

 

[Nova Reclaimer]

That looks amazing. It flows very well. I'll definitely use the plane method. I'm going to try to model a reach health pack to gain experience.

About planes, I'm not really understanding how their made. Do you start off with vertices and fill them in by adding the face, and then repeat?

 

[Sky Dragon]

What I do is press the space bar, add a new plane, subdivide it and then delete the middle vertex. This makes just the outline, where you can adjust all the points individually to where they need to be. Rinse and repeat for all of the other planes, and make sure you have the magnet selected so you can snap all of the vertices together for smoothness and no gaps. Hope that makes sense, I haven't yet recovered on sleep from the SATs on Saturday...

 

[Nova Reclaimer]

Thanks a bunch mate. I see now. Also, sorry about the sleep. New episode of skins.