Project Description

This project was my first ever experience with 3D modeling software. With having no background whatsoever on 3D modeling, I started digging into Blender by researching resources and watching tutorial videos on YouTube. I came across hours and hours of tutorial material on various website and spent almost 8-9 hours of just watching videos before making my mind on what I would like to model for my project.

After hours of shuffling though various how to videos, I finally came across a detail beginner level tutorial of how to model a human face and decided to give it a go. I began my modeling by taking pictures of my face from all different angels and started modeling. I was following close along the lines of tutorial video and everything seems to be smooth right until basic shape and as I went to sculpting the details of face, that’s where the things started getting ugly. I realized working with organic shapes was much more difficult. My so-called human face was turning into all kind of weird shapes and was not looking nowhere close to a face. So I started having second thoughts for my human face model and decided to give up on that and work on something simpler.

After few fail attempts on various simple models, I picked to model an aeroplane. A friend/classmate of mine suggested to Google the blueprints since blueprints can provide mathematically correct front, view, top, rear views and it’d make it easy to model for beginners. Below is the blue print I used as a base for modeling. I edited the image into four smaller pieces and set them as background image as it’s corresponding views in Blender.

Figure 1 : Blue print of Air bus 380. (Source)

Modeling Approach

My approach for this project was to begin with box modeling to create basic structure of the model. I set up a quad view of rear, top, bottom view and aligned my vertices so that it matches up in all different views.

Figure 2 Box modeling - Quad view

I started with a cube, added a mirror modifier and using various tools such as loopcut, extrude, rotate and scale – I created basic framework of my aeroplane. The easier way to create engine was just to add a cylinder shape, select one of it’s end face and scale it down to make a cone shape which exactly matches the look of an engine.

Figure 3 Box Modeling – Basic Structure

Having the framework done, I added multiresolution modifier and subdivided upto level 2. That gave me more vertices and edges to manipulate the shape. In sculpt mode, I gave curves to front and rear part of the model.

Figure 4 : Box modeling - Multiresolution modfier

Finally, I smoothen out the model by adding smooth and soft body modifier and added texture to it.

Figure 5 : Box Modeling - Smooth and Softbody modifier

End Product

Screenshot with different texture and light settings

Difficulties:

Since I was a newbie to Blender, it took me a while to catch up with the program and get comfortable with all the tools and commands. I started playing around with the Blender on Lab machine, which by the way uses an ancient version of Blender; a lot of new tools weren’t available to it. For instance quad view – which gives four different view on one screen so that you don’t have to switch between different view which makes the life much easier.

Working on 13.3 inch laptop screen can be really hard on your eyes and having to manipulate small vertices can be pain some time. I learnt the hard way to always move your object though axis and never using the cursors, cause there were times when I tried to move my object in one view and it totally mess it up on all the other views. As well as, for some reason in Mac, when you quit the blender it does not prompt you with a pop up box to remind to save your file, it just closes on you and you end up loosing all the work you have done. That was brutal.

The most amount of time I spent on modeling was to curve the front and rear end of my plane. I tried various different methods but didn’t quite get the result I wanted until I learnt how to use sculpting. I also spent quite few time selecting vertices and manipulating its edges. After getting more familiar with Blender, I figure out the model that I have created so far by spending about 15-16 hours, I could have done the same thing in way more less time using different approach.

Overall, I had great learning experience and really enjoyed playing around with Blender. It blown my mind how amazing the software was and the things it could create.