lowpolycoop.com

[TRexian]

Building a shotgun in Blender, part 1.

Since I first posted this, it has been pointed out that I should've aligned the picture with the grid to make it easier/better.

Ok, in this tutorial, I'm going to make a shotgun. Specifically, my grandfather's Winchester Model 1897. (His isn't actually from 1897, but from about 1917 or so.)

First, I'll start with a reference pic. This is the profile.



Then, I'll open up Blender.



We *could* start with a cube, but that would be rather combersome, methinks. So, delete that by pressing x and erase selected.



At this point, I like to hit the Num1 (number pad 1) to put it into the "front" view. This will lock in the y axis. Trust me, alot of times, it'll be easier to adjust stuff if we're locked into two dimensions.

Ok, now, we can either start with a tube or a cylinder. I'm choosing a cylinder. So,
Add>mesh>cylinder



It will prompt for how many vertices, and I like 12. I think that gives a good amount of roundness without going overboard on the number of polys. At this point, let's add the background image by going to View>background image.



This will bring up a dialog where we can navigate to our background image.

And one thing you'll notice is that I've already made a miscalculation.



I probably should've locked into the Num3 Side view. Oh well, we'll rotate the model. This is probably a good time to make sure you're in edit mode - hit tab if you're not, or select it in the bar in the middle. Now, hit R to rotate, then z to lock in the z axis.



And rotate it around until it is as close to straight across as you can get it.



Now we'll want to scale it down for the barrel. Hit s for scale, and make it about the right diameter. You may have to zoom in and do this a couple times.



We'll eyeball it at this point until it gets to be about right. Then hit scale, then x to lock in the x axis and make it longer. (Oh, also hit the little hand button to turn of the annoying 3 color axis thing. And yes, I find it annoying because I don't know how to use it.)



Now, at this point, we're thinking ahead, and we know we'll need another cylinder for the magazine tube. So, we might as well duplicate this one since its about the right size. So hit shift-D and move the "new" tube someplace for safekeeping.



Now for starting to get things to line up! Hit A to deselect whatever might be selected at this point. Then select the left most ring of verts on our first cylinder. You can do this by hitting B then making a box around the rings, or holding down the ctrl button and lassoing the verts.




Either way, we end up with something like this.



Now, if you didn't get all the verts, make sure you're in wireframe mode, so you get whatever verts are visible.



Now hit G for grab, and move all the verts from that end to the end of the barrel.



Then grab the verts of the other end and move them to where the barrel goes into the action. (Be sure to hit A to clear the selection, first.)



Now, we'll do the same thing to the magazine tube. Grab one end and move it, then the other end until you have this.



Ok a break for the two most important things about dealing in Blender:

1) hit A to deselect stuff. If you're not sure something is selected, hit A until EVERYTHING is selected, then one more time to deselect everything.

2) I haven't told you this, but ctrl-Z is the undo. :thumbs:

Ok, back to the shotgun. At this point, lets make sure our barrel and tube are lined up in the z axis (up and down). Hit 3 to change the view to the side.



Well, I gots good news and I gots bad news. The good news is, they are indeed still aligned vertically. The bad news is that the angle makes it look funky. Oh well, the '97 is set up so the two are angled a bit differently. So, its realistic. Go back to the 1 view. Then zoom in on the end of the magazine tube. I'm not going to worry about the tube cap. The skin can replicate that pretty well, and I think it'll be a waste of polys. We will however, work on the bracket that joins the tube and the barrel.



Now for one of the neatest tricks in Blender. We can add a set of verts where we want it. It is with the ctrl-R button. Its a 2 step process. First we hit ctrl-R then move the cursor over the edges until the bright yellow line is in the right plane that we want it. I find it easier to have some of the verts in the same plane already selected. (The edge it is focusing on will have a blue hilight.)



Click the left mouse button and then a bright blue set of verts will appear in the object. You can move these around until they are in the right place. We want them to line up with one edge of the bracket.



Then do this again until you have both edges of the bracket on the barrel and on the mag tube.



Then do this again until you have another set just outside the first set. A total of 4 lines of new verts on the barrel and tube.



Now select the inner rows of verts. I find the lasso tool (ctrl-LMB) easiest to use for this.



Then we scale it just a little bit so it extends up over the barrel and down under the tube a little bit.



Now we need to add the tab between the to cylinders of the bracket. We do this by making new faces.

To do this, we select the 4 verts that we want to make the new face/poly. This is a bit tricky with this model because the verts we just scaled are still very close to other verts. It may take some trial and error, zooming and rotating of the view, to get the right ones. The first one should look something like this.



Then hit F to make the face.



Then do that so that there are new polys going all the way around the "middle" of the bracket.



End of part I.
_________________
Sic semper tyrannosauro.

[TRexian]

Ok, now we get to undo something. We're going to take out the back part of the little bracket and join the verts between the barrel and the tube. So, rotate so you're looking down the tubes. I like face select for this kind of stuff because we'll be deleting faces, but leaving the verts.



Now, you'll want to delete back face, so select it, then hit x and only faces.



Now, we'll make faces to box in the area that goes the length of the barrel. Ideally, I think it would be a good idea to select the verts next to the bracket, not the verts that make the bracket, but really, this is probably inconsequential.

So, you end up with this.



And now its time to work on the action part. To make this easier, I think we need to delete the now-enclosed faces.



Go back to the Num1 view. Select all the verts at the back, and make sure you're in the show-vert mode. Then hit E for extrude, and region, and x to lock it into the x axis and move the new verts/faces back to about the rear tang, or just in front of the trigger guard.



Now we'll get it so the profile looks about right. Just grab verts/vert pairs until it approximates the profile. You can use the ctrl-R technique to add new vert rows for places where the profile changes. I ended up with this.



Ok, now we get to fix the shape of the thing. I forgot to get a pic of this view, so we'll have to kinda eyeball it.

I've gone into the solid display and face select mode because I feel like it gives me a better view of what's going on overall. Basically though, we're just selecting faces and verts and moving them so they look more like the rectangular part of the action housing.



You may notice some funky triangular polys on the inside. You can delete them if you want, or just leave them. They'll never get drawn, so I'm not sure its a big deal. DM or Gargs can correct me on that.

So, I go about grabbing and moving. Remember, that when you're in a funky angled view, you can hit g (for grab) then x, y, or z to lock in a certain axis. That's very helpful. Same thing with scale, if you want to move several verts out from the center.





So hey... this is starting to look like a shotgun!



Now we're going to extrude down to the beginning of the stock. We're going to leave the trigger assembly alone for now (mostly because, as I'm writing this, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it).

So, we select all the rear verts and extrude them. We don't want to lock this into 1 axis, so it is best to select the 1 view so things will only move in 2 axes. If it seems like it is locked into a funny axis, it is because it is trying to figure out which direction you want to move. Hit x 2x to clear it. Then just approximate where you want the verts.



Then grab and move them until you have the right placement. Also be sure to look at the rear view to get the right taper that you want.



That looks pretty good. I realize now, I don't really need those verts on the inside of the object we have now, so I want to delete them. I select them, then hit x then select vertices.




Ok, now we're going to work on the stock, because I'm still contemplating the trigger assembly.

Maybe I should google it and find out if there's a variant that didn't have one? I'll save that idea for later.

Really, the stock is just more extruding and placing of verts.

This time, though, when we hit extrude, we only get 2 options: edges and verts. We want edges.



We'll also want to use the ctrl-R tool also, to get the curve just right.



Also, I've decided to basically do this in 2 extrusions, although you could probably do it in 1, then use ctrl-R a bunch of times.



The second extrusion and placing.









Ok, so we've got the stock - w00t. Almost a full weapon here! Just some things we need to finish up to gear up for the trigger. First, we need to add a face to the butt. Hmmm...sounds like one of Jim's weekends with DM.

Anyway, select groups of 4 verts and hit F.



Eventually you should have this.



Now, for something kinda cool go to object mode (tab) and go to top view (Num7). You might have to zoom out until you see the camera.



Hit A to unselect, then select the camera with the lasso or box and move it to where it is more perpendicular to the shotgun.



Then hit r for rotate and z to lock in the z axis and point it to the gun. Then hit Num3 (side view) and make sure it is pointing at the gun. And deselect the camera and select and grab the light (the little yellow circle) so it illuminates the camera-facing side of the gun (or move the camera to the lighted side).




Then hit F12 for render.

That might show some rough spots that you can touch up and smooth out. *OR* you can set them to smooth by selecting the verts and hitting the setsmooth and autosmooth buttons.





Ok, one last thing before part III and the trigger - joining some faces.

It seems like we have alot of faces in the stock that don't need to be there. My technique is brute force, pretty much - select a bunch of them, and hit J and see what happens. Sometimes nothing happens. No big deal, I figure.

Ok, there's still the pump on the front. That's really just a matter of ctrl-R and scaling or extruding as you see fit - like we did with the bracket. I can post how to do it as part IV if people want. Otherwise, I'm just doing the trigger assembly for the tutorial.

Part III to follow.
_________________
Sic semper tyrannosauro.

[TRexian]

Ok, Part III

I think the best way to tackle this is by subdividing. First select the faces where the trigger

group is going to go.



Now, make sure you have them all across the bottom by rotating the view a bit.



Then hit the subdivide button 2x.



What I'm planning on doing is basically extruding both of the roots of the trigger guard down, then

have them meet in the middle, then join the vertices to make one continuous object. Then we'll do

the actual trigger by subdividing again and extruding.

So, I need to line up the verts with the roots of the trigger guard. The front ones aren't bad, but

the back ones could use some lining up. Then I'll start with extruding (region) the rear ones.



Then ctrl-R and placing until I have half the arc.



Then do the same thing for the front part of the guard. When you get to where they match up, try to

get the verts as close as possible to the ends of the other ones - right on top of them. And when

you do that, try to stay in the Num1 view, so they aren't offset in the Y axis.



I've marked where the two arcs come together.

Now we get to merge vertices together.

You'll have to zoom in close and rotate around to make sure the verts are very close together -

ideally on top of each other in every axis.

I've got some work to do.


For this, it is helpful to work in 1 axis after you grab things.
Z-axis

X-axis


And voila:


To join them, pick the pairs of verts and hit alt-M (for merge) and choose at center.



Then do that for all the pairs.



Now, it looks like we have a set of faces within the structure, so we should delete that.



Now, I think this is too bulky for how the real thing feels, so I'm going to scale it down a bit in the y axis, starting with alot of verts, then selecting and scaling more a bit lower.



Now, for the actual trigger, just select the face where it is and subdivide and extrude.





Then scale it so it is "inside" the guard.



Well, I think there are more polys within that trigger than the whole rest of the gun! Tried joining them, but it didn't work. Only thing I can think of is to move a whole lot of verts and merge. Save that for another day.

Thus endeth the lesson.






Basically the finished product. 857 faces.



I think there are too many verts/polys in the stock, and trigger assembly for that matter, too. I'll have to do a tut on joining polys, methinks.
_________________
Sic semper tyrannosauro.

[scotths]

You know what, I've been reading this over in bits and spurts all day and I wanted to chime in and say what it is that I really love about this tut. The workflow methodology that you go through is very similar to mine and it is a breath of fresh air to see someone else go throough a project step by step, even doing backtracking and workarounds. You don't have the attitude of "This is THE way to do it, you must follow the master!" You just show how you went through it, even going as far as saying "Here I did something that didn't work so well, but I fixed it". I think it is a crucial lesson for Blender beginners to understand that ther are many valid ways to make a model and that art should be created even if you only know a couple ways to do something. That's the way I work, there is no recipe for making new things. Some people could look at this and say "Well, I would have done..... instead", but I think that would be entirley missing the point and intention of the work put into this.

Beautiful work I say, keep doing more.

~shs~

[TRexian]

hehehe

Thanks.

There's a couple reasons I do it that way. First - when I make these tuts, it is usually *right* after I figured out how to do it, so I still make mistakes. I figure, if someone else is going through the same process, they might make the same mistakes, so its good to show how I fixed them.

The other main reason is kinda hard to explain. I've been involved with a certain flight simulator for several years. There's alot of community development in it. A few years ago, a new guy came along and wanted to contribute. He didn't know how to do much at that time, but what he did was post "mission reports" from the training missions. It was good to see how someone else did things, and mistakes he made (some that we ALL make). He went on to campaign missions and still reported the whole thing - mistakes and all.

I realized that that's a GREAT way to teach someone using forum posts. Don't just tell them, "Click this, that, and the other." Show that what it looks like if you miss something, or do something wrong, and then how to fix it.

Anyway, I'm glad you like 'em. The other goal is to "lower the bar" and show people that literally ANYONE can do this. We won't all create Doom3 quality models and skins, but we can have fun trying.
_________________
Sic semper tyrannosauro.

[RampantGames]

Wow.

Thank you for this tutorial. It's mostly a refresher course, but that's always helpful, and it's really helpful to see how someone else handles the workflow (as Scott said) and problem-solving. There's also some real gems in there.

And in fact, one of my first projects was (a very horrible) Winchester rifle. I think I could go back and do it much better now after reading this tutorial!

[TRexian]

Using some tips from the Blender elYsiun forum, I removed a bunch of vers by using the "remove doubles" tool. I also think I could do a better job of joining stuff together.

Looking back at it, I should've reduced polys at the back end of the trigger, then extruded the entire stock in one big block, and molded from there with ctrl-R.

But, live and learn.
_________________
Sic semper tyrannosauro.

[Anonymous]

I know this is an ancient topic, but I wanted to thank TRexian for this cool tutorial.

I made my very first model in Blender!

I see where I made some mistakes - the barrel's kinda twisted and the stock's kinda funky, etc, etc. but I was just so happy that I made something resembling a rifle that I wanted to pop in and say thanks!

Total time from downloading blender to end of part II: almost 2 hours. I'm not brave enough to tackle the trigger yet...



- Andy

[nibbuls]

Awesome job, Andy. We all have to start somewhere--and your first model is certainly better than mine was.

You'll find that when you get the hang of blender you'll be making a better model in far less time. Stick with it!

[terrym]

killer job Andy, keep it up!
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email/ terrymcgill@gmail.com ..... msn/ foundsanity@hotmail.com

[TRexian]

hehehe

That really is awesome.

Two hours after I downloaded Blender, I was still trying to figure out how to rotate the models with the mouse buttons!

Looking back at that tutorial, I realize how much I've forgotten in a year!
_________________
Sic semper tyrannosauro.

[iSee3D]

Thanks for a great tutorial. I went for a slightly lower quality version (390 verts) and got a bit bored when it came to textures! Anyways here is my effort after using Blender for a couple of weeks.

[TRexian]

hehe

4 years later, and using the same techniques that I first explored in this tut, I did this in about 5 hours of work.















In Blender, I've decided 2 of the most valuable tools for me are ctrl-R to make a new loop, and shft-K to cut lines.

In terms of tips, I'd say that anyone doing this tut should try VERY HARD not to shift any verts away from the XYZ planes until they absolutely have to. It is MUCH easier to do the projection type modeling and cutting and loop making when things are "square."
_________________
Sic semper tyrannosauro.