wbnc said:
thanks right now I am banging my head against the textures thing..cant get them to show up in render..followed the tutorials but it comes out with the textures either not showing up, or only showing up on certain parts...
Sounds like either you didn't properly UV Map the model or you may have not assigned a material group (or not assigned a texture to it). Blender can be a little confusing with textures because it requires some extra steps in assigning textures.
I was surprised by how easy it was to use after you learned the controls..still having trouble manipulating objects and keeping them from getting all wonky on the grid though..but the shapes aren't that hard once you figure out a few things.....well the basic shapes that is
Try experimenting with the Global, Normal and Local settings when manipulating faces, you may find that very useful in helping you to move something in a particular direction with precision. For example, say you make a simple four sided pyramid with a point at the top (Z axis). So you want to extrude out one of the four faces which is at an angle, say along the X+Z axis. The normal Global axis won't work but cause that would only allow you to pull it on the X or the Z axis. But you can change to the Normal and now its using the axis associated with the Normal direction of that particular face. You can then grab the blue (Z) axis arrow and pull that face out along the axis of the face itself with greater control.
Some keyboard shortcuts I use a lot are Cntrl+E for working with edges (brings up the edges submenu), Cntrl+V for vertices, Shift+S for reseting and working with the 3D cursor (which is something else you'll use a lot when manipulating a mesh).
EDIT: Its Shift+S to manipulate the 3D cursor, my bad.
I use the Mirror modifier a lot, also the Subsurface division modifier when I want really smooth rounded shapes. Array is really useful for creating multiple copies of something (there's a nice tutorial on using Array to take a single torus and turn it into an infinite length of chain that you can actually move, bend and pose even though all you ever make is a single link; then later you learn to use it and some other tools to turn that chain into a sheet of chain mail that you can literally drop over a head model and turn into a mail coif with realistic folds and bends. An the amazing part is once you know how you can do that literally in minutes with Blender).
How some folks can make all the wonderful models I've seen still boggles me..I look at the images and find myself trying to figure out how you get that shape out of Blender.
There's lots of tricks for different things and most of them turn out to be surprisingly simple. For example in my Huntress model I've used the Inset command a LOT in creating various shapes and geometry within the hull.
I Have also figured out that if you create half a ship, and use mirrror you really get a better result than trying to do mirror..work..mirror work..mirror again..the fewer times I use it the cleaner things seem to turn out for me.
Yup, again in my Huntress model, including in the preview renders I've posted there's actually only half a ship mesh there, the other half is generated with the Mirror modifier. When I started building the ship I literally started with the default cube. I collapsed one side into a point so I had a pyramid on its side. I then two other vertices on the side and got the more diamond shape. After that I cut it in half along its length and then applied the Mirror. Everything else has grown out of that basic shape with me only working on the left half of the ship while the right half is generated by the Mirror. This guarantees the left and right sides are identical and symmetrical. If I want to add something unique to just one side I make that as a separate object that doesn't have the Mirror applied to it and then once I'm done I'll Join all the parts together.
Also, do your UV Mapping BEFORE applying the Mirror permanently (which actually generates the mirror mesh as an editable mesh). This way you can paint one half the ship and the texture / paint will also be mirrored on the other side. That saves you time with texturing and also helps keep your texture maps smaller (which uses less memory and renders faster).
