Workshop: Making a 3D Model Cross! (56k warning)

[Psalms34]

This is a workshop thread for creating a simple 3D model and adding your own texture to it. Modeling takes some practice so I made a hand full of screen shots to help you through this. Creating a UV map in this way is not very hard. I’m not covering the painting process of your texture here but if you want some help working with that just ask here and I’ll make up some quick instructions using the Gimp 2. Last part with adding your texture to the model is easy using the second modeler. Any questions you have I’ll try my best to answer, I’m not a pro modeler but practice makes perfect.

You will need to download for this project:
http://www.wings3d.com/ -free
http://www.uvmapper.com/ -Classic Version -free
http://www.anim8or.com/ -free
As well as your own graphics editor.

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[Psalms34]

Part 1

Open Wings 3D and right click to bring up the menu and select Cube.

You see the six triangles up top the furthest to the right being solid red? Select that and then click on the Cube you have so that the whole Cube highlights.

Now right click on the Cube and a menu will appear, select Scale -> Z and then use the mouse to scale it to the right shape. Right click when you get it into position to set it. If you left click it will reset without making changes to the Cube. Also there is an undo up top in the edit menu incase you want to undo what ever you did.

Now that your scaled the Z axis of your cube, do that again but this time select the X axis.

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[Psalms34]

Now right click on you Cube and select Duplicate and in this case I used Duplicate -> X. Now move the duplicate forward a little bit.

Now lets scale the new object a little here. Right click on it to bring up the menu, select Scale Y and scale your object a little taller now. No need for a screen shot on this one.

When you are done scaling, tap the space bar and then click on the smaller object (our old Cube) to make it highlight. Now right click on it to bring up the menu and select Rotate Z.

As you Rotate it, you will see some numbers moving in the upper left hand side of the window, rotate until it reaches 90 for a good 90 degree rotation.

Now right click on it again, select Move X and center it to the taller object. You can ALT and use the mouse to move the view around to line it up here before you move the object. Once you get them crossed well, right click on the object again and Move Y so that the object (our cross beam) is into the right position.

Ok we are done with the modeling. Select File up top and select Export… (.obj). Name it Cross and select Save. Close out Wings3D



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[Psalms34]

Part 2

Open UVMapper Classic. Select file -> Load Model and navigate to your Cross.obj file where you saved it (maybe in the Wings3D Work folder). Select OK when the Statistics dialogs comes up.

Now you need a UV texture so select Edit -> New UV Map and select Box for this one. Select OK on Dialog.

OK now in this case we will want to rearrange the map. Hold down the left mouse on a corner and drag the mouse over it to make a selection rectangle. Once you get a selection you will have a highlighted part of the map that you can drag around. Try hard not to resize it here when dragging, just put the pointer in the center of your selection box and drag it.

Now re-arrange the map so you have nothing overlapping like in the screen shot.
Once you get there, select file -> Save Texture Map and select OK on dialog. Now go a head and save it as Cross.bmp.

Now once again select File and select Save Model and select OK on dialog. Name it Cross.obj and just let it overwrite the old Cross.obj file. Now close out UVMapper.

Now open your favorite graphics editor and load your Cross.bmp into it for editing. You can simply paint over it as you like or even copy and paste your existing textures into your Cross.bump. Don’t worry about the lines, just paint over them as sloppy as you like, only the lines and inside the lines get transferred to your finished model. Once you have finished painting that all up save it as Cross.jpg now.


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[Psalms34]

Part 3

Open Anim8or.

Top menu select Object -> Import and select .obj as File of Type: in the pull down below.
Find your Cross.obj file and select .

May look small in the viewer. Hold down ALT and scroll it in with your mouse.

Open the materials panel. CTRL + M

Create a new Material. Double Click on New

Name the Material whatever you want and then click textures.

Click the three dots after Diffuse. Open your texture map.

Click ok until you reach the main window again.

Select your model. And click apply when your texture is selected.

If you select the eye (looking) button on the left and the rotate (looking) button below that, you can move the model around for a better view.

From this point it’s up to you. There is a render preview in File menu up top. When you run this you can select your back ground color. Another thing you could do is texture an object behind it as a back ground image. In my example I used Object -> Export to .3ds and imported the Cross into may game engine as an example (see below). Besides this, you can also download any of the many free models out there and create your own textures for them and even mix and match such work into your own scenes that you may want to render.

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[BlessEwe]

Thankyou for doing this....... It looks hard but the way you explained it helps so much... I am going to download and work on it... Thanks again...

 

[BlessEwe]

The UVmapper classic is a 40 day trial.... So I need to download all 3 items you provided for the project?

 

[Psalms34]

UVMapper Classic, there are two versions there, there is the UVMapper Professional that shows that 3D face as an example on their front page which is on trial and the Classic version that just shows the map like the screen shot I posted, it's free (non-trial). On the download page Classic is listed below professional. That would be Classic Version 0.62b for Windows.

 

[BlessEwe]

Sorry..but I am a bonehead....

When I select this one, Download UVMapper Classic for Windows
The current version is 0.26b from January 3, 2005 (194k bytes)
it opens and says it is a trial as well... its not the professional one...

 

[Psalms34]

If you click on Help -> About it should say freeware just like this.

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[Psalms34]

Maybe you installed the Pro version first? I’ve never installed Pro so I’m not sure if that is what’s going on. I wouldn’t worry about it, Classic should keep working as long as it still says freeware on it.

 

[Psalms34]

Oh a little correction on rotating your model in Anim8or. I said " If you select the eye (looking) button on the left and the rotate (looking) button below that, you can move the model around for a better view." Actually you would select the pointer button and then the rotating button. That's all on the toolbar on the left side of the screen.

Anim8or is a great modeling program but it can be confusing at first, it has some really good tools that wings does not have though, so in this case it's a good choice for material and rendering. Also in my case, I export everything in .3ds format and Anim8or does this well. Once you get used to modeling with one program (as easy as Wings3D), you will be able to model on any program. The most complex freeware modeler is Blender. Blender is great if you are making very high detailed models, but the interface is extremely confusing. I hear that they are going to redo the interface for that soon and I'm looking forward to that. Each of those programs websites have good tutorials from beginner to advanced for learning.

 

[BlessEwe]

wooo hooooo.... I got it to paint but will start again my lines are way off... I did what you said and it worked to open the programs. You would not beleave what I had on my UVMapper haaa ( It looked like a ship sunk and the wood came to the surface )
This is really fun, I can't wait to mess around with the Anim8or. Thankyou.... Now going back into the wings program I have a better idea of what to do...

I find this all so confusing but after working abit, and coming back to reread, and reread your instructions there is the lightbullb moment and clicks.... I bet my boys could just get right on this with their young brains.

I am slow, but I do get there... Thanks for your help today... Lord Bless...

 

[Psalms34]

Hey! That’s great to hear! I know you can do it Just keep trying and you will get the hang of it, I start over a lot too. Like tonight, I’m modeling the inside of a two story Church building, it’s all in mahogany wood and pattern textures and has a sanctuary large enough to fit 1000 people not counting the class rooms and office. I’m using a an interior modeling tool called Maplet and keep starting over to get it looking just right with each new idea I get on how to put it all together. Time is flying by, it’s a lot of fun!

 

[gods kid]

nice tutorial, I use wings for Modelling Graphics for games. Are you sure you have the latest version there? It just looks like one of the older ones.

Also, you can make it one model if you use the excrude tool instead of making two. It is harder, and has more polys but it it useful for more complex models.

Here is one of the models I made:

It is highly smoothed, and over 10,000 polys. I dare not texture it, it would probably crash my computer trying to make a UVmap of it.

Oh, and i have used maplet before, but if you ever try to edit it in a modeling program, you realise that the vertexs have been placed really weirdly. It is a good program, but for low poly maps, I say, model it yourself

 

[Psalms34]

Yeah it’s fairly recent, 0.98.32a I think, and the current is …b. I mostly use Blender but Wings is far better for a 3D modeling introduction tutorial. I mostly use Wings for interior/exterior buildings using intrude functions, really quick and painless.

Nice big eyed pup you got there.

 

[gods kid]

The strange thing is, most people find Wings hard to use, they say it is complex, but i find it really easy, but i find other software hard to use.

Wings is my main modeling program

 

[Psalms34]

I think Wings is pretty easy, it’s not a very complicated program, there are not a lot of keyboard shortcuts needed and it’s pretty well mouse driven. It seems perfect for making small models, I’ll often start a model with wings and export it to another modeler to do the finishing touches. The main modeler I use is Blender, it has all the features one could ever need, but to build well you gotta learn the shortcuts. Blender is very complicated but it’s good for making large or complex models or whole scenes and rendering them.

 

[gods kid]

Yeah, I agree, Wings is just for single models, not for landscapes or scenes, you need something else for that, but since most of my work is with single models, I love Wings3D!

Also, try Tattoo for Texturing models, it is great, instead of having to paint a 2D image, it allows you to paint the accual model. (You have to pay for the comertial version though.)

http://www.terabit.nildram.co.uk/tattoo/

 

[Psalms34]

Yeah, I agree, Wings is just for single models, not for landscapes or scenes, you need something else for that, but since most of my work is with single models, I love Wings3D!

Also, try Tattoo for Texturing models, it is great, instead of having to paint a 2D image, it allows you to paint the accual model. (You have to pay for the comertial version though.)

http://www.terabit.nildram.co.uk/tattoo/

Yeah I have tattoo, cant say I've used it much though since I usually diffuse bmp's or jpg's. I've been pretty happy with UVMapper and am thinking of getting Pro.