Part II - Starting The Modelling Process
- We will start by making the wooden part of the rifle. Create another plane with the length of two segments and the width of one segment. Use it to cover the end of the wooden part, then convert it to an editable poly by left-clicking the plane and selecting Transform>Convert To>Convert To Editable Poly. (As shown in the image below)
Several short-cuts could be found by left-clicking the object.
- We now will have to align our plane along the outline of our gun. Using the "Modify Tab", change the selection mode to "Vertex". Now select every single vertex and simply align them individually along the blueprint, look at the following image to see how it should look like.
- We will now make duplicates of our plane to cover up the whole of the wooden part. First of all, change the selection to "Edge", then select the three available edges and then while holding "Ctrl" drag the plane to create yourself another copy of it. Hold "Shift" and move the new plane to the side as shown in the diagram.
- After creating the first duplicate, switch the selection mode to "Vertex" once again and align the the vertex of the new edge along the blueprint as shown in the diagram.
- Repeat the process of duplicating and aligning until you cover up the whole of the wooden part of the rifle. You should end up with something like the following diagram. Notice that we ended up using only two segment planes at the narrow end on the left.
low poly of wooden part of the rifle created by poly modelling technique
- We are going to move our model away from the blueprint. Press the "P" key on your keyboard to switch the view from "Left" to "Perspective". Click on "Editable Poly" in the "Modify Panel" (notice the yellow bar change colour to dark gray), you will now be able to move the whole model, simply move it along the X-Axis away from the blueprint.
- We will now give our model some depth to make it more than a simple plane. Switch the selection mode to "Border" and click once on the model. 3D Studio Max is going to auto select the border of our model. Hold down the "Shift" key on the keyboard and move the selected boarder along the X-Axis. Make sure you give it slight depth only and as this only half the model.
- We will now duplicate the whole of our current model. Click on the "Mirror Selected Object", an option window will pop-up, make sure you selection the X-Axis as the mirror axis, and selection "Instance" as the clone selection as set in the image below. Making the clone selection as an instance of our model will make any changes later made in either models will still be reflected on the other copy of the model.
- We are now only required to move the new half to complete the whole of the wooden part of our rifle.
