Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Simple Vehicle: Body

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Contents 1 Techniques 2 Planning 3 The Basics 4 A Touch of Detail 5 Optional Activities

[edit] Techniques

You should already know how to:

• Make a mesh
• Navigate the viewport
• Extrusion
• Form faces
• Name objects

This section will recap and introduce:

• Deleting and creating edges
• Subdividing
• Merging vertices
• Loop subdivide
• Adding unconnected vertices in one object

[edit] Planning

Think about what you want your jeep body to entail. As always, consider where the major sections will need to be made so that you don't have to backtrack later to accommodate your idea. Feel free to make your own body design; here is one I made up.

[edit] The Basics

Start a new file. Take the default block and extrude it into your sections along the X axis (NUM 1 view). In this design, the sections are being designed to include the back, flatbed, doors, dashboard, window, and hood, left to right. The window is extruded straight up (older jeeps' windshields aren't slanted), and I decided to add a lower back to later hold the bumper/lights if you wanted to add them.

Widen the jeep body. Use the proper views to make each step easy. The picture examples are not necessarily meant to provide the correct view you should have when editing your mesh. They are meant to show how the mesh should be turning out.

Addition: As a newbie, this step confused me. What it fails to mention is that instead of just widening the body, you need to perform a couple of extra steps to get the basic jeep to look like the pictures:

First, switch to (NUM 7 view). This is a top down view. Use the 'B' key to highlight the top row of vertices, and then reduce the width of the jeep to one square. You then need to extrude this revised jeep twice along the Y axis; once for 4 squares, and then extrude again for one square. This should give you the figure that is shown in the pictures.

(User Addition:PaulJC): I am including images illustrating the above mentioned steps. Since this Wikibook is intended for those starting out with Blender3D the above instructions can be confusing for new users of Blender3D.

I created the jeep body like this [I use Blender3D 2.48a for Ubuntu Linux]:

• Starting with the basic square in (NUM 1) view. Turn "Occlude Background geometry" OFF (So the square is NOT greyed).

××× Line the basic cube up with the grid. This will help in ensuring you do the extruding properly.

××× For my instructions a GRID SQUARE is comprised on the four squares on the grid that make up the default cube.

××× A (HALF GRID SQUARE) is two of these squares, and (1/4 GRID SQUARE) is just one of these squares.

Defining UNIT and GRID squares

• Go into (VERTICE Mode) (Press the button with four dots, until it's greyed out).

• Press (BKEY) to select the vertices on (RIGHT SIDE) of the square.

• Extrude ONCE by ONE GRID SQUARE. Then Extrude again, by the same. ((EKEY, X, drag RIGHT one grid square, repeat))

• With the vertices still selected, extrude them again by ONE SQUARE UNIT (1/2 a GRID SQUARE), twice. This one will be where to place our windshield.

• Now extrude once by one GRID SQUARE. This final cube will be the engine.

• Press AKEY to unselect the vertices. Now press BKEY to select the vertices on the LEFT side of the cubes.

• Extrude these vertices by ONE UNIT SQUARE (Half a GRID Square actually).

• Press AKEY to unselect them. Press BKEY to select the bottom vertices of the half cube YOU JUST EXTRUDED.

• Extrude down by (1 UNIT SQUARE). This will serve as our bumpers.

• Unselect the vertices (AKEY). Now the last square, as mentioned will be the hood/engine part. The 1/2 square jusy before it will be our windshield. Select the two vertices on top of this square, and extrude up on the Z-axis by two UNIT SQUARES.

• Switch to (NUM 7) view and select only the vertices on ONE SIDE of the model.

• The first extrusion will be to scale the model DOWN by ONE SQUARE UNIT, on the Y-axis. (EKEY, Y, drag DOWN)

• The next extrusion will ONE SQUARE GRID UP on the Y-axis. (EKEY, Y, drag UP)

• The final extrusion will be ONE SQUARE UNIT UP on the Y-axis. (EKEY, Y, drag UP)

Here are images showing the steps I took and the final result.

This will give the jeep in the original images below. --PaulJC (talk) 19:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Delete the proper edge along the top of the mesh where you want the cab and flatbed to be (XKEY). This will also remove the faces on the top. In vertex select mode, select two vertices (SHIFT RMB is the easiest here) and create an edge (FKEY) to make edges on the inside of the flatbed. The next step is to create faces using the new edges. In this example, 5 faces were made.

Noob observation: You can select the top two boxes where the pickup bed should be and delete them; then you will need to create edges inside the bed and fill them with faces. Alternately, you can select the top two boxes and extrude them into the body of the truck, and then you won't need to do any edge creation. Guess: You need to create four vertical edges and then use them to make the inside faces.

--PaulJC (talk) 19:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)--: I've wanted to show how I created the flat bed and cab of the jeep, since this was the one part causing more confusion in the original author's instructions - it may cause you to re-think creating the doors, using the "edge method" below.

• Go to NUM 7 Top view, and enter Faces Mode. Select the two faces in between the bumpers and windsheild (SHIFT RMB).

• Now delete both faces (XKEY).

• Switch to vertice mode, and select the the FOUR vertices that will make up the new faces inside the jeep body. You must select two topside vertices and two bottom vertices that are parallel to the top ones.

• See images of which vertices to select. Then press FKEY to create the face. Proceed around the jeep until all new faces are created.

• Here is a video showing the whole face deletion, and creating the inside faces process

I use Blender3D for Ubuntu Linux, therefor, during the capturing of this video I had the ComPIZ Desktop Effects Manager active, as such there are occasional "red-outs" (red dots against a black background).

Adding the door: our jeep design will have somewhat of a cheat - no actual door. Before crying foul, many jeeps didn't have doors to facilitate quick entry and exit. To cut out one door, select the four vertical edges where the door will go. Use the subdivide command (WKEY) to cut the edges in half. You'll notice that the subdividing will also affect the adjoining faces. Do the same thing you did when the flatbed was cut out - removing/adding edges and creating new faces.

This is not a necessary step, but if you want to clean up the look of the model, we'll get started. In face select mode, select the faces that are going to be combined. Press FKEY and a little window will appear titled 'Make Faces'. Click on 'Make FGon' to merge the faces. As you may have guessed, if an FGon face is created and you want to later undo it, select the 'clear FGon' option in the Make Faces window. (Noob Question: what exactly is an Fgon? It doesn't seem to truely merge the faces, as now in face select mode the 'square' that designates a face is off-center.)

Go ahead and resize the widths of the bed and windshield. Always move as many vertices or edges at the same time to not only work faster but to make sure they are moved equally. The use of SHIFT while moving vertices is very helpful in fine movements.

If you want an object to come to a point such as a wedge from a cube, merge vertices. In this example, the lower back area will be modified. Select two vertices to join together and press ALT MKEY. Select the option for your merging. 'At First' or 'At Last' will probably be the option that will work here. Play around to see what each merge option does. After the merging, Blender will tell you how many vertices were removed.

Noob, 20th Oct 2008: I found Mesh ==> Vertices ==> Remove doubles is just as good when you bring one or more vertices into contact with one another, like he's done with the tailgate/wheelarch here.

Extrude the bed surface upward. This is only useful in hiding the tires that we'll add later in the tutorial. Alternatively, you could make two boxes to hide them.

[edit] A Touch of Detail

Let's add some detail to the model - how about the hood? First thing to do is add some edges to the front of the jeep. Press CTRL RKEY to enter Loop Subdivide. A pink loop will appear around the mesh. Put the cursor over the area to get the example picture to appear. When the loop is in the right place, LMB click. The place to put the actual cut can now be selected. Do this twice - once for each side. Move and align the resulting edges to form an angle to the front and bring the window vertices in.

Newbie: I'm having trouble here. When I try to add a loop it gives me an error that reads "could not order loop" and then subdivides the face I tried to add the loop to. Answer: I had the same problem. For me it was because I changed the jeep design too much so I had deleted and made several faces. Therefore the faces weren't attached to each other so a loop couldn't be made. If that happened then just subdivide the face twice to give you the lines you need and delete all the extra ones and remake the faces. It's more work but I don't know another way to do it.

Extrude the hood surface up a small amount. We don't want it too high, just high enough to catch the light.

Zoom in and select the top-front hood edge created from the extrusion. Drag it out along the X axis. Select the now diagonal face of the hood extrusion. Extrude from it. The result will come out of the surface at a diagonal angle. Take the resulting vertices and move them close to the front of the jeep.
Readers note: I have no idea what the heck this paragraph is talking about, and the pictures don't help, someone really needs to rewrite this that actually understands what is going on. I advise skipping the hood part because it is hard to understand and doesn't look like it changes much.
Other Reader: I hope he talks about shaping the hood with the lines from the Loop Subdivide, and then extruding that profile.
User Note:If you don't know, press e to extrude, then type the letter of the axis.
Noob Note: You're basically "drawing" a trapezoid on the hood and extruding it up. Loop divide works parallel to the axes so you'll have a square on the hood after the two loop-divides. Pulling the two vertices that are on the front edge of the hood inwards (along the edge) will create the desired trapezoid. Now just select the face (Ctrl+Tab Faces) and extrude it (EKEY).

An Alternate method of adding the Jeep hood

Here is a technique that I used to raise the Jeep hood. It doesn’t require loop cuts, so is a bit simpler. FYI, this is my first attempt at a wiki page edit, hopefully it will be clear. No photos yet, can't upload images until four days.

Step 1. Make Inner Square.

Switch to Top-view NUM 7, or slightly rotated off for easier viewing. Face-select the top square of the hood.
Do E-xtrude, then hit <esc>. NOTE: this WILL make a new surface, hitting <esc> doesn’t cancel the extrude, just makes its location to be exactly on the old surface.
Do S-cale and type 0.9 and hit <return>. Now you will see the new surface as a smaller square (or really rectangle) on top of the jeep hood square.

Noob Note: What I had to do is S-cale on Z and type 0.9, otherwise the New Surface For the hood would end up shooting through the Windshield.

Step 2. Shape Hood.

Still in Top-view NUM 7, deselect all.
Box-select the right two vertices of the new square, towards the front of the jeep.
Do S-cale on Y, and type 0.8 and hit <return>. Leave the two vertices still selected.
Do G-rab on X, and type 0.2 and hit <return>.
Face-select the resulting quadrilateral.
Switch to Side-view NUM 3.
Do E-xtrude on Z and type 0.2 and hit <return>. I used 0.2 to exaggerate the screenshot a bit, you probably want 0.1 instead.

Now you should have a raised hood on the front of the jeep.

End Alternate Hood method, we now return you to the original tutorial

The above paragraph briefly explains extruding the Hood of the jeep including a lip that comes over the front. Below are step by step pictures on how I accomplished this;

Step 1: In face select mode (CTRL+TAB-faces), select the top of the hood and press EKEY to extrude it. Only extrude it a small amount.

Step 2: Staying in Face select mode, here is the tricky part. Select the small face on the front of the hood you just extruded. Then, hit EKEY then ESC. This creates a duplicated face on top of the one you selected. Do not click or move the mouse between these two keystrokes.

Step 3: Now deselect the selected face by hitting AKEY. Then enter Edge select mode (CTRL+TAB-edges) and select the top edge of the face you just deselected.

Step 4: Hit NUM 1 to go to the side view. Now using the red X arrow pull the edge out a little further than you pulled up the hood itself then hit LMB.

Step 5: Now rotate just enough so you can see under the wedge you just made. Go back into Face select mode (CTRL+TAB-faces) and select the face on the underside of it.

Step 6: Go back into side view with NUM 1. Now hit EKEY to extrude the face a little with the mouse. When it's a good size hit LMB.

Step 7: Now make sure the "Select only visible" button is turned off and go into Vertex select mode (CTRL+TAB-vertices). Play around with the vertices pulling them a little closer to the front of the jeep. It's best to selct using the box select (BKEY) or the Lasso (CTRL+LMB).

The end result should be an extruded hood with a lip.

Alexwill84 08:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

In the topdown view (NUM 7), add a plane. Extrude an edge twice to result in three connected planes.

Pull the sides down to form a trapezoid shape and reduce the width. Once it is in the desired shape, select the three faces and duplicate it. Press SHIFT DKEY and all selected vertices, edges, and/or faces will be duplicated. The copy will automatically be grabbed for moving.

Move the duplicate to the jeep body and repeat the duplication two more times for a total of four fenders.

We'll move on to making a tripod support for the rocket launcher. Add a cylinder mesh with 12 vertices then scale and size it so that it looks like a tube. Once you have it to a size you like, duplicate it twice for a total of 3 cylinders. Rotate two of the cylinders in the NUM 1 view by LMB clicking on the white circle that appears when the cylinder is selected in rotate mode. The picture on the left is an example of the end result.

Change to overhead view (NUM 7) and put together the three cylinders so the tops come close together. Now all three can be selected and moved or rotated accordingly.

Move the tripod onto the jeep flat bed. The final steps are to select your materials and rename the object (described in the wheel section). This will complete our simple jeep model.

[edit] Optional Activities

Feel free to add anything you see fit such as bumpers, guard rails, doors, steering wheel, lights, etc. You can either have them on the same object or separate objects (useful if you want to move them around). Note: If you subsurf the result from this tutorial, you will get a bad looking result, please try not to subsurf the jeep.