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

Techniques

You should already know how to:

• Make a mesh
• Navigate the viewport
• Extrusion
• Create, edit materials

This section will recap and introduce:

• Forming faces
• Subsurfing
• Merging vertices
• Object naming

For our premise, envision jeep tires. They're not too sleek but rather rugged for all kinds of terrain. We need a tire that can handle any obstacle in its way.

Model the tire

Hit NUM1 to set front view ( XZ coordinates ), then delete the cube.

Create the outside of the tire

Add a cylinder (SPACE > Add > Mesh > Cylinder)

use 32 vertices, set the radius to 4, depth to 3, and un-click the "Cap Ends" button.

Create the inside of the tire

Change to NUM1 view and make sure you are in Edit Mode.

With all the vertices selected, hit EKEY and on the menu that appears select "INDIVIDUAL FACES" to extrude the individual faces into the circle.

[Pro Note: It would be less messy if you extrude the region, then abort the operation with ESC, then scale the new faces inward while locking the Global Y with SHIFT-Y.] [Noob Question: Does doing it the Pro Note's way not create a slightly different shape which stops the ruggedness from working later?]

[Another method by a noob: As I was unable to reach the result in this step (I only managed to obtain the tyre INWARDS), I did this way with a nice and similar result: Select the cylinder with A in NUM1 view, then Extrude Individual (press button in Mesh tool) by 0.1 or 0.2 outwards. Go in face-select mode and select all the faces in the inner part of the wire (or select one then CTRL-G and select "Area") and press EKEY to extrude inwards and to create the tyre shoulder, then, after subsurf, SHIFT-E to crease the edge.]

(Another question. If im locking the global Y, the tire won't be rounded. And shouldn't i have to view the tire on top?)

-**comment** In response to the noob questions above, after playing around with my Blender v2.6 I discovered the easiest way to ensure the tire results in the picture below is this: Select all faces in face select mode, then ensure all the face normals are recalculated so that they are all pointing in the same direction (can be inwards or outwards, as long as they're all the same direction. Some faces might be pointing inwards while others are pointing outwards, this means they need to be recalculated. To check the face normals, check the "Face" box underneath "Normals:" in the "Mesh Display" drop down menu in the Window Tool Bar Widget which you press Nkey to show/hide (see image if needed). Once the face normals are corrected, and you have selected all faces, you can then proceed to press the SPACEBAR, bringing up the search menu (for Blender 2.59+), and type in "Extrude individual faces and move" then follow the directions as given below. You can do the search menu, or you can just click on "Extrude Individual" under "Add:" in the Mesh Tools bar (press TKey to show/hide).

Face Normals in Blender

-**comment** If you do an extrusion/scale without locking global Y, then the walls of the tire will either lean inwards from the outside radius towards the inside radius -OR- lean outwards from the original radius to the now outside radius. In real life, tire walls can either be expanded outwards (as do most 4x4, snow, or street tires), or lean towards the inside of the tire (as do most low-profile tires). If you want this effect, then do not lock global Y; however, if you wanted a perfectly flat wall faces connecting each radii (the outside and inside radius) then you need to lock global Y.

You may either type in -1.2 and hit enter, or Hold SHIFT CTRL while extruding the faces until the sides come in -1.200 units (in older versions of blender hit NKEY first)

Create the outside faces

Rotate around the model and you'll notice the outside of the tire doesn't yet exist. Let's remedy this.

Go back to NUM1 view.

Invert selection (SPACE > Select > Inverse)

Newer versions: CTRL-I for inverse selection

Press FKEY to create the missing faces, in the menu that pops up select auto

Newer versions: no auto necessary.

Subsurf the tire

Now it's time to make the tire look like a rugged tire.

Apply a subsurf modifier of level 1 or 2 to the mesh. The tire will now look like a bead necklace. ( If not, remove doubles. )

Crease the edges

A little creative use of creases will restore our tire.

Check that Limit Selection to Visible is off ( now called occlude background geometry on 2.49b).

Enter Edge Select mode

Bring up the circle selection tool (AKEY to unselect all, then BKEY twice).

Use the scroll wheel to change the circle selection size to be in the center of the tire, between the inside and outside edges. This will select all of the inside edges, as well as the triangles on the side of the tire, as in the picture below.

Now press SHIFT+EKEY to Crease these edges, you can type 1.000, and press ENTER, or hold CTRL to pull in steps till you see 1.000 in the status bar at the bottom of the view window.

Noob note: DO NOT turn the 'limit-selection' tool on for the above selection, also you MUST be in Edge Select Mode or the triangles will not get selected.

Model the hubcap

The tire is almost done. Let's add a simple hubcap to it.

Create a cylinder

Be sure you're in Edit Mode

Hit AKEY, once or twice till the wheel is selected

Hit NUM1 for front view

Press SHIFT+SKEY, from the popup menu, cursor->selection, to put the cursor at the center point of the existing tire

Hit space-> add-> cylinder with 32 vertices, radius of 1.9, depth of .5, and make sure the "Cap Ends" button is turned off,

Hit NUM7 for top view

Hit GKEY, then YKEY, then type 2.2, and hit ENTER

Create the outside of the cap

Hit AKEY once, so that nothing is selected

Hit NUM7 for top view

Zoom in with the MMB till the hub cap fills the view

be sure you're in Vertex select mode

Noob Tip: Make sure Occlude Background Geometry Mode is off

hit BKEY for box select, then holding the LMB drag the box along the top edge of the hubcap.

Hit EKEY on the popup select Only Edges, then hit ESC, to create the edges we will need

Hit SKEY, then SHIFT+YKEY to only move in the XZ axis, then type in .35, and hit ENTER

Hit GKEY, then YKEY to only move the Y axiz, then type in .35, and hit ENTER

Create the Axle Cover

We'll merge these vertices together to create a flat surface.

Hit EKEY, on the popup select only edges, then hit ESC, to create the edges we will need

Hit ALT+MKEY on the popup pick at center. Blender will reduce the 32 vertices to 1.

Hit NUM3 for side view

hit GKEY, then YKEY, to only move the Y axis, then type in -0.4, and hit ENTER

Final sizing of hub cap to tire

The final mesh editing is to scale the hub cap to a size that is slightly larger than the hole of the tire.

hit NUM7 for top view

position the mouse over the hubcap, and press the LKEY to select the entire hubcap

Hit SKEY, then SHIFT+YKEY to only move the XZ axis, then type 1.48, and hit ENTER

Hit NUM3 for side view

Hit GKEY, then YKEY, to only move the Y axis, then type -1.11 (use -0.77 if you want your hubs sticking out), and hit ENTER

Renaming the Wheel

The last thing to do is to rename the wheel so we can find it easier later.

Enter Object mode and select the wheel only.

In the Link and Materials subwindow in Editing (F9) you'll see the Active Object name box. It should read OB:Tube in the grey box. This name was created because we started with a tube mesh. In newer versions, it will be cylinder instead of tube.

Click on the button and rename the object to something like 'wheel'. Save your file where you'll find it later and continue to the next step.

Noob note: although not something you should normally do, if you wish to create separately named objects for the hubcap and the wheel you could initially create them both separately in object mode, or split objects in edit mode with P (seParate) or in object mode, join objects with CTRL+JKEY (can cause side effects).

Extra

Change the materials to make it look like a tire. One object can have multiple colors/textures, as you will learn in future tutorials.

If you'd like to race ahead, then refer to the materials section for an explanation on how to do that, or to the Blender manual: Multiple Materials