Doc:Tutorials/Modelling/BSoD/Our Own Genesis-III

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[edit] Crocodiles and Stuff

It's onto the last stage of modeling, then time for rendering! For now, we need to add a border and an actual floor (we don't want to see those cracks between the tiles, we want grooves).

To make the border, we are going to use four stretched cubes. Before we jump in and start adding, we need to understand what the 3D Cursor is for. This is the red and white crosshairs that should be towards the lower part of your floor (in TOP view NumPad 7). The 3D Cursor is where all new objects are added to the scene. We can also use it as a pivot point, just liked we did with the object center and median point, although we won't explore that further here.

To place the 3D Cursor simply  LMB somewhere on the 3D Window. We can center our view to where the 3D Cursor is by pressing C. To return the 3D Cursor to the center of the scene (where the two coloured lines intersect, the 3D Cursor started here), simply press Shift C.

There is, however, another way to manipulate the 3D Cursor, that is, snapping. We have already seen that we can snap an edit action to the grid (or sub-grid). We can also snap objects and the 3D Cursor to the grid. But that's not all! Remember the median point and object center, we can also snap anything we like to these locations too. So we want to create the first part of our border approximately in the middle of the floor, so it's nice and symmetrical, simply select ALL the tiles, press Shift S and select Cursor -> Selection. This snaps the 3D Cursor to the median point. If only one object was selected, it would snap to the object center.

[edit] Border Patrols

Now it's time to actually add the border - I won't detail this as much, as I have covered all the techniques needed already. Add a Cube, press TAB. Translate the cube to the left so that it overlaps the left hand side of the floor. (I did this by 8, but the value you use may differ based on the number of tiles you added originally.) Now, go to SIDE view by pressing NumPad 3 and scale the cube by 0.5 in the Z axis. Go back to TOP view. Now, scale the object in the Y axis so that it sticks out on the top and bottom of the floor. The amount depends on how many rows you created. You will probably need to translate the object in the Y axis to make it stick out equally at the top and bottom.

We now want to duplicate this border and translate it accross to the other side of the floor (to the right). I translated by 17 but again, yours may be different if you used a different number of tiles. We now have two of our four borders. Select the two borders, you can do this by selecting either one with the  RMB then holding Shift and clicking the  RMB on the other one. You have to press on/near the outline, and make sure you do it AWAY from the tiles. If you select a tile by accident, simply press A to deselect everything, then start selecting again. Once you've got both selected, duplicate, cancel translation by  RMB . Rotate them by 90 and then scale in the Y axis so that you get something like this.

Now all you need to do is scale the currently selected borders in the X axis so that they fit exactly in between the two vertical ones. Zoom in to make sure you've got as tight a fit as possible. Finally, add a plane and scale it so it covers the entire floor but doesn't protude out of the edges of the borders. And that's the end of the modeling! Well done for getting this far. :) Save now Ctrl W.

[edit] Setting The Scene

Well, after all that hard modeling, let's get something to show for it. The first thing we're going to do is add a lamp, press SPACE and add it like so. Zoom out a bit, as we're going to be doing things on a wider scale now. Now we want to translate the lamp towards and beyond the lower end of the floor. You translate lamps in exactly the same way as any other object, with G. I would translate it so that it's another 20 units or so (don't worry if it isn't exact) beyond the bottom of your floor. Translate it about 20 units to the left too. Now go to SIDE view NumPad 3 and translate the lamp upwards by about 20 units again. Go back to TOP view.

And finally, the camera. Position the 3D Cursor back to the center by pressing Shift C and add a camera. First thing to do is scale the camera up, this doesn't actually change anything apart from how it appears on the 3D View, but it does make it easier to see. The camera we've just created is pointing face down and is in a pretty silly position. I would say we want it in roughly the same place as the lamp. So, let's use snapping -- Select the lamp, snap Cursor -> Selection. Now select the camera and snap Selection -> Cursor. This will have moved the camera to the correct position, but we need to rotate it so it points at our pretty floor. Let's go into SIDE view and center the view on the camera. The cursor is already in position so all you need to do is hit C. Now rotate the camera by around 55, or until it's pointing at the floor. Go to top view and rotate the camera so again, it points towards the floor.

Now, go to CAMERA view by pressing NumPad 0. If you can see that the floor isn't quite centered in the camera's sight, simply translate the camera (whilst in this view) so it's perfected. Once all this is done, simply press F12 to render. :)