Describes: beveling, face and point selection, generic house keep ing. Creation of surfaces.
Start Tornado3D or open a new Project. With Objects> Polygonal> Cube, add a primitive cube to the workspace. Enter face mode with Amiga-0 and select the left and right sides of the cube using the right mouse button so that a drag-box appears. Then click on the Bevel gadget and enter 10 as Depth and 0.75 as inset. This will enlarge the cube and produce two small bulges on the sides. Bevel again, this time with 0.5 as Inset and 15 as Depth. The cube's sides will grow even more, resembling the image in figure 1.
Figure 1
The Bevel tool is probably the most important model ing function in Tornado3D, as it allows to grow shapes out of simple building blocks in a very natural, sculpture-like way. Beveling re-selects the last face used and remembers the settings in the panel, allowing to quickly experiment with different sizes and insets. It also moves the polygons in the direction of their face normal (normals are explained in the next tutorial, for now think of them as direction arrows that point out of the object's faces).
Bevel again, with 1.0 as Inset and 65 as Depth. Using 1.0 as inset means the faces will be grown without chang ing their size. Do some more bevels to create a small bulge in the structure. First bevel with 1.25 as inset and 5 as depth, to enlarge the section. Then bevel with 1.0 and 5 to make for a small straight section, and bevel again with 0.75 and 5 to return to the original size. This will lead to the object shown in figure 2 and this surely does not look anymore like a cube.
Figure 2
Let's continue beveling, to see how far this tool can be pushed. Bevel with an Inset of 1.0 and a Depth of 45 to make another smaller straight section, then Bevel again with 1.25 Inset and 5 as Depth. This will begin to shape the Wings. To build them in full do another Bevel, using 8. as inset and 10 as Depth. Then yet another one Bevel with 0.25 Inset and 10 Depth. This surely does not look like a cube anymore, it resembles an interceptor from those well known science fiction movies. And all this with just a few bevels like in figure 3. Have a look at your creation from many angles, rotating it in perspective. You can safely feel proud of it and to be even more safe select Objects> Save to store it on disk.
Figure 3
As nice as it may appear, we can do a lot to improve its look even further. Deselect all the polygons with the space-bar and select only the front and back faces of the central structure. To do this click a few times with the left mouse button near the face's center dot in Front View and hold shift depressed while doing so. The status line in the screenbar will tell you that two faces are selected. Guess what? We are going to do some more bevels! Do a first one with 0.75 as Inset and 10 as Depth to enlarge the central shape. Then Beveling with 0.75 and 20 twice in a row will produce a smooth, semi-curved shape as in figure 4.
Figure 4
Now deselect all the faces, as we don't want the spaceship to look too symmetric, and re-select only the front facing one. Bevel it three times, with 1.25 20, 1.0,
Figure 5
10 and 0.6, 10 but the last time click on the Separate Surface checkmark gadget to create a different surface for the last Polygon (Figure 5).
You have just modeled the rear engine of the ship (the ship is oriented with is front towards the Z axis to make
animation easier later). Deselect all and save this object as well. The different surface created in the last step will come out handy when you'll want to apply materials to the spaceship.
Figure 6
Now select with the drag-box the right and left wings, as in figure 6 and click on the Subdivide gadget or use Modify> Subdivide to add some more polygons to the wings.
Figure 7
Switch to Point Edit mode and multiselect from the Right View the points that appear white, selected, in figure 7. Use the drag box so that a total of four points (two for each wing) is selected. Scale them along the Z axis until the Wings are almost hexagonal.
Return to group mode, and with Modify> Detail> Metamesh open the Metamesh Panel. Metameshing is an amazing tool that can turn even the simplest shapes into beautiful and complex ones.
Set the Edge U Tension value to 0.25, this will auto matically update the V Tension value, setting it to 0.75. Click Accept and look at how the rough corners of your ship have gone, replaced by perfectly beveled, rounded, edges. To make things simpler, select also Modify> Detail> Make Tris. This is not generally needed and increases the number of lines on screen, but guarantees there will be no animation problems later.
Figure 8
Go back in Point Mode and from the Right View select the points that appear white in figure 8 keeping shift depressed and using the drag-box. Press 's' to scale them and 'X' (shift-x) to restrict scaling to X axis. From the front view click and drag until the shape looks like the one in figure 9. Save it under a new name.
Figure 9
Congratulations! You have built a spaceship starting with a simple cube, using only four of the many tools provided by Tornado3D: Bevel, Subdivide, Metamesh and Make Tris.
This spaceship that started as a cube
Next tutorials will show how to give the ship a realistic appearance and how to setup an animation with it.