Anyway, I'm curious what everyone else is working on--any other large projects?  Little ones?  Just playing with new tools?

Ooh, that's looking very nice!  The little bridges are great :)  Looks like you might have some flipped normals in there, but I can't tell for sure.

Out of curiosity, what series?  I'm a bit of a bookworm, so I'm always looking for new recommendations :)

Haloedrain,

I'm curious about your reference to the leaves linked to a single mesh. Can you can create a library of parts (aka symbols or instances) and have various "stand-ins" for each part, such as low resolution or alternate color/texture versions?

I am really new to Blender (as in downloaded it but have not installed it yet new ;) ) though I have experience in other 3d modelling and CAD applications.

Haloedrain

The series name is Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. If you like fantasy and detail in your writing then you should like it. Let me know what you think (if you read it) :-)

ladythey - Oh, I have read that!  This is...Tar Valon?  I read up through Path of Daggers several years ago, but I just couldn't get through that one because I really dislike Rand.  But I am kinda curious what happened to Mat after...um, Ebou Dar?  Shouldn't spoil it more than that in case you haven't gotten there yet ;)

cjd - Objects in Blender are very modular.  An object consists of a mesh (or curve, or surface, etc.) and size/translation/rotation information.  Meshes can be reused for several different objects, so you can have a single mesh appear in the scene in many places, sizes, etc.  They can also be swapped out, so yes it would be possible to have a low res mesh for working on the scene and test renders, then when you want to do a real render link the object to a different mesh that was higher resolution.  Materials are linked to the mesh, not the object, so if you switched the mesh then you could change colors.  However you can also do that by just switching the materials, those are just as easy to switch as meshes.

The hierarchy in Blender goes
Texture -> Material -> Mesh -> Object

A material can be linked to any number of meshes, and a texture can be linked to any number of materials.

I hope that makes sense, but I suggest you try using blender a bit before I really start going into theory ;)

This is a project for my Sci-Fi Urchin`s world. Probably will be moved to some commercial software and textured there, and then... made available in the Store. Just wandering if anybody would like to buy a steam engine:P:)

It`s a steam-electric engine; a steam boiler powers not the wheels directly, but instead, an electric generator that in turn powers classical electric bogie engines. This should allow to overcome the difficulty of creating an universal steam rod-powered locomotive. The problem of coal dust contaminating electrical equipment is solved by choice of oil as the fuel. The engine is designed by Adao, one of the chief characters of the Tower film trilogy I hope to make:)

Eps... As one can see, the 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement [in American notation] clearly suggests what blueprints lie behind the project in my file:) I also plan to create a more precise UP 4000 class [Big Boy] replica for these who prefer nostalgia to the Past over the hope of the Future:) But the steam enthusiasts, who are dreaming about bringing steam back to the iron ways, should be happy with the current shape.

I also have a far more advanced project aimed at learning Blender techniques such as UV Mapping and Softbodies, but currently Im madly busy and unable to pay any attention to things other than learning my job... And the whole effect is based on the idea, so I cant show the WiP NOW. sorry:(

Wooow, lookit that detail!  I don't know about anything you said about the mechanics, but it sure does look good.  I have lots of respect for anyone who can build anything to blueprint-level detail, I haven't got the patience myself.  I think you can definitely sell it, there are lots of train enthusiasts out there, but you may have more luck with turbosquid than here.

Thanks, Haloedrain! Will look @ Turbosquid, though seems they are mainly 3DS MAX users...

Regarding the details, the project is a fantasy based on proportions of a real locomotive. Thus, I didnt have to bother with making all the details match the blueprint. The next project will be far more realistic and Im just trying to imagine what level of patience will it require... :P

Have a nice day:)

And now, lets update the thread. Seems people dont like showing their WiPs... Let there be my one again;)

Added some detail, the poly count jumped by some 10%, and render time some 10x. Strange? Seems the total memory usage exceeded the double value of my RAM... but if you know an answer that makes more sense, Id be happy to see it. Cant optimize these bogies-they are as low-poly as they can.

Btw, the render is a bit outdated; I added some details to the front bogie today, but had no time to render again. Still some work before me... These "flying mosquitos" are some control switches I plan to put in the cockpit. A big job by itself...

I admit I haven't done much work on mine, I've been really busy this week.  I do like the idea of keeping this thread updated, though, means I might actually finish something ;)  Someone pointed out to me a few weeks ago that I only have one image in my gallery from this year....

By the way, have you discovered the new preview render?  I think it's shift+p in the 3d view, object mode.

OK, some details added this time... This time just to make it more real rather that to improve the look. Hope they don`t waste the impression of a huge mass of metal.

I've only been using Blender for about three weeks or so, and I'm still scratching my head at a lot of things.

Captain Jack

...And to show the updated state in  meantime:)

Quote - Then ask the questions:) Will be happy to help, I think...

The trouble is, my innate stubborness sharply limits my ability to ask for help.

Actually, most of the problems I have right now are of the form "How do I take action X which I can do in application Y?" I know how to set up lighting and materials in POV-Ray, for example, because I've been using it for ten years. There are modeling techniques I know to do in Wings3D that I just can't figure out good equivalents for in Blender. I have a fear of coming off sounding like I'm saying, "my old app is better than Blender" or starting a flame war about which software is better.

That said, I'm currently trying to figure out what controls can be used to perform the following actions:

1. Soft and/or blurry shadows. I've got it down a little bit, but I'd like to be able to control the lightness/darkness of the shadow more; I'm not sure what all of the lighting options mean yet.
2. Applying transformations to textures. I get how to scale a texture with the Map-To information, but I'm wondering if there are ways to rotate or translate a texture to change it's apparent position relative to the surface of a mesh.
3. Making a closed mesh with an actual thickness. The only way I've found to do it seems really tedious to me, so I'm hoping I'm missing something yet.
4. Layered textures. I kind of get how Blender does it, but there's so many options, and such... well... odd documentation lying about.

So, if you have any thoughts about those concepts, I'd certainly love to hear about them.

Captain Jack

I will try to help a bit:

1. If I understand correctly, it`s enough to hit Tkey with your mouse cursor in the 3D window. You will be presented with a requester asking if you want to move or scale the material. Hitting an appropriate key (X, Y, or Z) can restrict its movement to one axis only. I would be happy to learn how to rotate materials in Blender;)
2. I make thick meshes just by extruding (Ekey) and scaling (Skey) the new vertices then. But they are actually empty inside. If I want to have holes, I extrude the mesh after making the holes. Hope you meant the same as me;)
3. I agree. I tried, but still can`t do it.

PS. The cockpit equipment of the Fiery Monster was my dream today; no longer a nightmare!;) Most is done now. Yiiihaa!

I guess I need to break down and learn UV mapping. I haven't gotten into that yet, but I think I need to. I did an image yesterday where I modeled candy corn. I got the material figured out right away, by using a blend texture with a colorband. It took me over an hour to get it mapped onto the model, and then I found that as soon as I moved the model, the material didn't stay put. I expect that if I had UV mapped the thing, it would have worked a lot better.

This is an example of the kind of closed mesh I mean. I made it in Wings3D by cutting four faces on a sphere, selecting them and the top half, and intruding. This gives a concave shell inside a larger concave shell, with no holes in the mesh (This is part of a simple ice cream scoop I made for someone in the Poser forum). In Blender, I can cut a UV sphere the same way, but to do the same thing as here, the only way I can figure out how to do it is duplicate the half-sphere, scale it down slightly, the select the edge vertices four at a time to make new faces. I keep thinking there must be a simpler way to do something like that, but maybe not.

I'll keep pluggin' away, though. Blender is definitely a lot of fun.

to make something like that you'd create the UV sphere, delete the top vertices and three(?) vertices on each side to create the little bits that dip down and use 'f' to create the 4 triangular faces, then select everything, hit 'e' for extrude, then escape so it doesn't go anywhere, then scale those new faces inward/outward.  You may want to change the pivot point so it scales the way you want.  Personally I find something like this much easier in blender, I always get funky results with intrude.

Quote - to make something like that you'd create the UV sphere, delete ...

Cool, thank you. I posted that image over at BlenderArtists, and somebody suggested something similar. I'm going to play around with that concept tonight. I like Wings and I like Blender, and I expect I'll continue using both from time to time, but I work better if I can keep each project in one application.

Quote - I always get funky results with intrude.

The main problem I have with intrude is that it defaults to a distance of zero, which, if left alone, gives you a bunch of co-planar faces. A lot of rendering apps really, really hate that sometimes. I crashed Poser once or twice before I figured out that If I was going to use intrude, I really had to give it at least a small distance.

Thanks for the input!

And now, let`s go back to our WIPs. Hope sb enjoys these awful tex-less renders:P Now some screenshot. A nice feature in Blender: by clicking the button right to the layer controls, I can render the screen to the Render window and then work with it like with an ordinary render. Thus, used this;)

A bogie with some extra stuff. Engines, brakes, etc. Since it wont be visible in most situations and will just make that "dark crowd" behind visible elements, I kept them as low-poly as I could. They are one object with the bogie frame, since it seems Blender cant make instances of object groups live.