Setting up a 3 View Build Plane

[John Nicol]

This tutorial will explain how to set up a basic 3 View Build Reference Plane. These assist the modeller by providing reference images in the background to assist in creating geometry of correct proportions. This is one way to set-up a build plane, but not the only one as each modeller will have their own preferences.




STEP 1

Start off with a Cube primitive:



STEP 2

Rename the Object and Group Node from Cube to View and all the sides of the cube as shown below. This is so that you can keep track of the 3 view reference as you model.



This basic view cube and other models from this tutorial are saved in your installation directory Acron 3D Modeller/Tutorials/Tutorial 1.

STEP 3

Next, select each mesh and Zeroize these to the Y-axis:

Right click on the mesh labelled “Front”, click Selection then Select

Click on the Zeroize icon , check Y Axis then OK.

You will now notice the mesh is lined up on the Y Axis.

Repeat for the other meshes in the following manner (Deselect meshes with the button after each operation):

“Right”, zeroize on the X Axis
“Top”, zeroize on the Z Axis
“Left” , zeroize on the X Axis
“Bottom” , zeroize on the Z Axis
“Rear” , zeroize on the Y Axis

At the end of these functions, the cube should look like the following image:



STEP 4

Scale the new shape up to get ready for the application of textures:



STEP 5

Load in the Texture/s into the Palettes - Textures Palette (top menu bar) for the 3 view:



Store the full path information and then press OK. (You will delete the 3 View plane when you export the model so you would keep these textures separate from the model textures - which are normally in the same directory as the model geometry.)

STEP 6

Apply textures to the views.

Select the “Top” mesh by right clicking on it, click Selection, then Select
Select the Top View by pressing the Top View icon
Press the Map UVs icon Note that the texture is “projected” onto the mesh from the eyepoint looking onto the mesh. (This can be adjusted manually in the drag 2D mode once the texture is applied.)
On the bottom bar, choose the texture from the Texture drop-down list

Right click on the “Top” mesh again and select Assign and Texture.



The texture is applied to the mesh.



Because it is a projection onto the mesh from the viewport, we will adjust the placement of the texture on the mesh by using the UV Drag 2D mode from the side toolbar.
Select the UV Drag 2D mode from the right hand tool bar. (This may not be visible in the toolbar, but nested within the UV mode tools under the Edit Vertex UV Mode icon:
The 2D UV mapping window will appear. The red box indicates the current projection of the UVs. The green dots indicate nodes that can be left clicked and dragged.



Tip
Use the magnifying glass icon in the top tool bar to zoom the texture to a larger size.



Click and drag the green dots on the red box to fill it with the Top drawing of the Cessna.



Tip
Use the middle mouse scroll button to twist the texture left or right for better alignment. See the User Manual for more details.



Click on the Camera icon to see the newly textured mesh. Don’t worry about the scale yet, that will be addressed in a subsequent step.



Repeat the step for all other meshes.

Tip
You will have noticed that the “Right” and “Top” textures need to be flipped so that they can face the right way. Actually, the easiest way to get around this for this particular 3 View (because we don’t have a separate rear, top or bottom view in the texture) is to make the “Left”, “Front” and “Bottom” meshes double sided and delete the “Right” and “Top” and “Rear” meshes.
Use the Mesh Node Properties window (right click in the mesh and select Properties) and select the Two Sided Draw Type. This will now show the texture on both sides of the mesh.



The viewport should now look like this:



STEP 7

We now Scale the mesh so that the reference 3-View will be the correct size. We determine that the wingspan for a Cessna 172 is 11 metres.

Select one vertex (as shown by the arrows on the image below) on each edge of the reference plane using the Select Vertex tool :



Select the Scale tool and rescale the reference plane X-axis to 11 meters:



The result is that the reference plane is now 11 meters wide:



We do the same for the length in the Y-axis (the Cessna is 8.28m long) and height (2.72m) to create a scaled build reference plane. You can also select the vertices representing a particular length for all meshes and scale all at the same time.

The end result should look something like the image below and you are ready to start modelling.




This is just one method of setting up a 3-View Reference Plane, others prefer to use a box method, we leave it up to your individual style. We prefer using the method described because it puts the reference planes right on the axis, which makes mirroring and translation easier. If you prefer the box method, just shift the reference planes out to where you need them.

Tutorial 1 Basic View Plane with Textures.zip

Here is the 3 View and texture for this tutorial in a3x format.

(76.66 KiB) Downloaded 52 times