Blender Program

[spacecraftcreator]

Does anyone have a working knowledge of a Program called Blender and how it may be suited to paper model creation ? If you use it, what are your thoughts about it. Thanks Bob

[tatasam]

Hi Bob, I recommend the site "Virtual Aircraft" great work man and a compendium of knowledge about Blender
Regards, Henryk

[cmdr199212]

I've used Blender, I took two classes during college for it.

It's an excellent tool, and can be greatly expanded with knowledge of Python scripting.

As far as unrolling and using for model creating.. I'm not sure. I haven't tested that one.

[eric_son]

I'm currently studying it. My first impression is --- if you are already proficient with a different 3D modeling app like say....Sketchup or Meta, it's hard to switch. The UI key bindings, especially the use of the LMB and RMB are very different. And it will take a while to adjust. So I consider that an extra challenge for me.
But if you're starting with no prior 3D app experience, then I reckon it would be pretty straightforward to learn.

As for model creation, i've seen design threads in different forums for awesome card model aircrafts that used blender3d.

[mbauer]

Here is a link to an ebook using an older version of blender: New Free E-Book About Paper Model Design With Blender 3D

old thread but might give you a basic understanding of how to begin.

Mike

[spacecraftcreator]

Thanks to all who responded to this inquiry. Each one has helped me with your informational reply and for that I say Thank You !!! I am starting from scratch on this so it should be a interesting learning curve. I am open to anything new and so time to dive into this. The tools will be used in card model creation and am curious to see how things unfold (yes that pun was intended) :-)

[tatasam]

Hi Bob From his own experience .
Colleagues recommending various good 3D programs , I tried to to explore , the truth it is I did not recognize any right.
Blendelr is a powerful tool, it is worth to focus on one selected 3D program .

Henryk

[ssmeier]

Download here:
Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/Paper Model - BlenderWiki

16 pages of discussion developing and using this unfold script:
Export Paper Model

This script is mentioned in the above recommended David Guzmán - PixelOz book.

If you are familiar with 3D programs that do not use the right mouse button (RMB) to select (like Maya and Unity3D game engine), you can change Blender to use Maya control preset from Blender's splash screen.

-Steve

[thorst]

And if you are interested in the wider use of Blender, I recommend watching the tutorials by Andrew Price aka Blender Guru. His videos are so well made, I can't get enough of them!

As for myself, I am learning Blender, too, at the moment, but mostly for rendering and modeling natural shapes. In both disciplines, Blender works great. I only find it hard to switch from the power of a CAD in terms of accuracy and drafting functionality to Blender if it comes to technical models (I think the term used is hard surface modeling, but that may be wrong). But other people do amazing work in this area with Blender, so it seems to be a very personal feeling of me.

Good luck!

Thorsten

[zubie]

Agree with the comment about switching from what you are used to - i.e. if you have not made extensive use of other 3d modeling software, the learning curve is not that bad to get to the point of making something. The paper model script is fairly straight forward to use. One thing to keep in mind when building models on Blender is that you are building a paper model, not cg for animation purposes.

What I mean by that is that there's a lot of Blender you are not going to need to use, or use right away, to make workable models. So you can stick with adding "Meshes" as opposed to more complicated objects, or worry about camera and lamp positions (they do come in handy to clarify some views, but that you can figure out later). Keeping polygon counts as low as possible and still get the shape you want will help. Also something I didn't discover until quite recently, despite using Blender for a few years is that adding meshes in "object" mode allows you to layer the kit subject, and paper model will unfold only the the active object at a time.

I'm currently using Blender to model a type 7 shuttle and have layered the Main Hull, Rear humpback, engine struts, engines, and Bussard scoops as separate objects. This allows me to work on each section, print out the one prototype section and when satisfied go back to tweak the rest. I should probably document this better on the blog.

You can check out my experience with Blender (from a total novice's pov) in these articles - note these are with slightly older versions of Blender and the unfolding script. I haven't had the distort bug I reported with the current version.

Constant Variation: Mod Mon Eventually....How I worked with Blender - My experience designing a simple rocket and first Blender project

Constant Variation: Mod Mon: Current WIP and lessons learned so far - The paper script works better now, and you don't have to break up a subject into files necessarily. Object layering can pretty much do the same for you.

Constant Variation: Mod Mon: a Blender Hull for Bulkhead Generation - A kind of roughshod way to make a hull and bulkheads. Not necessarily the best way, but I did fool around with some of the tools to generate the parts I wanted (The shipbuilders here have posted better ways to design hulls, consider this another fooling around with Blender article)

p.s. You may want to use this software in combination with Inkscape to edit the SVG file the unfolder script kicks out and/or Gimp to edit the final parts pages. In fact I haven't learned how to skin in Blender yet because I always just finish the parts in Gimp.

pps. Check the dpi before generating the parts with the script. By default my version has it at 90 which is pretty cruddy. I tend to not let the script number parts as well.