In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial we begin modeling a shipping container as a hard-surface modeling exercise.
This first section covers the majority of the blocking-in phase, creating the basic shapes of the container.
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Discussion
69 Responses to “Series: Modeling a Shipping Container – Part 01”Leave a Comment
Hehe, finally! I was waiting for it, because.. I saw it on your Google Calendar schedule in your Retopo video.
I only got to watch part of the tutorial, going to continue tomorrow.
I agree- I don’t understand why only America has to use a different and more complicated measurement system..
It is not more complicated only different, I know of some who find it much easier to use. It is no different than someone growing up doing math in base-12 instead of base-10, they would see base-10 as more complicated even though to us using base-12 would seem absurd. Anyways I do agree that for me personally metric is easier, but I understand why some would see the standard system as easier.
Just trying to help you see some perspective and maybe give some understanding.
but it’s not base 12, it’s pretty arbitrary. Not to derail the comments, but metric is far more logical. Your argument might be valid if 12 feet made a yard, and so on. But it doesn’t, 12 inches makes a foot, and 3 feet makes a yard, and 1760 yard makes a mile. That is clearly more complicated than the metric system where everything is divisible by 10.
Nice tutorial by the way.
You crazy New World Order people trying to push your world measuring system on us all!! Can’t we all just have different methods and languages and just get a long??
Kidding. Good tutorial as usual.
@Kris lol, but I’m actually from America too.
I agree with you as well
I’m American as well, but I’m so used to the system that metric looks difficult to me. Even though I’ve really never messed with it, so I’m sure it’s easier than I make it out to be.
Im American. I use both metric and Imperial. Yes. Imperial is so much more complicated… Generally I just list everything out in inches. If god forbid you get smaller than an inch your up a creek.
very nice jonathan, your sense of detail is very refreshing
Well, metric is easier and has more sense.
Do you know what is one liter?
It is a 10x10x10 cm box, its volume is exactly one liter. Also one liter of pure water weights one kilogramon (on room temperature).
And metric is standard in world of science.
One more thing is that people who are taght to use imperial system, anyway have to know how to use imperial system. Reverse is not true.
heh, I just started to work on a project where I need to model some containers. will be interesting to watch this and get inspired, lol. thanks very much, helpful.
Agreed, imperial system is ancient, hard-to-use bullshit.
Still waiting for the citizen download.
Someone fall asleep today?
Wow this is so wierd
last week i was trying to model a shipping container
i was doing it all wrong!
I don’t think, there really is much of a right and wrong, as long as you reach your goal…
May I ask why you’re using the imperial system units? If you know the dimensions, couldn’t you just treat Blender Units as if they were inches/ feet? o.o It would be like building the container of a scale of BU:feet.
I think that Imperial makes the bigger grid boxes (feet) divided by 12 boxes (inches), whereas the Blender dimensions don’t (divided by 10), so the sizes would be off.
Imperials isn’t based on 10. Even worse, its base varys along the resolution you look at.
If it was always based on 12, it would be fairly easy to do what you suggest: you could switch it in the grid settings – but as the base varys, you can hardly do so.
Hi,How are you making the edge loops at 8:08 – When I CTRL R I get a single purple … not the num plus key (+) ?
Nice work.
Thanks,
T
Ok in 2.49 CTRL-R edge cuts then num + makes evenly divided cuts. Nevermind, brain fart. num + does not work for me but mouse wheel scroll up/down works.
Sorry. Delete.
Use the scroll wheel to get more purple lines.
Yeah, he lost me there as well.
Gotta love the metric system. All you have to do is just add or remove 0 at the end. 10, 100, 1000, 10000….
Also everything is convertible without maths: 1 litre = 1 cubic decimetre = 1 kilogram of water.
FACT OF THE DAY: Only 3 nations (out of 203) in the world still uses the ancient imperial.
And I’m from US btw
well, calculating in square- or cube-units is a little bit more difficult:
You gotta delete 2 or 3 zeros, respectively, instead of just one
(OMG, how hard^^)
Hi, thanks to Jonathan Williamson
As always, I followed this tutorial.
My result link:
http://haqzaf.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2yi4j5
Added temporary texture,background,not included in the tutorial, to make it little interesting and visible and meaningful.
Background image is taken from internet.It is used here for education purpose.
Hi Jonathan,
I am just watching that tutorial and see how you struggle with the array.
I think it is not correct in blender that relative offset is converted to yard as well, it shouldn’t have dimension. If you put 1 there the offset should be perfectly the size of the object, like it works in BU and metric system.
You should have switched back
Nice tutorial, btw, as always and all of the Blendercookie ones
Jonathan,
I’ve enjoyed your tutorials and learned a lot from them. I never thought the day would come when I might be able to offer some Blender suggestions to YOU but, since I’ve used Blender quite a lot for hard body modeling and learned a few things along the way, here goes…
1. Don’t bother trying to use the Imperial measurement system in Blender. As you point out in the tutorial, some commands still require metric input anyway and when you try to measure something in Blender, the measurement comes out as an annoying mixture of yards, feet and inches and, nobody ever uses yards except when talking about American football or buying fabric.
Keeping a simple calculator handy, converting yards and feet to inches and, remembering that 1 inch is .0254 meters takes care of everything.
2. One of the most convenient features of Blender for hard body modeling is the “Snap to nearest vertex” snapping mode. I was really pleased when I found out how well this mode works for rotation and scaling as well as for grabbing.
The best thing about snapping to an already existing vertex is that all the edges and corners of the model match up exactly. In contrast, snapping to the grid often creates small gaps between elements of the model especially when elements are not oriented at right angles to each other.
3. Although you didn’t mention it explicitly in the tutorial, I noticed that you were building up the model as a collection of separate objects rather than trying to put all the pieces together as a single object as you progressed. I have found this to be a very convenient way to work.
First, I build up a very simple collection of planes and boxes that follow the major outlines and dimensions of the item to be modeled.
Once these simple, “massing” submodels are in place, I can use them as targets for the “Snap to nearest vertex” mode while creating more detailed versions of each subassembly e.g. roof, walls, window assembly, doors. Another way I sometimes use elements of the simplified model is by copying, say, a rectangle, making it a separate object and then use it to start creating a door or window that fits the larger model exactly.
Keeping elements separate also allows me to more easily make multiple versions of the model by trying out several kinds of walls or roof treatments without having the hassle of fussing with separate measurements for each version.
Thanks for the great tutorials.
…Bob
I had some occations, where snapping to nearest vertex isn’t the perfect mode. All the other snap modes are very handy aswell
For instance, once I had to orient a certain vertex to an other one, and it wasn’t the closest. Instead, I used snap active. That’s the one with most control behind it, I guess
That way, you can construct stuff at times nearly as well as if you use a CAD program. (Not everything, of course, but at some parts it helps hugely to add accuracy.)
I’m from the US and hate the measurement system. Metric is very logical.
Science prefers logic. Look how NASA screwed up when trying to use imperial and metric on the same project.
Must have been a testosterone thing between countries. USA lost this one.
About creating plane object in the front ortho view, @5:15 time in the tutorial the author has created a plane object in zx direction, when i am trying to do the same it is always being created in xy direction why? I have changed the ALIGN VIEW option to VIEW from WORLD in USERPREFERNCES. please update
Have you tried clearing the rotation by pressing ALT + R?
-Jonathan
When is part 2 coming, I would like to purchase, but will wait for part 2.
Great tutorial, looking forward to the next part with the extra detail and subdivision etc.
I also have the same issue as Giridhar creating that plane in front view.
Part two is scheduled for tomorrow!
-Jonathan
At 23:49 in the tutorial Jonathan says that Blender uses millimeters in the transformation even with imperial units. Bottom left corner says mil as being the unit of the transformation and that would make more sense, because mil is 0.001″ and mm is millimeters.
I’m not saying it’s like that ’cause I don’t know for sure. Just a thought from my metric mind
lawlz… i see my comment on the post
pretty cool Johnathan… you really tackle the project well, looking forward to the rest
What the size number says is not absolute. It’s relative to the current size. So if you scale by 1.5, it’s not 1.5 inches wider but 50%.
If you actually use snapping, it should work just fine
Also, if you look at the mesh properties, at the dimensions, you could get the exact amount you need to move an array copy. Just copy and paste, and it fits perfectly
Actual snapping would have been a good idea in many parts of this…
Overally a nice tutorial, though
Oh, scratch that about the array modifier. It was relative offset, right? :-/
Hi Drake! I was wondering when he was going to make an appearance in a tut.
Yuki and Kaze say “Ah-roo-roo”.
Hey guys, it’s me Super3 that took the textures. I actually was trying to work on a shipping container model, you can see it on the blog, and could not find any decent reference materials though there are so many shipping container in the world. BTW, if you ever watched the Super3boy Blender Tutorials I am the same guy.
Great job on the tutorial Jonathan. Look forward to see more from you. Feel free to use my reference images.
If you guys have any reference images you need(that are not good on google) just let me know in a reply or on my blog. I am going to an airshow this weekend so there will be dozens of plane reference packs next week.
Hello, Jonathan.
At 7:20 you mention that we need to add 16 “loops” to the container, but you don’t mention how we should do that.
I apologize in advance for the nooby question.
Forget what I just said. After viewing the video again, you mentioned that we should hit Ctrl+R to add loops just before 7:20.
Dude,
Cut down on the caffeine! LOL
Its clear YOU know what YOU are doing. You completely lost me on the mirror/xyz/empty do, undo. I’m undone. My students would lynch me. Good thing I have pause and rewind.
Great set of techniques and tools covered. Great project for hard surface modeling.
Thanks!
Brain melting now
p.s.
love the dog!
So i got stuck at the beginning, when I clicked Imperial under Units under Scene, my cube gets way bigger, and after i input the dimensions,my cube is off the grid. How do i make the grid bigger or is something wrong with my input?
yeah i had the same problem i thought my computer was crazy good to know im not the only one but i still need to fix it
Has anyone answered this yet I really want to move forward but I don’t understand why the box is huge when I switch to imperial when Jonathan’s is normal size in the video.
there must be a glitch in the matrix… i thought i was doing something wrong, but i have been through all the tutorials and am working on this one, and for some reason, anytime I select a vertex or vertices, unrelated distant vertices are randomly selected as well, so I can’t follow along in the tut because my objects end up missing random vertices all over the place. is there a glitch in the software, or am i missing something?
Hi,
I’m trying to follow the tutorial, but I find that there are some controls which seems to be different. I’m currently using Blender 2.59. Several things that I find different is :
1. Extruding the faces (8:32) while selecting the vertices seems to bring every point back, resulting in a rectangular depression instead of the intended ridges
2. Selecting all the vertices on the back row (9:10) only seems to select the “top” vertices.
I’ve paused the tutorial, as I feel there will be more differences coming, making me confused.
Can anybody advise me in this? Maybe I have the settings wrong or something..?
I noticed some troubles with using the “imperial” system in this series. If you simply enter “.0254″ in the scale tab in the properties window, all transformations will be done in inches precisely in the 3d viewport.
Note, it does not matter whether you are using “metric” or “imperial” system in blender. Adjusting the scale to .0254 will yield the same results for transformations. 1 in the “metric” system will transform by 2.54 centimeters or 1 inch in the “imperial” system. Just as 12 will move precisely 1 foot in either mode. Just as .0625 will move 1/16in in either system.
Tom
Just to be clear…adjusting the scale in the scene tab is NOT like scaling in the 3d viewport. The scale setting in the scene tab changes how numerical input is interpreted in the 3d viewport. So if you hit “g, z, 7″, for example, you will move the selection exactly 7 inches. This is true whether you are using the imperial or metric system once you change the scale setting in the scene tab to “.0254″.
And when you then add a mesh, such as a uv sphere, the dimensions you specify in the tool panel will be in inches also.
The important thing is not about inches, but rather the scale setting in the scene tab which allows you to specify precisely how numerical entry in the 3d viewport is interpreted. It does not change the scale of the objects or meshes at all, but rather the increments that you are working with while editing.
This might all seem overkill, but I have seen a lot of discussions, strange and unnecessary calculations, and convoluted ways around the “problem” of working with certain units accurately. The scale change in the scene tab is a single change that can be made so that any project can be tackled with precision and accuracy with only a single change. No need to scale objects or snap to grids for “different” units.
Tom
When I switched the units to Imperial, the cube got really huge. Why does the cube stay the same size in this vid? Does anyone know what’s going on here?
Here is a image of a shipping container that I used and I thought maybe one of you would like to use it. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/221/shippingcontainerzj.jpg/
Hey great tutorials I’ve been following a lot of them.
I was wondering is anyone could help me out.
I currently have a problem around 15 Min mark. You apply a Mirror Modifier and yours appears perfectly at the other side of the container cube. When I do it, it just mirrors on the wrong side. I’ve tried messing with the Axis options but no luck.
Figured it out, Mirror Obj > Cube
Hey Guys
Just got done with the “Getting started” set of blender tutorials, and was looking for a good start after that.
You reckon this is a good tutorial for that? Its late in the night and im going to begin tomorrow, so just wondering.
And what about after this? Oh im so confused..
here is my “making of container”
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.213865958692376.52752.132831550129151&type=1
Thanks for the videos. They are very instructive. I am a newbie and I have a question: at about 09:12 in the video, you make a selection to resize all the back end. What kind of a selection is that? If I do it with the vertex selection, I only end up choosing the upper edge and therefore the resize has a very different effect. If you could explain that please, I will be very happy..
Thanks!
Hi there,
I did a box selection by pressing B. The key point though is that I switched into wireframe mode first so that I could select both the bottom and top vertices.
I hope that helps!
-Jonathan
Finding the tutorial a little frustrating for example how did he resize the mesh, no keypress was mentioned afaict which left me lost and confused can someone fill me in?
Hey i’m stuck at like 5:16 when I add a plane it is flat to ground and I can’t get it to rotate perfect to the side…. help me this sucks.
Happened the same here. Try to use different viewpoints, then with R key and X, Y or Z key too, rotate it.
Hope it helps.
Hi guys i’m having a problem when trying to delete vertices. I select what i want to delete with B key, then X and Vertices, but it only deletes some parts.
I have it in wireframe mode but still i can’t delete the entire selection.
Thank you.
My mirror modifier creates a mirror of the wall right on the wall not on the on the other side of the container
Why is that ???
You need to move the origin of your mesh to the scene origin. In Object Mode, press SHIFT + C to recenter the 3D cursor, then select your mesh and pres CTRL + ALT + SHIFT C > Origin to Cursor
Your awesome, thnx !!!
When i press imperial my cube becomes big and the “squares” on the 3d platform become smaller.Also what do you say to press to see the dimensions?
Thanks a lot for your tutorials and your time you spend from your personal life to share with us your knowledge!
-Kostas
It becomes bigger because it changes into a feet grid from a metric grid and as you may know; 1 meter = 3.28 feet therefore the grid will be smaller while the the cube stays the same and it converts from a 2m dimension to a 2.187 yards dimension. The grid will cover the whole view if you change into orthogonal view by pressing 5 on your number pad, this view is the most comfortable to work along with the grid.
Now to launch the properties bar just press the N key
Were is the Negative one on the key board? Thanks For helping out!:)
There’s no button, you just press the minus ( – ) key and then 1 or whatever number you want. You’ll see the value updating on the top left corner of the bottom tools/animation bar
Hi Shawn,
There is no “negative 1″ key, in the tutorial I’m referring to pressing first the “-” key and then the “1″ key
At 20:07 you “select the column” how exactly are you selecting the entire column? I can at best get a hold of one face and then my cursor location doesn’t seem right and the next several steps fall apart.