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Weapon: Modeling an M4 Rifle in Blender

by Jonathan Williamson

Welcome Citizens to this series on Modeling a M4 Assault Rifle

In this Blender 2.5 training course, we take you through the complete process of modeling a hard-surface, highly detailed M4 assault rifle. You will learn how to model each and every part, in real time.

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1

Part 01

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(35:22)

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2

Part 02

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(35:52)

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3

Part 03

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(41:13)

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4

Part 04

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(47:53)

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5

Part 05

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(1:04:23)

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6

Part 06

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(1:06:09)

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7

Part 07

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(47:06)

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8

Part 08

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(44:54)

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9

Part 09

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(32:44)

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10

Part 10

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(42:56)

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11

Part 11

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(1:02:20)

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12

Part 12

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(1:02:55)

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13

Part 13

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(1:06:11)

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14

Part 14

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(53:36)

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15

Part 15

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(32:38)

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    Discussion

    49 Responses to “Weapon: Modeling an M4 Rifle in Blender”
    1. scadoo82
      Posts: 3

      Hey, great tutorial I am still working through. I heard you say you do not know the components of an M4. Well it’s completely understandable. Of course it’s not required to know these things but just wanted to help you for next time you model a weapon for a tutorial or for yourself as a gift of knowledge as you have passed on to us doing this tutorial. Left to right, here are your major components

      Stock, The stock attaches to what you referred to as the Frame. The Frame is actually two major components of the weapon know as Receivers. You have your upper receiver with the shell ejection, the sight rail and many other things, below that you have the Lower Receiver of course, your trigger, and magazine and all that functions there.

      Following along to the right of the receivers is of course the rest of your barrel as the barrel does back in to the Upper Receiver. And the weapon system mounts [Free Float Hand guards], or fore grip. Obviously in the reference images you can see different things attached to the rails, and that is exactly what they are meant for besides the fact as a fore grip. The upper receivers sight rail indeed does run down the length of the top rail given your configuration. Another function of floating rail systems is of protection of the barrel as well as allowing cool air to keep the barrel from over heating. The end of the barrel generally has a tip you can at things such as recoil compensator, flash hider, silencers and so much more.

      And well, those are the major components you can use for future reference, either for future tutorials or work for yourself in case you really had any wish to know that stuff. http://www.ar15builder.com if you head there, you can build a AR15 part for part. AR-15′s of course are the civilian version of the M16 and M4, and can be configured to any style or look of weapons specially in the 5.56x45mm NATO round, can modify them into a hybrid, or AK-47 etc, Americans love our guns, US Texas [ME :) ] Live by them. As long as it’s not full auto, we can take a AR-15 and make it into the gun we love :) Cheeers!

      #
      1
       Oct 7, 2012 at 10:16 pm
    2. onur ozkan
      Posts: 17

      Hi Jonathan,

      Thnx for the great tutorial. I have completed this tutorial a few months ago and I uploaded my image.

      It would be great if you animate and rig this M4 (and make this low poly with normals :) ) since you have uploaded this again, this would be a great update.

      Note: I hope I didn’t ask for too much but I like your tutorials very much.

      Thank you again for the great tutorials, keep up the great work.

      Onur

      #
      2
       Oct 8, 2012 at 11:19 am
    3. unknow
      Posts: 2

      i can t make 6 ”point” circle.

      Help?

      #
      3
       Oct 11, 2012 at 8:21 am
      • Jason
        Posts: 5

        6 point circle? Are you referring to 6 vertices?

        If so, you can simply press Shift + A > Mesh > Circle. After that, in the left toolbar, you can set the number of vertices there. It’ll be just below “Add Circle”. Alternatively, you can press F6 on your keyboard and that will bring up the options panel for the last operation you completed. These are one in the same but I find F6 to be insanely more useful.

        Definitely play around with that panel and you’ll see how helpful it can be to the overall workflow.

        #
        3.1
         Oct 11, 2012 at 1:47 pm
        • slcpunk87
          Posts: 1

          Jason for some reason when i created that circle, it wasnt rotated correctly like jonathan’s was. what i mean is that when i was working on the stock and wanted to pull the bottom face down a bit i was only able to put the one vertex and not the whole face. is there a way to set the rotation to a default where the faces are facing down and not the edge where they meet?

          #
          3.1.1
           Jan 6, 2013 at 12:31 am
    4. darth_gimp
      Posts: 77

      Jonathan,

      I am wanting to model a two tones Sig Sauer P226. Will this series show me the needed techniques to do that as well as this rifle?

      I’m still cautious about buying into the cookie as per my previously stated reasons. But I want to move forward in my skills.

      #
      4
       Oct 23, 2012 at 6:32 am
    5. devontae
      Posts: 2

      sorry to be a bother but how to add edge loops to the barrel?

      #
      5
       Oct 28, 2012 at 12:13 pm
      • Alex Telford
        Posts: 454

        You can add edge-loops with CTRL+R and scrolling your mousewheel adjusts the number of loops :)
        -Alex

        #
        5.1
         Oct 28, 2012 at 3:05 pm
        • devontae
          Posts: 2

          thanks you so much!!! i cant thank you enough, i have been looking everywhere.

          #
          5.1.1
           Oct 29, 2012 at 1:53 pm
      • Mendoza
        Posts: 3

        I like using a double nondestructive bevel modifier. As of 2.66, the mod only gives you a single subdivision (a chamfer, actually) that looks terrible when you set normals to smooth, but if you stack a second bevel with the same settings, it mimics the destructive modifier. Also allows you to change the settings without edge slides or winding up with ngons because you only beveled a single edge.

        This way you won’t have to crank up the subdivision so high at render time, and it will still give you a nice rounded edge which you can control with the bevel weight modifier.

        It’s also keeps the poly count low for games and physical sims.

        I should do a tutorial on this and post it lol.

        #
        5.2
         Mar 7, 2013 at 5:26 am
        • Jonathan Williamson
          Posts: 2949

          In Blender 2.67 you’ll be able to set the number of segments for the Bevel modifier :)

          #
          5.2.1
           Mar 7, 2013 at 12:51 pm
    6. austinb
      Posts: 1

      Great tutorial! Hopefully you can do another part for those last 2 pieces and maybe texturing because that would be very helpful!!

      #
      6
       Oct 29, 2012 at 9:57 am
    7. George Lakie
      Posts: 85

      Hi Jonathon, I noticed there’s only 14 parts here, and I thought there was 15. Has the last part been omitted for some reason? Great series by the way. It’s always good to practice clean topology with these.

      #
      7
       Nov 9, 2012 at 4:58 pm
      • Jonathan Williamson
        Posts: 2949

        Thanks for the heads up George, you’re absolutely right. The 15th part got missed. I am uploading it right now and so it’ll be updated shortly.

        #
        7.1
         Nov 10, 2012 at 5:01 pm
    8. melania1971
      Posts: 3

      I want to thank Jonathan for this great and useful tutorial! I learned a lot about how modelling and remodelling objects. I’ll be waiting for January ^_^

      #
      8
       Nov 21, 2012 at 5:03 am
    9. niccoconnor
      Posts: 1

      I’m having trouble on the second video. When I created my original circle in the first video I had to rotate it to get it to line up with flat sides on the top, bottom, left and right(this was important on the stock, when creating the elongated oval, by extruding the bottom edge). I believe this rotation has now messed up the ability of the mirror modifier. It seems when using the mirror modifier the mirrored portion is not aligning by approx. the same amount in my original rotation. say 15 degrees. Is there a way to edit the center origin rotation so that I can accommodate this offset?

      #
      9
       Nov 25, 2012 at 10:31 pm
      • cylon_toast
        Posts: 14

        AlRight!!! I was looking for a little of this. Jonathan you continue to ROCK AND I SALUTE YOU!

        #
        9.1
         Dec 3, 2012 at 7:17 pm
    10. farsidedesigns
      Posts: 2

      Sorry to be such a noob. In video 1 @ 10:40 how do you select those two different meshes while still being in edit mode? Thanks in advance!

      #
      10
       Dec 13, 2012 at 3:56 am
    11. darth_gimp
      Posts: 77

      Hey Jonathan are we able to download the video portions of this?

      #
      11
       Dec 17, 2012 at 12:14 am
      • Alex Telford
        Posts: 454

        Underneath each video is a ‘download hd video’ button to grab each video :)
        -Alex

        #
        11.1
         Dec 25, 2012 at 10:30 pm
        • darth_gimp
          Posts: 77

          Excellent.. didn’t notice it there.

          #
          11.1.1
           Dec 25, 2012 at 10:32 pm
    12. rossco7
      Posts: 2

      Hey Jonathan,

      Hoping you can help with a problem I’m having on video 2. When I’m applying the shrink wrap modifier, the circle is set perfectly in line with the middle edge as required but instead of wrapping around the 4 polygons evenly, it skews more to the bottom of them slightly. This makes it stretched at one end and more squashed at the other, like the shape of an egg, rather than the nice circle you end up with. I’ve went back and redone this countless times now but can’t work out the problem.

      Cheers,
      Rossco

      #
      12
       Dec 19, 2012 at 4:04 pm
      • Jonathan Williamson
        Posts: 2949

        Hi Rossco,

        You might need to switch the Shrinkwrap modifier to “Projection” mode, and then specify the correct axis. Otherwise it will just find the nearest surface point, ignoring any potential distortion.

        Cheers,
        Jonathan

        #
        12.1
         Dec 19, 2012 at 4:09 pm
    13. rossco7
      Posts: 2

      Wow, quick as lightning! Cheers buddy, that sorted it. I had to play about with the projection settings and then adjust vertices manually as they were pulled away from the target but still aligned correctly when viewed from 45 degrees. Really strange but got it fixed that’s all that matters.

      Thanks again! :)

      #
      13
       Dec 19, 2012 at 4:18 pm
    14. darth_gimp
      Posts: 77

      wow.. I feel all ignored like. I’ve asked several questions on various tutorial posts.. no answers. What’s up with that?

      #
      14
       Dec 25, 2012 at 1:30 am
    15. darth_gimp
      Posts: 77

      In video 9 you mention that you would be including additional references in the source files, but I don’t see them in my download. Are these available?

      #
      15
       Dec 25, 2012 at 1:36 am
      • Jonathan Williamson
        Posts: 2949

        I will have to double check tomorrow, but I believe they are included in the references/ folder. If you’re still unable to find them I can try and track them down, it’s been a while so I’ll have to dig through the archives.

        Each of the other references included were just alternate angles and detail shots, doing a quick Google search ought to pull up many good references.

        #
        15.1
         Dec 25, 2012 at 11:50 am
    16. Julius Hernandez
      Posts: 8

      I there a way to make a circle on the cylinder when viewed from a side view perfect? While scaling my cylinder from front view I managed to make it look more like an Oval when viewed from a side view. Is there a way to fix this?

      Even if I scaled on x,y, or z axis alone to make it “look” right, it would unlikely be a perfect circle i.e. after doing the math pie = 3.1415…

      #
      16
       Jan 17, 2013 at 12:27 pm
      • Alex Telford
        Posts: 454

        This means you are in perspective view, press numpad – 5 to switch to orthographic view.
        -Alex

        #
        16.1
         Jan 30, 2013 at 8:02 pm
        • Julius Hernandez
          Posts: 8

          no I was in “Left Ortho” the whole time. I have the setting to where in the upper left corner the view I am in is displayed at all times.

          #
          16.1.1
           Feb 7, 2013 at 5:27 am
    17. blanco111
      Posts: 11

      I had trouble with the circle orientation, too. As an advanced beginner, I should have read through the posts here. Instead, I asked my question in the Blender Artists Community forum and got the simple answer about the tool bar. I also had trouble at the end when you used the “V” command to separate out the edge on the right. I kept getting the error message “no edges could be ripped” No answer yet to my posted question about this in the Blender Artists Community forum. I ended up deleting the edge, vertex extrude to reestablish the edge. I am always anxious about hitting a roadblock in these tutorials that will prevent me from progressing. Anyway, I got through part 1, hopefully without too much damage.

      #
      17
       Jan 28, 2013 at 12:45 pm
      • Alex Telford
        Posts: 454

        You can press CTRL+E to get the edge menu and there is an option to edge split the selected edges.
        -Alex

        #
        17.1
         Jan 30, 2013 at 8:03 pm
    18. Stuart Speirs
      Posts: 1

      hi there. brilliant series :-D
      Just wondering where you get the references sent by chris. I downloaded the source files from part 9 and they were not in the file :( any help is appreciated

      #
      18
       Feb 1, 2013 at 8:45 am
    19. Julius Hernandez
      Posts: 8

      Is there a key you are pressing to make the vertices snap? Because everytime I try to use snap it doesn’t work. I though it was supposed to automatically ‘snap’.

      #
      19
       Feb 7, 2013 at 5:41 am
      • Jonathan Williamson
        Posts: 2949

        If you press Shift + Tab you can toggle the default state of snapping, to on or off. If snapping is off then you have to hold down Ctrl to make it snap. If snapping is on then holding Ctrl will disable snapping during transform.

        #
        19.1
         Feb 7, 2013 at 10:29 am
    20. Will
      Posts: 9

      Must say , i am learning a lot with this tutuorial, but there are a few areas that are a bit hard to follow. I have just finished vid 5, and after the second time through i ended up having to just wing it. Not thrilled with the result, but must move forward. Im excited to get onto vid 6 to see what else i can learn!

      #
      20
       Feb 9, 2013 at 1:21 am
    21. Mendoza
      Posts: 3

      I seen one of those for sale at a Florida dealer for $45,000. Even has a threaded barrel on it for a silencer which the guy will toss in for an extra $300, not including transfer taxes.

      #
      21
       Mar 7, 2013 at 5:15 am
    22. Ben Shover
      Posts: 1

      Jonathan,

      I am working through the tutorial for the M4 rifle and have got a couple minor issues. (1) when adding the array for the forward hand guard in the second video, the array extends out to the side of the weapon instead of in line with the original. How can I get the array to extend in line with the original automatically? (2) I manually put the array’s in line as they should be, however their is now a seam line between each array showing on the model. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

      #
      22
       Mar 10, 2013 at 12:47 pm
    23. George McInnes
      Posts: 2

      Hello, I’m rather new to Blender and I was wondering how you did the “snapping” where you selected one line and snapped it to the same level as another parallel line (only changing its location along one axis) in 26:25 in the first video, also in between when you make selections you seem to deselect everything without clicking on anything, is there a key or combination of keys to do this?

      #
      23
       Mar 31, 2013 at 4:04 pm
      • George McInnes
        Posts: 2

        Oops, I figured out the first part after playing around with the snapping tools for a minute, but I’m still lost as to the second question, is there somewhere I can look to see a list of the selection key shortcuts? That would be very helpful.

        #
        23.1
         Mar 31, 2013 at 4:10 pm
        • Jonathan Williamson
          Posts: 2949

          Hi George, there’s no updated list that I know of. However, if you peruse through the menus in Blender then you’ll see that the hotkeys are always listed next to the menu item :)

          Cheers,
          Jonathan

          #
          23.1.1
           Apr 1, 2013 at 11:13 am

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