Chapter 2: Modeling a Robot Drone Character

In the previous chapter, you learned about all the different types of modeling tools in Blender. Now, we will continue our learning journey by jumping right into a practical, step-by-step modeling tutorial in which will create a mechanical Robot Drone character for your sci-fi-themed 3D movie.

We will start off with the very basics by first setting up Blender's Units, then loading reference images (these will act as a guide for your modeling).

Afterward, we will proceed to block out the basic shape of the robot drone's body, before adding details and moving on to the other body parts of the model.

In this chapter, you will gain practical knowledge of 3D modeling by using some of the most powerful modeling functions Blender has to offer, such as creating basic meshes (called primitives), using extrusions, bevels, loop cuts, and insets, creating custom polygonal faces, and much more.

In this chapter, we're going to...

Technical requirements

You will need the following hardware and software to complete this chapter:

• A computer that can run basic 3D animation software.
• A basic understanding of how to navigate and manipulate meshes in Blender. This was covered in Chapter 1, An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools.
• You need to install Blender (open source software, or OSS) from https://www.blender.org/download/.

The Blender version used in this chapter is 2.93.4. Even if your version of Blender is newer, the examples should still work without any problems.

The files related to this chapter are placed at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Unreal-Engine-5-Character-Creation-Animation-and-Cinematics/tree/main/Chapter02

Preparing Blender's Units

Even though we are working with virtual 3D objects in 3D computer graphics, they still need to have an accurate scale (based on the scale/dimensions of real-world objects). This even applies to made-up things, such as the robot drone we will model in this tutorial.

3D software such as Unreal Engine calculates lighting and physics based on the scale of 3D assets. Another reason is that when you are building virtual 3D movie sets, it is a good idea to have a standardized scale for all your 3D assets—this way, it will make it easier to place them because they will have the correct size in relation to other items in the scene.

The scale of the scene and all the assets therein are set by using Blender's Units menu. Let's go through the steps to set up Units, as follows:

1. In the Properties panel, find the Scene Properties icon, as highlighted in the following screenshot. Click on this icon to open up the Units drop-down menu. Inside...

Modeling a Robot Drone character

For those who'd prefer to skip the practical modeling tutorial and go on to Chapter 3, Let's Sculpt an Alien Plant!, the completed Robot Drone model (RobotDrone_Blender_File.blend) is available to download from the online repository here: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Unreal-Engine-5-Character-Creation-Animation-and-Cinematics/tree/main/Chapter02

In Chapter 1, An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools, you learned the theoretical functionality of Blender's modeling tools. Now, you will put all you have learned about 3D modeling into practice!

Let's start with a step-by-step modeling tutorial to create the mechanical body of the robot drone.

Modeling the shape of the body

To get started, we first need to load the Blender file with the reference images already prepared for us.

Download the following RobotDrone_Reference.blend Blender file from the online repository here: https://github.com...

Summary

You have now successfully completed your first practical modeling tutorial using Blender! Modeling tools work great for models such as robot drones because these tools are ideally suited for mechanical types of models, although there are no limitations to the kinds of 3D assets you can create by using these tools and methods.

One of the amazing skills you have now learned is the ability to follow reference images to guide your 3D modeling so that the final result is very accurate.

Furthermore, you've acquired other skills such as manipulating meshes in the 3D Viewport, extruding faces and vertices, beveling edges, and subdividing meshes to smooth out the block-out shape, and you've also learned how to build custom-shaped faces that you can then turn into 3D meshes.

You now have both the practical experience and theoretical knowledge from Chapter 1, An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools to create your very own 3D assets for your...