Creating a Painted D Bus
This exercise uses a picture to create the side, front, and top of a bus. This will work for any vehicle, but a bus is handy because it's prismatic. You can do a web search for a bus picture, but the one used in this example is from the Greyhound web site -
http://store.yahoo.com/greyhoundlogoshop/. (It's actually a toy bus, but it looks real enough!) Here is the picture:
You can also find this picture at www. f1help.biz/ccp51 /cgi-bin/ SU5StudentFiles.htm.
Download the file "bus.jpg."
1. First make a box in the general shape of a bus. If you care about making it realistic, use Measure to make the length something like 30'.
- You can import a picture as a texture via the Material Browser. Click the Create button at the top.
Mac: Right-click on the texture swatches in Colors in Model and select New Texture. You can also click Image Palette, and select New from file to browse to the image you want to import. This method should e used only if you want to import an image from which you want to sample colors particular to that image.
3. In the Mix New Material window, check Use texture image and browse to the bus picture. Make the size something realistic - if you keep the lock symbol as is, you can enter 30' for the length and the height will update automatically. Finally, enter the name of the new material ("Bus") at the top left.
This new material now appears in the In Model tab of the Material Browser. Paint this material onto the side of the bus.
Enter position mode, and make sure you are in Free Pins mode. Place Pin 1 at the top left corner of the side of the bus. Place Pin 2 the same way. When Pin 2 is directly below Pin 1, a faint dotted line will appear as a guide.
5. Place Pins 3 and 4 the same way.
- Tip: It's very helpful to use the zoom functions when placing pushpins. Use Zoom Window to lift the pin, then Zoom Extents to see the whole model. Zoom Window again to the target point, and click to place the pin.
6. Drag each pin to its corresponding corner on the model. The side of the box should now contain the portion of the picture that is the side of the bus, stretched and moved to the right scale and orientation.
If necessary, move pins and drag them again to make the picture fit the way you want. When finished, right-click and select Done, or click in the blank space.
The side of the box looks good, but the tires are cut off.
Push/Pull the bottom of the box so that the wheels from the picture are visible. Use lines and arcs to trace the bottom of the bus to include the wheels.
9. Push/Pull the lower part all the way back. Now the wheels are included in the bus.
10. Now for the front of the bus. There are two ways to apply the picture here. First, click the thumbnail in the Material Browser and apply it to the front face. With texture positioning this would work, but the initial placement of the picture is random - not connected to the picture on the side of the bus.
11. Undo. A better way is to "sample" the material on the side of the bus and apply it to the front face. The picture still needs to be adjusted, but its placement is correct along the edge shared with the side face.
12. If your picture isn't facing the right way, or is upside down, you can right-click and select Flip / Left/Right or Up/Down. Enter teture positioning mode.
13. The pins along the common edge are already located correctly. Drag the other two pins into place and exit position mode.
- 14. The top face is done the same way, sampling either
15. To apply the material to the opposite side face, sample the texture on the first side and apply it. It has the correct shape and orientation, only backward!
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