CREATING 3D

ENVIRONMENTS
Blender basics
Chapter 2 – Part 11

■ Making a fence
■ Using the array and boolean modifier
■ Proportional editing
■ Smart UV projection
 Add background image

We need a reference image as a background plate to model the fence object.

Press N to open the right tab and click background image
 Pick image

When you click the background icon you can select an image
 Make the background visible

Press 1 in the numpad and press 5 to switch to orto mode. You can now see
the background image
 Start with a cube

We start with a cube and make it flat in edit mode. Press S + Y key
to make it flat.
 Drag the cube in position

Switch to object mode ( Tab) and drag the cube ( G key ) to the first plank. Keep in
mind that transforming the object works the best in edit mode.
 Make a wooden plank

Scale the plank ( S + X key ) so you can cover the reference plank.
 Switch to the Y axis

Scroll around the object in edit mode to see if it has the right size. If it looks to flat,
change this. ( S + Y key )
 Extrude the top part

Select the top vertices and extrude these two times ( E key to extrude )
 Add a bevel

Check if the scale is set to 1 and add a bevel ( CTRL + B key ). Keep
the resolution low
 Optimize the Bevel

Remove this edge line, we don’t need it. First select the edge line by pressing ALT +
right mouse button. Now click X key + edge loop. This will remove the edge line
 Add more edge lines

Add more edge lines by pressing CTRL + R and mouse scroll till you
have +/- 10 extra lines. Press left mouse button to set the lines.
 Add the array modifier

To speedup the process we use the array modifier to duplicate the fence
plank.
 Increase the array distance

Because there is some space between the planks we need to increase the
distance. I used 1.8, but maybe you need 1.7 or 1.9, what fits the best
 Increase teh counts of the planks

Because the fence has 8 planks on a row we increase the amount of

arrays to 8
 Apply the array modifier

If everything looks right you can apply the array modifier to merge
the planks together. You now have 8 identical planks.
 Creating horizontal planks

Create a new cube ( Add  Mesh  cube )

 Put the cube in position

Same as the vertical planks, we need to put the plank in the right position.
Drag the object in object mode, this way you keep the origin in the middle
 Make the cube flat

Go to edit mode and flatten the cube

 Scale the horizontal plank

Same as the verticle plank, you now need to scale it so it fits the
reference image.
 Add a bevel

Add a bevel same as the verticle plank

 Duplicate the plank

Because there are only two horizontal planks, we can copy ( Shift +
D key ) the plank and drag this add the bottom of the fence.
 Create the middle plank

The middle plank needs some tweaks to get it right. Add a new cube and put it in position
so we can switch to edit mode to scale it.
 Put the plank in position

The bottom part can be scaled by dragging the vertices in the right position. You don’t need
to extrude this part. The top part needs to be extruded.
 Flatten the plank

If the plank looks thick, scale the plank so it gets the right size. Use teh same size as all the
other planks in the scene
 Add a bevel

Same as all the other planks, apply a bevel to make it looks smooth.
 Put the planks in position

Some planks may float in the air. Put them againt the main planks to make it looks realistic
 Add more detail

Add some extra edge lines to add more detail on the fence. We can use this for later
additions
 Add a cylinder object

To cut a hole in the fence, we need a cutter object. We use a cylinder to work this out
 Lower the resolution

Lower the amount of vertices to get a low resolution cylinder

 Rotate the cylinder

Switch to the side view with Num 3 key and rotate ( R key ) with the snapping tool the
cylinder with 90 degrees.
 Align the cylinder

Now scale the cylinder in edit mode so it aligns with the hole in the fence
 Name the cylinder

Because this is our cutter object we need to name this to cutter in the object tab
 Set the origin to mass

If the origin is not in the center, press space bar, type origin, select set and press origin to
Center of Mass
 Merge the cylinder and fence

To cut a hole, select the cutter and the fence and add a boolean modifier
 Select the cutter

In the modifier tab, select the cutter to make a hole in the fence
 Apply the boolean

Select difference in the operation tab and press apply to activate the modifier
 Selecting the hole vertices

If everything went right you now have a hole in your fence. Now you need to select all the
vertices from the hole
 Add a bevel

Add a small bevel, this can be a pain because there are a lot of vertices and they can merge
into eachother. If it doesn’t work out, you may need to repeat the boolean action
 Rotate the planks

Now we can rotate the planks to makes it looks more natural.

 Merge the fence

Select all the object and merge them together by pressing CTRL + J key
 Adding more details

Continue with adding more details on your fence. We can use this later to modify the fence
 Make gentle tweaks

We need to enable proportional editing ( O key ) to make some little changes on the fence.
Make it look a bit curvy by moving some parts
 Duplicate the viewport

Now it’s time to add a texture. Duplicate the viewport by pressing the tiny arrow in the top
corner of the screen and drag this to the left and open the UV image editor
 Smart UV projection

Because the Unwrap tool and cube map projection will not work for the fence, we will use
the smart UV projection option.
 Check your UV map

The maps will look like this. .

 Add an image texture

Add a material and select the image texture option. For this fence we use the same texture
as the dice.
 First impression fence texture

Now we have aUV map coordinates and a texture. Now you get an impression how the fence
looks like. Before we touch the UV map we need to switch the texture with the texel density
map.
 Check the squares

Now we have the texel density map selected we can take a look if there is no stretching.
 Scale the UV coordinates

Scale the UV map by selecting all the vertices and press s+3 key. You can see the result in the 3d
viewport. If the texel map doesn’t look stretched, you can switch the map back to the wood texture.
 Quick look

Scroll around the object to find out if everything looks normal.

 Final fence model

Great work ! We now have a fence object and we used all the techniques from chapter 2. This is a
major step in your development.