Talk:Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Simple Vehicle: Rocket Launcher

Orientation of new cylinder in NUM1 view
For some reason, even when I add the cylinder in front(NUM1) view, it is always placed so that the open ends are on the z axis. It is easily fixed, just rotate it 90 degrees, I know, but is there a way to make it appear the right way in the first place?

Another noob: I have the same problem. Maybe it's just one of those things you can't fix.

Go to User Preferences, in the Edit Methods tab, and click the button that says Aligned to View. This will make things spawn facing you.

extruding the cylinder
Noob note: I didn't have the option of extruding as a region, but I did it using edges and it worked out fine. I have version 2.46.

Answer: The same problem exists in 2.45. Follow the example as shown, extruding edges instead of region. Then follow the instructions provided afterward.

Simple explanation: You both had a cylinders with the End cap option turned off when creating it. You had no region to extrude. Which means there'd be no end cap at the end of the barrel (which you'd never notice anyway).

making the rocket
Oh and I found the best way to make the rocket separate was to create a cone, rotate it and then extrude and scale to get the rocket shape.

I made the rocket seperate by starting with a scaled-along-Y-axis cylinder, then extruding one side,scaling to about 1.3, then extruding two more faces, scaling the first about 0.3 and merging the vertices of the second at center.

making the rocket launcher smooth
This would be a perfect place to explain how to make that cylinder and that rocket smooth, but still have crisp edges on the ends of the pipe and on the creases on the rocket. A subsurf with creases just doesn't entirely do it, unless you use a large number of levels, and that slows everything down. What I did was to create a subsurf, set the object to smooth, and then I selected the edges I wanted straight, and used YKEY to split them. I did this on the ends of the tubes and on the rocket. However, somehow I have the feeling that there might be a better way. I am sure a future tutorial will explain this, but I think this is really the place where it should be explained, or a reference should be put in.

By selecting the faces on the sides (but not end) of the pipe and pressing the smoothen button in the edit window (just like you would for an entire object, but for your selection) to achieve such an effect on the barrel. This does not work when selecting lines, however, so I don't know how to do the same thing for the rocket itself.

Yoshi's Note: The way I did this was to higlight it all then hit set smooth. Then go into Face Select and select the faces edges of the rocket tube and hit solid. And for the rocket leaving it solid and adding a subsurf (level 1) gave it a nice look.

What i did was set everything to smooth, then used different textures to get the launcher to look as crisp as i wanted. I used a brushed titanium look for the launcher (since i couldn't get an iron color to look nice), a green rocket with black rubber looking band around the center, and a white tip. Here is my Example launcher

the easiest way to do this is simply know which edges you want to be crisp, subsurf the entire thing then go back to those edges. Select them then crease them with Shift+EKEY. Type in +1 or move the mouse untill the number is positive one. The rocket will have a smooth look and still have sharp edges.

to sharpen the end of the launcher after subsurf, double the verticies. Select the end of the launcher > EKEY > Region > EscKEY > AKEY.

Off topic, but...
Must we have a rocket launcher? Let me guess. It was a male that started this move towards violence. How about a cuddly teddy for the females? Or, more pertinently, how about just stopping the whole gaming pretense that weapons are cool? If you ain't got this perspective yet, buy yourself a gun, shoot yourself in the right arm, and see how cool it feels. Anyway... someone's got ESP: I see a couple of modules on we have a cutesy babe with Make Love Not War on her Heepy Jeepy!

Change the value at Z?
We're told "Extrude at one side the inner circle vertices ( E ) then "Enter", then press "N key" and change the value at "Z" in 1.2 or -1.2 dependent on what side you take." If I do that I get a little extra cylinder sticking out of one end of my cylinder or the other. That's not in any of the illustrations. What am I doing wrong here?