YouTube - Modeling a Character in Blender The Torso

YouTube - Modeling a Character in Blender The Torso: "Modeling a Character in Blender The Torso"

blender.org - Home

blender.org - Home: "Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License."

Creating paper models

Creating paper models: "Creating paper models EDIT: I am working on an automated script for this purpose. You may want to try it - it could save you a hour of work. Link

Blender comes with a script called Unfold. It can easily turn mesh into a flat net, without deforming any faces. What is it good for?

If you use some more tricks around and are not afraid of mat-knife, you can have all your blends staying in front of you on the table. All you need is a printer, a good glue, two hands and blender (blender is almighty!).

I've made three models yet - the Suzanne (topic here), post appocalyptic tank (topic here) (Alltaken made that model, but he released it under CC here) and a spaceship, the topic is here. It is a simple spaceship without any interesting ideas, because I made it mainly for needs of this tutorial.
You can get the .blend file here."

UNFOLD3D Generation 6 User Manual

UNFOLD3D Generation 6 User Manual: "3.1 - Modeling Rules
Unfold3D requires the input mesh to respect a certain number of modeling rules. These rules are generally respected as rules of general modeling hygiene, but they become compulsory to apply Unfold3D's mathematical algorithms:

Rule 1: no edge with 3+ neighboring polygons (see figure). All edges must belong to at most two polygons.

Rule 2: no butterfly point (see figure). A vertice cannot have more than two border edges (ie: edges with only one neighboring polygon) connected to it.

Rule 3: the imported file must comply with OBJ standards, and not use the the ' relative vertex numbering ' mode.

Note that these rules do not limit the possibilities of modeling:
Unfold3D has no problem dealing with holes in the mesh;
the modeling rules are written for triangles, but Unfold3D is perfectly fit to deal with quads or n-gons - Unfold3D will triangulate the mesh anyway, and try to avoid as much as possible the forbidden cases.

Note that non-convex n-gons may cause problems though:"