Wings3D Tutorial for beginners

From Dim3 Wiki

by Ryan L.

Hi, and welcome. This tutorial will teach you the basics of Wings3d (http://wings3d.com). For this tutorial I will be using the latest development release of Wings3d, available at the official Wings3d website (http://wings3d.com).

Contents 1 Part I: The Geometry Window 1.1 ShortCut Key Reference 2 Part II: The Geometry Graph 3 Part III: The Outliner 4 Part IV: The Transformations 5 Part IV: Let's Make a Model 5.1 Step 1: The shape 5.2 Step 2: Complicating Things 5.3 Step 3: The Final Touches 5.4 Step 4: The trigger 6 Part V: UV Mapping & Texturing 7 Download link

[edit] Part I: The Geometry Window

Wings3d has a unique system of modeling, which I myself find very simple and very powerful, if used correctly. The main control is held in your hand, literally. The mouse's Right Click button accesses a menu with almost every available transformation.

If you notice, placing your mouse over the words in this list of transformations and operations, the ones with small black arrows open into submenus with more details. You may click on any of these, for example: Clicking "Move >> Z" will move the object, face, edge, or vertex along the Z axis. For most of these transformations the mouse will disappear while active and you will have to move the mouse left or right to adjust. If you look at the bottom of the window, it tells you what you can do:

Another important thing is the selection methods. These are essential to modeling in wings.

• The shaded grey pyramid represents the shaded render mode, which is a good fast preview of the fully rendered model.
• The pyramid next to it toggles Orthographic view. This means that when on, the model has no depth. It's particularly good for selecting a whole section of an object along a straight line,

because there is no depth offset.

• The pyramid with the 3 dots is vertex selection mode. This means you can select and transform vertices of an object.
• The pyramid with the red outline is edge selection mode.
• The pyramid with the solid red face is face selection mode.
• The solid red pyramid is the object selection mode.
• The two boxes to the far right toggle the grid and the axis.

(Note that I use the default preferences. You may have a different setup for your mouse, camera, or other things.)

[edit] ShortCut Key Reference

• X - View the X axis Orthographically
• Y - View the Y axis Orthographically
• Z - View the X axis Orthographically
• C - Connect
• S - Smooth
• Control-Alt-Z - Undo
• Control-Shift-Z - Redo
• Control-S - Save
• Tab - Toggle Quick Shaded Mode
• O - Toggle Orthographic Mode

[edit] Part II: The Geometry Graph

The geometry graph is a useful window which lets you easily and quickly hide/show objects, rename them, delete them, and select them.

[edit] Part III: The Outliner

The outliner is a very important window, which allows you to view and edit UV Maps and imported images. Via this window you can also make new materials. Materials are important because they allow you to edit the Diffuse(texture or main color), Ambience, Specular, etc of a surface. The following symbols correspond:

• Material:
• Image:
• Object :

Selecting and right clicking on these will give you a drop-down menu with options, similar to that of the Geometry window. To access the surface properties, right click a material and go to "Edit Material".

[edit] Part IV: The Transformations

Transformations are necessary to creating a model. Whether it's moving(Formally known as translating.), rotating, scaling, tapering, beveling, or extruding, it's all a type of transformation. Probably the most common two transformations you will use are Extrude/Extrude Region and Move.

For now I will be teaching you only the necessary and more common transformations.

• Move - Used to move an object.
• Rotate - Rotates an object.
• Scale - Scales an object.
• Extrudes - There are two different types of extrude:
  • Extrude - Extrudes a face or selected faces individually.
  • Extrude Region - Extrudes a face or selected faces. If selected faces are touching, it extrudes them as one connected piece, instead of individually.
• Inset - Allows you to duplicate and more sides of a face inward.

• Bevel - See picture below.

• Bridge - Connects two faces with the same number of vertices.
• Smooth - Subdivides selected faces. Only works in Face selection mode.
• Dissolve - Deletes faces, vertices, and edges.

(Note that most of these transformations work in other selection modes than Face mode, but they are most commonly used in face mode, with the exception of Move, Rotate, and Scale.) Also note that in each selection mode they do slightly different things. Experiment around!

[edit] Part IV: Let's Make a Model

For this part for the tutorial you will need only the geometry window, although it is still nice to have each window out, so that they can be accessed at any time. To do so, go to Window>>Outliner and Window>>Geometry Graph. We will be making a simple gun.

[edit] Step 1: The shape

1. Insert a cube by Right Clicking and going to "Cube" in the menu.
2. Make sure you have your axis correctly. The Blue Z is the front, Green Y is the top, and the Red X is the right side.
3. Select the front face and Extrude>>Z.
4. Extrude>>Z two more times off of that face.

Here is what it should look like:

1. Select the bottom face that is second to the farthest back.
2. Extrude it 3 times along the Y axis.

This is what it should look like:

[edit] Step 2: Complicating Things

1. Press X to view the side view along the X axis.
2. Enter the Edge selection mode.
3. Drag-select across the model so that the gun barrel side edges are selected in front and back.
4. Hit C key to connect the lines.

It should look like this:

1. Deselect this and select the edges across the top and along the Z axis. Make sure not to select the top edges that are along the X axis.
2. Bevel this.
3. Do the same with the bottom edges, but do not touch the edges connected to the handle.

It should look like this:

1. Select each face of the handle, not including the bottom face and scale is along the X axis.
2. Then hit S to smooth the faces.

It should look like this:

1. Select the vertices in the picture below on BOTH SIDES and hit C for connect.
2. Move the vertices shown below so that the model has a better look to it. Also fix up the handle so it looks more realistic.

This is what it should look like:

1. Scale the barrel of the gun along the X axis.
2. Select the top vertices of the barrel and move them down along the Y axis.

This is what it should look like:

[edit] Step 3: The Final Touches

1. Connect the two unconnected vertices in the front and back of the gun.

This is what it should look like:

1. Select the bottom edge that you just created by connecting in the front and the one above it.
2. Select the two side edges in the front that touch the other two you selected.
3. Press C to create a diamond-shape.
4. Press C again. Now you have two diamonds.
5. Go to face selection mode and select the small diamond.
6. Press S to smooth it.
7. Scale it Y so it's an even cylinder.

This is what it should look like:

Image:Ryan wingstut17.png

1. Select the four faces that create the cylinder and Extrude Region along the Z axis. Move it so that it insets its self into the gun a short distance.
2. Select the second-to-top, front two edges of the handle and Extrude it along the Z axis.
3. Extrude it again so that a small space in between remains.
4. Press backspace to dissolve(delete) these two edges. Do the same with the remaining edges of that part. It should end up as a single face.
5. Select the two edges that run along the X axis on the bottom of the gun and extrude it along the X axis.
6. Extrude this again so that a small distance separates the two edges.
7. Select all the vertical edges(Edges along the Y axis) belonging to the second Y Extrude only and press C to connect them.

It should look like this:

Image:Ryan wingstut18.png

1. Select the inside, bottom and middle two faces of the Y Extruded edges and hit backspace. It is now a single face.
2. Select that face and the face belonging to the Z Extruded piece and Bridge them.
3. Reposition them so that it looks right.

It should look like this:

Image:Ryan wingstut19.png

[edit] Step 4: The trigger

1. Create a cube.
2. Extrude the bottom face Y.
3. Do it a couple more times.
4. Position the vertices via scale and move so that it looks right.
5. Scale uniform so that it matches the size of the gun.
6. Move it so that it's in the correct position.

It should look like:

Image:Ryan wingstut20.jpg

[edit] Part V: UV Mapping & Texturing

For any game, you will need to UV Map your model before applying any textures. Here's how it's done. (For this part we will use the gun we just made.)

1. Select the pistol model via the Geometry Graph. Do not select the trigger.
2. Right Click and go to UV Mapping>>Forced Segment(Delete Previous).
3. A new window will pop up. This is the UV Mapping window. The trigger will not be there.
4. Select the edges shown below and Right Click>>Mark Edges for Cut.

It should look like this:

Image:Ryan wingstut21.png

1. Now Right Click and go to UV Mapping>>Project Normal.
2. The window should close and a new one should open.

It should look like this:

Image:Ryan wingstut22.png

1. Currently everything is selected. Spacebar will deselect it.
2. Position, resize, etc the pieces.
3. I, to make each side of the gun symmetrical, flipped the parts and aligned them up so that it looks like only one side of the gun.

This is what it should look like:

Image:Ryan wingstut23.png

1. Now that I have that, I Right Click and hit Create Texture.
2. A dialogue box will pop up. For now, you may leave it as is.
3. Press OK and the background will change to the new texture.
4. Close this UV Window and go to the Outliner.
5. An image will be there. Right Click it and Export it. It exports as a .bmp.
6. Open it in a program such as photoshop. If you don't have photoshop, I recommend Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/).
7. Once you've made your texture, File>>Import Image.
8. Drag the texture image onto the material for your gun.
9. A drop-down window will appear. You will want to always use the main texture as a Diffuse, so click on Diffuse.

That's all there is to it! For the trigger, you can just repeat the steps used for the gun. I actually didn't texture my gun, as it's not needed for this tutorial, and i have not enough time to. Fact of the matter is, if I went into texturing, it would take a whole hours, and I've got better stuff to do, especially since it's not important to do so for the tutorial. Hope this helped! Mistakes, questions, or comments, please E-Mail Me.

[edit] Download link

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