Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
If your reference was taken with a long lens
or drawn in orthographic perspective, you should
be able to align it easily. To do so, open your images
as layers, as described in “Creating a Reference
Sheet” on page 24, and then pick one layer to use
to align all the others. Use guides (click and drag
from the rulers at the side of the image window) to
mark the vertical positions of the key features and
then use GIMP's Rotate, Scale, and Move tools to
position your next layer so that the features line up.
By repeating these steps for as many orthographic
views of your subject as you have, you'll essentially
create a blueprint of your project that you then can
use for modeling (see Figure 3-9).
Note that when aligning images with photo
references, some features may not line up perfectly
in every view due to lens distortion and perspective,
particularly if they weren't all the same distance
from the camera. While you can correct lens distor-
tion to some extent using GIMP's lens distortion fil-
ter (Filters 4 Distort 4 Lens Distortion), the result will
not be a perfect ortho ref because you still won't be
able to correct for perspective. It's easier to simply
align the key features as best you can and remem-
ber that you aren't shackled to your reference when
modeling; you can correct for any errors that you
know will be there using your own judgment.
using Concepts and Reference
Images in Blender
Once you've prepared your concept art and ref-
erence images, there are several ways to make
them available for use as references in Blender.
Of course, you can just open your image in your
standard image viewer and keep it off to one side
of your screen, but you can also use Blender's UV
Image editor, background images, or the image
display option for an empty object.
UV Image Editor
To open up an image in Blender's UV Image editor,
select Image 4 Open Image from the header, navi-
gate to your reference image or concept art in the
file browser, and select Open . Blender should open
your image in the UV Image editor. If you then
open another image, you can access any previously
opened images, as well as any used by texture data-
blocks, from the drop-down menu in the header.
When working with several reference images
while creating my compositions, I like to combine
them all into one big reference sheet in GIMP. I then
save that reference sheet as a .jpg file and open it in
Blender's UV Image editor, as shown in Figure 3-10.
Figure 3-9: Working with orthographic references. The ability to see features from multiple angles makes it easier to model
them accurately.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search