I want to show you something that may come in handy for you if you ever have to model

from reference images.

I have a model here of a jet I did, and as much as I would like to say that I modeled

this from scratch, that would be a lie.

I did use reference images.

So I actually have them on their own layer over here, if I turn my reference layer on,

you'll see I have a series of images that I used as references.

I have scenes up here at the top so I can jump to a top view, side view, front view

real quick while modeling, and I can actually see that projected reference so I can model

real quickly.

Jump between different views.

We're going to go ahead and create something like this, sort of a reference image cage

like this in a new drawing.

So I'm going to go ahead and go File>New.

I'm going to go ahead and blow that up nice and big so you guys can see everything I'm

doing.

And I'm going to let Chris leave.

He does not have to stick around for this.

Going to now go to Import and import my reference image.

So I have a Vespa image, I'm going to go ahead and import that and drop it on the ground.

I'm not really concerned with the scale at this point, we've done a lot of, we've talked

about scaling before.

At this point I just want to talk about setting up the cage.

So my reference image actually contains all of the different sides that I want to reference

on one image.

I don't have to do it this way, I could actually import a series of images: Top, Side, Front.

But what's important is that I do have the three reference images and that those three

reference images are about the same scale.

I mean, relatively if scaled to the same width, they're about the same height.

That sort of thing, so that I don't have issues where I'm having to stretch the image or something

like that in order to make everything line up.

Alright, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to start by taking this and I'm actually going

to set this up as the side.

So I want this image, this side image, to be here in the blue-green quadrant.

So I'm going to start by using my Rotate tool.

I'm going to hit the right arrow key to lock onto the red axis, and click to the endpoint,

and then click on the side and bring it straight up.

Until I click onto the blue axis.

Now I'm going to flip it around the other direction.

So I'm going to click the bottom, click and drag that around until it snaps to the green

axis.

Alright, now it's where it needs to be.

It's on the right plane, but I got to move where the actual image is.

So what I'm going to do is use the Move command, and I'm going to click on this ground plane

and I'm going to hit the up arrow to lock to moving vertically.

And lock that right there.

And I'm going to use Move again to kind of slide it over.

Again, this is not of dire importance where exactly this is lined up, but what I generally

want to do is have that geometry in the positive space of this quadrant right here.

Alright, once that's done we can set up the rest of the images.

So what I want to do is I want to get this piece right here turned around so it's on

this blue-red quadrant right here.

I'm going to do that using the Rotate command.

So I'm going to come to my origin, I'm going to hit up to lock to the blue axis, and I'm

going to click and drag this around.

So I want to get it to right here, but I want to keep the other one so I'm going to use

my modifier key.

This is option on the Mac or Control on Windows.

And I'm just going to bring it around and click right there.

So you can see what I'm doing here I have two of my images set up already.

I'm going to go back to selecting the first image, Rotate again.

This time I'm going to use the green axis, grab the bottom, and again modifier key to

copy, and bring that up like that.

So there I have those three images; I'm almost set up as far as having those in the right

spot to use as a reference.

One thing I'm going to have an issue with right now, of course, is that they don't all

line up.

Specifically this bottom one does not seem to be where it needs to be.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to draw a couple lines referencing a reference point.

For a reference point I'm going to use the front of this fender right here.

So I'm going to draw a line right there, click, and I'm going to draw a line out.

I want to stay on the red axis so I'm going to go ahead and hit the right arrow on my

keyboard and then come to this point right here.

I'm going to draw that back just to have that reference.

Draw this down.

So basically, the front of the fender should align to this point on all three images.

So now I can come in and I can fine tune any of my images.

So if that's not quite where I wanted I could move it.

This one's a little bit off so I'm going to come in here and use the Move command to kind

of...right about there is good.

This one's way off.

Oops.

Select this and move it.

Riiight.. there.

Alright, once I have that done, I can actually get rid of these lines I don't need them,

I just needed to reference them for placement.

But I'm pretty good.

So now it's clean up time.

So one of the things I want to do is go in and crop these images real quick.

I don't need all these additional views of the Vespa on the side view.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go in and cut this down to just what I need.

I can't actually cut down an image, but what I can do is I can right click and Explode

that image.

When I explode it it becomes just a surface with the image painted on as a texture.

So what I can do now is use Move to just move these lines back.

There we go.

Do the same thing to the side.

Select.

Move, and bring it dow-.

Whoops.

And bring it down.

The bottom one up.

And I can take this one all the way up to the reference plane; I don't need it to hang

down there at all.

And then, finally I can bring this one in here like that.

So that's all I need out of that image.

I'm going to go ahead and do that to the other images, just Explode and Move their edges

real quick.

Okay!

So at this point, I have my three images in and cropped.

And last couple things I'm going to do is just to set it up so it's easier to reference them.

If i jump to my side view, and see that's a pretty good view, I like that.

I can jump same thing, to the front view, top view, but one of the issues you come up

with here is I'm not actually looking at it directly straight on, I'm actually looking at it in

my perspective view.

That's going to add a little bit of distortion, especially when we reference one image to

the next.

So one of the things I want to do before I set up my reference scenes is go up to Camera

and turn on Parallel Projection.

There we go!

Now I'm looking at just that one image.

So the other images are still there, but when I snap into that view, see I'm just seeing

that image.

So, these quick view buttons up at the top are great but I'm going to go a step further

and actually create scenes for each of these.

So I'm going to create a scene for the side view, and I'm going to go ahead and select

it, make sure my additional information is dropped down, and I'm just going to change

the name to "Side."

That way, as I'm modeling around here if I want to jump back to a side view all I have

to do is just click on this, and I'll jump back over there.

I'm going to do the same thing for the other two views real quick.

Okay, so I've got my views created.

One thing I might want to change though is that animation, so I'm going to go do just

kind of one more thing right here.

Go to View>Animation and change my settings and actually just turn off Enable Transitions.

What that's going to do is allow me to just real quickly hop from one to the next.

Real quick and easy.

Alright, last thing I may want to do here, Select all these, go to Entity Info and add

them to a new reference layer.

That's going to allow as I model to just flip these all back on and off again.

So there you go!

A quick and easy way to make a set of reference images for modeling.

Thank you!