Welcome to the scary project!
In this chapter, we will model a haunted house that we will texture and render in the future chapters. You will use the modeling techniques that we have already seen in the previous chapters and learn some new techniques using some useful modifiers and time-saving tools. Moreover, you will learn how to correctly organize your scenes by grouping objects and placing elements in layers. Now that you have more experience with Blender, we aren't going to show you all the steps in detail but rather describe the key points of the process. If you have any difficulties, you can always go back to Chapter 2, Robot Toy – Modeling of an Object, and Chapter 4, Alien Character – Creating a Proper Topology and Transferring the Sculpt Details, in order to review some of the modeling techniques. Let's start our scene! In this chapter, the following topics will be covered:
- Modeling on scale
- Blocking the house
- Advance modeling tools
- Modeling with curves
- Organizing the scene
The final haunted house should look like the following screenshot:
Before going into detail, we will start by testing different shapes in order to create the concept of our house. It is like a 3D sketch.
In order to create our haunted house and its environment, we need to work with a real world scale. Indeed, when you are working on objects, such as buildings, where the scale matters, it is important to remember to adjust the units of measurement of Blender.
Blender uses, basically, its own unit of measure: the Blender units that correspond to a fictitious unit of measure. You aren't going to encounter Blender units in the real world.
There are two other unit systems of measurement in Blender that you can use: the metric system and the imperial system. We prefer the metric system. For this, go to the Properties panel on the right-hand side of the user interface under Outliner (in the default layout). In the Scene tab, you will find the Units tab. Choose Metric and Degrees.
The metric system allows us to work in kilometers (km), meters (m), centimeters (cm), millimeters (mm), and micrometers (μm). Let's choose meters in our case. For this, we set the Scale value to 1.000. A value of 0.1 would make us work in centimeters.
To know the size of your 3D models, in the Object Mode, you can look at their size in the Transform tab on the right-hand side panel of the 3D viewport (N). This information is also given in the Dimensions section for the x, y, and z axes.
You can then display the size of the selected edges. In the Edit Mode, under the Transform tab, go to the Mesh Display tab, and check the Edge Info | Length option. If you want to measure something, Blender gives you a ruler under the Grease Pencil tab in the left 3D view panel (T). To use this, simply click on the Rule/Protractor button and drag it in the 3D view.
Be careful to always apply your scale and move or rotate the transformation of your objects when you manipulate them in the Object Mode. To do this, we open the Apply menu (Ctrl + A) and select Rotation and scale. It is important to avoid involuntary deformations after this.