How to Model Anything in 3D - Modeling Fundamentals

In this 3D modeling tutorial, we show you how you can approach modeling everything in 3D. Here we're using Blender but the concepts translate to all 3D software.

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[renardleblanc]

I've been drawing from life for 20+ years, even studied it in college for a while, and it's amazing how many of these modelling basics translate to learning drawing.
Fundamentally, drawing is in the eye, not in the hand (apart from the muscle-memory of loosening up with a pencil). So, when you talk looking at objects and deconstructing them into blocks&primitives geometry, that is 110% relatable.

[isaacdruin]

"You won't be doing a doughnut a whole lot"

True. But I did a doughnut first. (thanks Andrew)

[michaelwright]

0:57 Blender Guru wants to know your location.

[Gredran]

Flippednormals: “unless you’re making a donut but you don’t do that a lot!” *laughs*
Blender Guru and the people who learned from him: “are we a joke to you?”

[vanilladocs]

"You're not really going to do a donut a whole lot."
Except for when you're in the Blender community. For some reasons donuts are a really big deal to us.

[AethicGlassworks]

I see you've been stress testing blender by dropping a nokia into it.

[teriyaki_chicken]

This is great.

As a beginner, it’s always intimidating thinking of where I would even begin something like a car or a complex building or a gun or something.

This really reassured me. Everything starts off as a basic shape

[adam_turk]

I like the way they say, "If you look at (objects) things in life, they are square or circular, " simplifying things is the best way to start and work towards more intricate and complicated designs!

[lordimpulse]

as an architect long time ago when I was playing GTA V, and on some radio station there was a song: "I AM LIVING IN A BOX. I AM LIVING IN A CARDBOARD BOX".
That words gave me some enlightment and depression at the same time.

[elizabethhamilton]

"I was so damaged from working in 3D all day..." Lol! I know the feeling. This week I've been learning the lattice modifier in Blender. I've been putting lattice cages around cars and buses on the street. :-D

[LordDavlamin]

Would love to see your thoughts on when separate meshes should be used in modelling an asset, as I debate it all the time when modelling.

[arianullah]

Just after finishing watching the Blender Conference talk on hard surface modelling I receive a notification for this, nice :)

[slooph]

"you can make a donut from a cylinder"
torus: am i a joke to you

[Eostud]

Great video, when I started out I tried to achieve simple things in the most complex ways imaginable. I didn't learn this simple, yet obvious technique until months after I started. Thanks anyway for reminding us all of the fundamentals. Great video as always.

[carlsims]

Seeing everything as a wire frame is definitely one of the steps to knowing you're getting better at 3d modelling. It's quite funny to hear that someone else has also had that 😂😂

[jakubgrzybek]

1:00 Are you throwing shade on my homie Blender Guru?

[gnamp]

3:04 - I said that very thing when I first got into 3D. I was concerned that I was seeing 'everything' in the real world as modellable objects. I'd often get distracted thinking about how I would go about making them and seriously began wondering if it might be like a form of brain-damage. It isn't unusual for me to look at a lamppost or picnic-table or a corrugated-iron garage-roof or rotating doors or a dog-lead or a jackdaw and think how I would approach modelling those things. Though it hasn't completely gone away- it's now more elective; that is to say it's no longer encroaching on my thoughts unbidden and isn't really a big deal.

[dcadtutorials]

A video that every beginner should watch!

[PolygonAcademy]

super good points. I always stress working from big to small details, it makes iteration so much easier. exact same for composing environments, get your structural meshes in place before adding props and then finally decals etc. so many people get super excited, detail out a tiny section of a model or scene, and then zoom out to see the remaining work and want to cry. working in passes brings the quality bar up evenly across all aspects of a game...ideally :P theory vs reality is often different hahah.

[strifey]

This is a super awesome beginner tutorial, because it is super common for beginners to think that every piece of an object have to be connected/one single mesh.