The Walther P99 gun was the first model that I did. The hard bit for the modelling was finding reference images. Despite all the search that I did on the web I could not find blueprints or reasonable pictures with side, front and top views. Eventually I used one side view picture as my reference plane in 3D max and angle picture which gave me some guides for the front of a gun. For the proportions I had to use my common sense and try what looks best visually.
This first real modelling practise was very painful. I had to learn about 3d MAX saving file problem the hard way. Once I have finished to model all parts of the gun to the level that satisfied me and all it was to do apply materials the program crashed down. That was not a surprise, I thought I would just open the file and start from last time I saved. However, the program surprised me, when I got the message that file can not be opened. I realized that the file was corrupted when the program crashed and no back up files were created by 3D MAX. I researched it and found out that this is a common thing. When i started to model my gun from scratch again I made sure to save my progress twice. Once as a working file and every time as different copy in separate folder. Finally i ended up with about 15 save files of my gun.
Modelling
The first bit of the gun is bullet. The reference image was traced with line tool. This created the shape of the bullet. The lathe modified was applied to the shape. The segments were set to 30, direction axis chosen and weld core checkbox selected. In the lathe modifier axis sub-level was chosen and the position of rotation axis was adjusted for the best result. However, the weld core option did not work. Therefore, the object was transformed to editable poly. The middle vertices were selected and welded manually with weld tool int edit vertices rollout box.
Other parts of the gun were created with box standard primitive. Therefore, only the steps taken to create main gun body are described. The box was converted to editable poly. The polygon sub-level was selected and polygon was extruded to match the reference image. This was done by moving, rotating and scaling polygons. It was decided to use symmetry modifier for other side of the gun as it is supposed to be identical . The back polygons were deleted to ease future welding of vertices at the symmetry objects intersection. Once the basic shape was achieved it was time to add extra edges for the sections were extra detail was wanted. It was easily done by selecting wanted edges manually and using loop or ring selection tools. Once all wanted edges were selected connect tool was used from edit edges roll out. Wanted amount of segments were chosen and pinched or slided as required. While creating detail for objects the turbosmooth modifier was used to see future smoothing effect. When all the edges were created the vertices were moved to match the shape of the detail. After that polygons were extruded for the detail. The turbosmooth was smoothing all sharp edges. The edges that was supposed to be sharp were selected and chamfered to reduce smoothing effect. To make some of the edges even more sharper extra edges was added around them. The gun has a bit at the bottom right which is for a better grip, similar one is also at the part were thumb is supposed to be when shooting. Those parts were created by moving vertices deeper to the object and the smoothing did the rest.
The little bumps on the handle were created as a standard primitive sphere with hemisphere selection to 0.5. The snaps toggle option was selected and set to edges/segments in order to attach sphere exactly to the gun. Once placed it was copied multiple times and moved around the handle to imitate the bumps. The spheres were grouped all together. Finally the symmetry tool was applied separate to the main gun part and group of spheres, because spheres did not require smoothing. Therefore to avoid extra amount of polygons turbosmooth have been applied only to gun. In the symmetry panel mirror axis was chosen and weld stream check box selected with 0.1 treshold value.
Modelling
The first bit of the gun is bullet. The reference image was traced with line tool. This created the shape of the bullet. The lathe modified was applied to the shape. The segments were set to 30, direction axis chosen and weld core checkbox selected. In the lathe modifier axis sub-level was chosen and the position of rotation axis was adjusted for the best result. However, the weld core option did not work. Therefore, the object was transformed to editable poly. The middle vertices were selected and welded manually with weld tool int edit vertices rollout box.
Other parts of the gun were created with box standard primitive. Therefore, only the steps taken to create main gun body are described. The box was converted to editable poly. The polygon sub-level was selected and polygon was extruded to match the reference image. This was done by moving, rotating and scaling polygons. It was decided to use symmetry modifier for other side of the gun as it is supposed to be identical . The back polygons were deleted to ease future welding of vertices at the symmetry objects intersection. Once the basic shape was achieved it was time to add extra edges for the sections were extra detail was wanted. It was easily done by selecting wanted edges manually and using loop or ring selection tools. Once all wanted edges were selected connect tool was used from edit edges roll out. Wanted amount of segments were chosen and pinched or slided as required. While creating detail for objects the turbosmooth modifier was used to see future smoothing effect. When all the edges were created the vertices were moved to match the shape of the detail. After that polygons were extruded for the detail. The turbosmooth was smoothing all sharp edges. The edges that was supposed to be sharp were selected and chamfered to reduce smoothing effect. To make some of the edges even more sharper extra edges was added around them. The gun has a bit at the bottom right which is for a better grip, similar one is also at the part were thumb is supposed to be when shooting. Those parts were created by moving vertices deeper to the object and the smoothing did the rest.
The little bumps on the handle were created as a standard primitive sphere with hemisphere selection to 0.5. The snaps toggle option was selected and set to edges/segments in order to attach sphere exactly to the gun. Once placed it was copied multiple times and moved around the handle to imitate the bumps. The spheres were grouped all together. Finally the symmetry tool was applied separate to the main gun part and group of spheres, because spheres did not require smoothing. Therefore to avoid extra amount of polygons turbosmooth have been applied only to gun. In the symmetry panel mirror axis was chosen and weld stream check box selected with 0.1 treshold value.
The gun barrel was created using the boolean. The standard primitive cylinder was created and aligned with the bullet as in the picture. The boolean from compound objects was used to create exact size barrel by subtraction. The new shape was scaled along to make a longer gun barrel.
Boolean was also used to make a perfect hole in the top part of the gun for barrel Top part was applied with boolean. The barrel was placed inside it. In the boolean parameters the cut was chosen. This created the new polygons at the intersection parts. Then top gun was converted to editable poly and polygons were the gun barrel was placed have been removed.
Here is separate gun parts all aligned together.
Before smoothing
Finally all parts were grouped together. Gun and bullet were applied different materials. The daylight system was created to make better lightning effect.
Sources:
reference gun image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Walther_P99-JH02.jpg
gun side view http://www.mi6.co.uk/sections/dad/p99.php3?t=dad&s=dad
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