Modeling a Bottle

All righty, a modelling tutorial. A shampoo bottle. I am gonna try to hold your hand as much as possible, because that is the way I like it You will get discouraged, you will weep, you will cry, you will curse. But don�t dispair, at the end it will work. So c�mon brave lads, follow me to worship the allmighty godess of Curves and Surfaces.

(PA users will notice that I kinda translated one of the tuts into maya)


THE BOTTLE NECK

1. use the CV tool to draw a curve like this ( tut2_1.zip<\/a> ). Place the long straight line at 0, 0, 0. It will make duplicating in a later stage easier. It is not necesarry though.
2. After you drew the curve hit enter to finish the curve � always do this if you wanna complete your curve. You can change afterwards using CV pulling.
3. Open the revolve option box and set the revolve axis to Y. ( tut2_2.zip<\/a> ) If for some reason your revolve doesn�t look good, change the axis � or set it to free and change it in the channel box. It should look OK though.

THE BOTTLE BODY


Da Curves

# Make the options of a NURBS circle like this ( tut2_3.zip<\/a>) Create one circle with radius 1 and another one with radius 2 (or whatever you find suitable). Move the outer circle down a bit.
# draw 2 curves to connect the circles ends. Use snap to curve 9; hold down C while placing the curve) to place the first and the last CV�s.
# Hit F8 and modify CV�s to get a bend near the outer circle. (tut2_4.zip<\/a>)
# Tricky part. We are now gona draw curves to later model the indent in the bottle � where the label normally goes.
# Take a good look at these screenshots ( tut2_5.zip<\/a> and tut2_6.zip<\/a> )
# As always, there are several ways to do this, but what I did was duplicate the outer circle curve and moved it down. Then hit F8 and modify the CV so it bends inwards and a bit down. (Keep your history so you can modify them later on if your surfaces don�t look right.) Tweak. Tweak some more. Hit your keyboard - hard. Get coffee. Get it right.
# Go back into component mode and duplicate the curve 3 times, altering ty and tz. These are the settings I used : ( tut2_7.zip<\/a> )
# in the top view create a square and stretch it till it has this form. Tamper with CV�s to get the shape you want. ( tut2_8.zip<\/a> )
# Yell out loud: �This tutorial sucks.�
# Use curve snapping (hold C) and shift to draw two straight curves from the endpoints of the last one of the curves that will form the dent-in. ( tut2_9.zip<\/a> )
# Tweak the last 3 CV�s or so of the middle curve to �attach� it to the bottom (the square) of the bottle. (9) To attach it to the curve, tweak the CV�s and then when they are nearly there, select the last CV and turn on curve snapping. Then with your MMB click the curve to which it should snap the point to the curve.
# Use the same techique as outlayed above (curve snapping and CV pulling) to create a new curve between the two long, vertical curves ( tut2_10.zip<\/a> ), horizontal to the square.

Da Surfaces

1. Select the 4 top curves beneath the neck of the bottle. Do surfaces > boundary ( tut2_11.zip<\/a> )
2. Select the last curve of the just constructed surface and the top one the the �dent-in� curves. Loft �em. Boy, I like making surfaces. Those smooth, silky things just turn me on( tut2_12.zip<\/a> )
3. Select the 4 curves of the indent from top to bottom and loft the buggers.
4. Time for another boundary. Select the 4 curves body curves and do surfaces > boundary as outlined before. ( tut2_13.zip<\/a>)
5. Select two of the constructed surfaces and attact them (edit surfaces > attach) Be sure to put the attach method to connect. ( tut2_14.zip<\/a>) This attaches the surfaces without distorting them in any way. Blend will attempt to achieve continuity across the attachment, that is not really needed here. Keep the original surfaces, but hide them (ctrl + H). I think it�s a good idea to keep your construction history (and hence attached surfaces and contruction curves) as long as possible, in case something goes wrong, or you wanna modify stuff. One is allowed to differ opinions off course.
6. Select the constructed surface. Press insert and use snap to curve to snap the pivot point to the �middle� of the surface. Set the duplicate options to translate x = -1 and duplicate.
7. Attach the two surfaces
8. Press insert again and use the same method as above to snap your pivot point to the side of the shape so the duplication will work the way you want. LMB on the pivot and MMB on the curve.
9. Select the attached surface and duplicate it once in tz �1
10. Attach the 2 surfaces. It should look like this ( tut2_15.zip<\/a>)

THE HOOK

Trimming, projecting, intersecting.mmmmmm...surfaces. GIMME SOME !! (cfr. 329 in the nurbs manual � read it)

1. reset your duplicate options and duplicate the bottom curve. Move it downwards to form the surface from which the hook will be trimmed.
2. select the the original curve and the duplicated one. Do a loft between them. (tut2_16.zip<\/a> )
3. In the side view, draw 2 curves like this ( tut2_17.zip<\/a> )
4. Duplicate them and move them to the other side of the last constructed surface.
5. Select the top ones and loft them. Do the same thing for the bottom ones
6. You got 2 new surfaces who look like this now ( tut2_18.zip<\/a> )
7. Select the top surface (damn, I wished I gave them names) and the vertical surface of the hook. Do edit surfaces > intersect surfaces. There should appear a curve on surface after you did that.
8. Pick the trim tool in the same menu. Click on the long long verticla surface of the hook.It becomes white-lined. Now click on the part you want to keep; being the part �outside�. A yellow dot should appear. Take a look here ( tut2_19.zip<\/a>) Hit enter. A hole is trimmed in the middle.
9. do the same with �thang�for the intersecting surfaces on the bottom
10. Now we need to get rid of those nasty edges. Trim them in the same way. YEAH, trimming rulez.
11. Tada! This is what I got out of it ( tut2_20.zip<\/a> )
12. the rendering is for next time (not that there is many to it)