conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Blender, Industries, LLC with the genre: Computers & Technology, Web Development & Design?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Blender 3D Incredible Machines'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Blender 3D Incredible Machines
  In this section, we'll cover a few introductory topics, discuss our goals for the project, and then create the basic shape of a pistol. As we do this, we'll use a number of different tools and modifiers. At the end of this section, we'll be ready to move on and detail our pistol:
  For our first project, we'll be modeling a high poly, sci-fi weapon. It's approximately the same shape as a modern day handgun, but it gives us the flexibility to be creative and explore different modeling techniques.
  In this first chapter, we'll create the basic beveled shapes of our gun. We'll start by extruding some basic shapes. Next, we'll add the main body of the gun, then move on to the additional pieces. As we do this, we'll look at a number of modifiers and mesh tools. Specifically, we'll be discussing the following topics:
  This will allow us to add the Mirror modifier. This modifier will duplicate half of an object across its axis. Using it, we can model one side of the gun, and Blender will automatically fill in the other side to match it. Obviously, this will save us a lot of time. In order to do this, go to the **Modifiers** tab of your properties panel and select **Mirror**.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The last technique we'll cover in this chapter is using Path objects. These are ideal for making wires, cables, hoses, and more. To get started, just add one from the **Curve** section of your **Add** menu:
  From the **Path** section of your **Properties** panel, you can see that we have a number of options that we need to look at. The **Preview Resolution** shows you how many segments your **Path** will be broken down into:
  This is very important. If your **Path** is going to have a lot of curves to it, you'll need a decent resolution to make it look smooth. On the other hand, it should be obvious that the higher the resolution, the more polygons you'll eventually be using.
  Also, don't be fooled by the concept of **Preview Resolution**. This is (or will be) your actual resolution. The **Preview** term just means that if you were to leave it as a **Path** object and render it, you could choose a different resolution for render time than in the 3D viewport.
  Eventually, we'll want to turn our **Paths** into real mesh objects. It means that the **Preview Resolution** will be reflective of our final model.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: These are ideal for making wires, cables, hoses, and more. To get started, just add one from the **Curve** section of your **Add** menu:
  From the **Path** section of your **Properties** panel, you can see that we have a number of options that we need to look at. The **Preview Resolution** shows you how many segments your **Path** will be broken down into:
  This is very important. If your **Path** is going to have a lot of curves to it, you'll need a decent resolution to make it look smooth. On the other hand, it should be obvious that the higher the resolution, the more polygons you'll eventually be using.
  Also, don't be fooled by the concept of **Preview Resolution**. This is (or will be) your actual resolution. The **Preview** term just means that if you were to leave it as a **Path** object and render it, you could choose a different resolution for render time than in the 3D viewport.
  Eventually, we'll want to turn our **Paths** into real mesh objects. It means that the **Preview Resolution** will be reflective of our final model.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'Feel free to experiment with separate Displacement/normal maps'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Feel free to experiment with separate Displacement/normal maps. However, keep in mind that every image you have to load will increase render time and place additional stress on the CPU/GPU. Only use a separate map when you're sure that your game or other 3D program can handle it.
  Again, this doesn't really matter; the point of the model is to be used in another application, so don't spend a lot of time fine-tuning the materials in Cycles. All we're really looking for is any alignment or texture issues and generally making sure the model looks okay.
  When you're satisfied, make sure that you delete unneeded objects from your scene (lights, background, cameras, and so on). Then you can use the **Export** menu to **Output** the model into a format of your choice:
  In this chapter, we created basic materials for the truck. We then used the Blender Internal engine to create basic procedural textures. After unwrapping the model, we baked our textures out and used that image to create and test materials in Cycles. As with the previous project, we've just covered the basics of this topic. However, it should provide a good baseline for you to take it further.