Milkshape 3D is available from there Website.
Trial is available or you can buy it.
I use the extrusion method with modifications and sometimes do free hand work but this tutorial is just a nice one to get you started. if you disagree with the way no need to flame your opinion everyone has a right to their own opinion.
Knowledge of your gun your modeling increases the chances of it being a better model, so really a gun or a prop model of the gun on hand are cool to have or many pictures of all angles of the gun so that you can get better angles and the correct bits on your model.
Now lets get started.
Explaining MS3D
Right Panel is for modeling and animating.
Buttons up top are for special tricks and other things to do such as exporting, model cleaning, saving etc.
Now One hard thing people have (Mainly why some people give up on the program) is the different windows.
The blue 3D one is for viewing model and you do not do anything in this veiw port apart from looking at your model.
The other three are for different view ports to use while modeling. (Right,Left,Top,Bottom,Front,Back)
To make this easier go Window, Show veiw port Caption with a tick.
My setup is basic and the easiest and I never change unless I am freehand modeling (No extruding etc)
Now that we are setup lets get modeling.
PART 1:
Go and find yourself a background image of gun preferably looking at left or right.
Go to MS3D right click on your right or left (depending on which one your using) veiw port and go to choose background image and find you image and get it.
Now zoom in on it to a section of the gun you want to make do not make the gun as a whole or you will have a shit time making it and it will turn out shit Unless your going to do a lot of freehand work. I like doing different parts of a gun that are different because it is easy. Like the Handle, Clip, Scope, Barrel Etc. You can join em all back together when your done if you feel like it.
Click onto the button vertex in the right panel.
Vertexes are points you place and you then joining them together to build a 2D image.
Place your vertexes like so at every angle necessary.
Rules:
The move vertexes the more faces the more faces the more polygons.
(I am missing a few vertexes I have placed but you will see which ones soon.)
Now if you want to put in an angle in your models section add vertexes and make faces using the face tool to make little rectanglish sorts of things like this (I will explain making faces in part after this)
Grab the face tool from the right panel and join your vertexes in a anti-clockwise direction if it is not anti clockwise you get black triangles and black triangles are bad. Except for when I say they are not . Make sure you correctly make the triangles if your going to add an angle in later on.
This is it gone wrong:
This is it gone good:
Now that you've done that grab the select tool from left panel make sure it is set on face at the very bottom (picture will help) and select all of your 2D image.
Go Ctrl D or Edit, Duplicate Selection.
Then hit the move key from right panel and move you're duplicate of 2D image away.
Now go Ctrl Shift F or Face, Reverse Vertex Order to make it that the duplicate becomes fully black from same view as other 2D Image but the other stays white.
Now Select of the Duplicate and Select all of the Original 2D Image.
Click on the extrude function and extrude the model out using the top or front veiw port. Extrusion pulls a 2D image into the 3D world. Make sure it is grey on outside and not black if it is black your pulling the wrong way.
Extrude it to your length/width you want.
Now select the duplicate and move it to the gap of black in the 3D extrude 2D image and fill it so that the whole thing looks 3D. Make sure it is exactly in place. Select all of the model and go Ctr W or Vertex in top panel and then Weld Together. This welds all of the vertexes together.
Now go group in the top buttons in the right panel (Make sure the model is still fully selected and click regroup this joins the duplicate and extrusion into one piece of model. Then rename it to whatever name you want.
That is it you made a part of gun now repeat this process for every part of the gun to make a whole gun and then join all of the parts together by moving and rotating etc. It is then ready for texturing, animating and even ready to be put into a game if you know how.
If you want to find out about adding the angles that I talked about check out the next part.
END OF PART 1
PART 2
Ok getting back to the angles we are going to need to select the certain vertices so go select and make sure it is on vertices hole down shit and select the ones the will be moved to make the angle.
Now click move and move them inwards or outwards depending on angle.
You will end up with one set the right way and the other in the wrong way.
So select the ones in the wrong way and move them to the place they are meant to be at.
That is it all you need to know about angles.
You can do them anywhere so if you know your faces and viewpoints you and start doing very angled and un blocky milkshape models.
Heres the end result of the G36 I was making.
Practice make never makes perfect ;)
Oh and by the way that model was made for a Quake PSP modification so it is terribly low polygons so it can run on PSP.
Oh and I know I missed the trigger in the model
Peace,
Shallows