One game currently in the pipe line is called The Gap. The game is about the gap between the private internal world of personal histories and how they feed and colour perceptions of the present. Esoteric I know right. But basically it’s an exploring game in an urban setting with lots of indoor areas that need indoor props. So I’ve been doing lots of modelling and researching new methods to make life easier when using Blender (which I love).

Part of this research is reading lots and lots of books and one of them was Blender for Animation and Film-Based Production by Michelangelo Manriqu. The book is great and I’d recommend it to anyone using Blender. One method that I had not seen in any other tutorials or books was this one for making complex cone or cylinder based meshes using Bezier circles and curves. Instead of starting with the basic forms and working complex changes on their geometry this method is quick and simple to make complex (and simple) shapes really fast.

It starts like this: Open a new Scene and add a Bezier Curve and a Bezier Circle:

This is the right view (num 3) with the Bezier Curve moved over a bit on the X axis and rotated 90 degrees on the Z. (R key, −90 , Enter).

Select the Bezier Circle and Click on the little green Bezier Object button from the properties tab on the right.

Open the Geometry and Bevel sections and click on the Object button. Select your Bezier Curve as the Object.

This sets your Bezier Curve as the defining object for the edges and volume of the now filled Bezier Circle.

Now Select the Bezier Curve and move to Edit mode. Subdivide it as much as you want and play with the shape and angle of the curve to get your Bezier Circle to form all sorts of complex shapes.

Once you are happy with what you have you can go back to Object mode and select the Bezier Circle and go to Object -> convert to mesh (or ALT+C Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text).

Here some examples I did for this post:

I think the Chalice up there shows the power of this method for creating complex small objects very quickly and the relationship between the Bezier Curve and the resultant mesh.

The Gap will not be released for some time yet – years – it’s still early days but I’m really enjoying the process and it’s nice to be doing something personal and meaningful with game development.