Building a Trebuchet

  A miniature trebuchet.

  My trebuchet.

1. Start up Blender.

2. Here is the default scene with the cube selected. 

3. Press the X KEY.

4. Click Erase selected object.

5. Press NUM 1 to go into front view.

6. Press Spacebar > Add > Mesh > Cube.

7. Turn Widget mode off by click the hand. 

8. Press the R KEY to rotate the cube.

9. Hold the Ctrl KEY on your keyboard.

10. Rotate the cube to the left with your mouse.  Rotate the cube 40 degrees.  On the left side you will see how many degrees it is moving.

11. Press the A KEY to deselect the cube.

12. Press the B KEY twice.

13. Move your circle around the 2 vertices on the right.    Click the 2 vertices to make them yellow.  Right click to exit selecting mode.

14. Press the E KEY to extrude.  Click Region.

15. Hold down the Ctrl KEY and extrude 4 units up.

16. Press the A KEY to deselect all vertices.

17. Press the B KEY twice and select the bottom 2 vertices.    Right click to exit selecting mode.

18. Press the E KEY to extrude.  Click Region.

19. Hold down the Ctrl KEY and extrude 16 units down.

20. Press the Tab KEY to go into Object mode.

21. Press NUM 7 to go into top view.

22. Press Spacebar > Add > Mesh > Cube.

23. Press the A KEY to deselect all vertices.

24. Press the B KEY twice.

25. Click 2 vertices on the side to select them.    Right click to exit selecting mode.

26. Press the E KEY to extrude them.  Click Region.

27. Hold down the Ctrl key and extrude 4 units.

28. Do the same thing for the other side. 

29. Press the A Key twice to select all vertices.  All vertices should be yellow.

30. Click Add Modifier down in the Modifiers tab. 

31. Click Subsurf.

32. Set the Subsurface levels to 2. 

33. Click Set Smooth.   

34. Press the Tab KEY to go into object mode.

35. Click Apply on the Modifier Tab. 

36. Click Applying.

37. Press the Z KEY to entire wire frame mode.

38. Look at the grid and notice the boxes.  We want the next part to be on the circle.

39. Left click on the center square 2 grids from the end.  As you can tell I was a little off but that is okay.

40. Press NUM 1 to go into front view.

41. Press Spacebar > Add > Mesh > Cube.

42. Press the A KEY to deselect all vertices.

43. Press the B KEY twice.

44. Select the bottom vertices.    Right click to exit selecting mode.

45. Press the E KEY to extrude.  Click Region.

46. Hold the Ctrl KEY and extrude 11 units.

47. Press the E KEY again to extrude.  Click Region.

48. Hold the Ctrl KEY and extrude 2 units. 

49. Press the A KEY to deselect.

50. Press the B KEY twice.

51. Click on the 2 vertices on the side.    Right click to exit selecting mode.

52. Press the E KEY to extrude.  Click Region.

53. Hold the CTRL KEY and extrude 11 units to the left.

54. Extrude the opposite side 11 units. 

55. Press NUM 7 to go into top view.

56. Press the A KEY to select all vertices.

57. Press the S KEY for scaling.

58. Press the Y KEY to scale on the Y axis

59. Press the CTRL KEY and use your mouse to scale to .5000 units.

60. Press the A KEY to deselect everything.

61. Press the NUM 3 KEY to go into side view. 

62. Press the B KEY twice.

63. Select the square at the very top.     Right click to exit selecting mode.

64. Press NUM 7 to go into top view.

65. Press the E KEY to extrude.

66. Press the Y KEY to extrude on the Y-axis.

67. Hold the Ctrl key and extrude 1 unit up.

68. Now things will get a tiny difficult.  Hold your middle mouse button down and rotate your view a little bit.  You want a view like this.  If you need to zoom in or out move your mouse wheel forward or back. 

69. Press the B KEY twice.

70. Select these 4 vertices.    Right click to exit selecting mode.

71. Press NUM 1 to go into front view.

72. Press the E KEY to extrude.  Click Region.

73. Right now your vertices will only extrude in 1 direction.  Press the middle mouse button once and you can extrude down.  Here is a picture of the goal you are searching for. 

74. Now do the same thing for the other side. 

75. Press the Tab KEY to enter object mode.

76. Press NUM 7 to go into top view.

77. Press Shift D.  This will duplicate the object.

78. Press the R KEY.

79. Hold the Ctrl KEY and rotate 180 degrees.

80. Press the G KEY.  This grabs the object.

81. Hold the Ctrl KEY and place the other side of the trebuchet.

82. Press the NUM 7 to go into top view.

83. Place the cursor in the right place.  Click towards the top part of the center piece. 

84. By using the middle mouse button swing the view so you are looking right down the center piece. 

85. Place the cursor in the right place again.

86. Press the Spacebar > Surface > NURBS Donut

87. Press the S KEY.

88. Scale the donut so it can fit around the center piece.

89. You should have something like this. 

90. Using your middle mouse button rotate your view to this. 

91. Press Shift D and move the object up a little. 

92. Press the Tab KEY to go into object mode.

Materials and Colors

You have now built your trebuchet lets look at materials now.  Materials are just a fancy word for colors.

1. Lets color the weights first.  Click on the 2 donuts.  They should have a pink outline.

2. Press the materials button. 

3. Click Add New. 

4. Click on the gray square next to col. 

5. Click on a color and move your mouse onto the 3D area. 

6. Click on the center piece so that it is outlined in pink.

7. Click Add new.

8. 

9. Set the first color like this. 

10. Over on the Texture tab click add new.

11. Click the Textures tab. 

12. Click Texture type and select wood. 

13. Set the texture to look like this. 

14. Click the materials tab. 

15. You will see a preview of you texture and that it will have pink in it.  That is okay.

16. Click the Map To tab.  Set the tab to look like this: 

17. Now you can go ahead and color the rest of the trebuchet.  The best way to learn color is by exploring.

Animation

In a way this is going to be easy.  We only have to animate the center arm and the thing that is going to be thrown.

1. Look for the camera.  It is the triangle shape.    We need to get the camera looking at the trebuchet.  We do this with the letter G and the letter R.  We have to use several different view points as well.

2. Here is an example.

   1. Select the camera by clicking it.

   2. Press NUM 7.

   3. Press the R KEY and rotate the camera so it is looking at the trebuchet. 

   4. Press NUM 0 and check out what the camera is looking at.

   5. If it isn't lined up repeat the same process from a different view like side view NUM 3.

3. Press NUM 1 to go into front view.

4. Click on the 2 black weights.

5. Hold the shift key and select the center piece.

6. Press Ctrl P.

7. Click Make Parent.  Parenting connects the weights to the center piece so they move together.

8. Right Click on the Center Piece.

9. Press the I KEY.

10. Click LocRot.    This locks the location and rotation.

11. Click on the frame number and move it up to 60. 

12. Press the R KEY and rotate the center piece to its launching position.

13. Press I KEY.  Click LocRot.

14. Click on the Scene Button. 

15. Set the Start Frame to 1 and the End Frame to 60. 

16. Press Alt A to animate the first 60 frames.