Looking for a six shooter pistol

[wwill84751]

I am having a hard time finding a pistol pattern. I found one on here but it looks like its a cutout and Im looking for one for a plaque that raises up and had good detail. I looked on carvewright but didnt really want to spend the money on one pattern and not like it... Any free or low cost ones out there? TIA

[blhutchens]

Here is one I just grabbed. There are lots of free ones if you have the STL importer.

[wwill84751]

Thanks a lot! I am totally new here, just picked up my machine and did my first design yesterday! In Love with it but everything is so greek to me... so I have no idea what the STL importer is but please share more info... and thanks again...

[blhutchens]

Thanks a lot! I am totally new here, just picked up my machine and did my first design yesterday! In Love with it but everything is so greek to me... so I have no idea what the STL importer is but please share more info... and thanks again...

STL importer is a software add on. It allows you to get 3d files from other sources and import them into designer.
There are may here who are willing to create patterns or help you to so, you can get by with the basic designer and do add ons as the need arises or budget allows.

[fwharris]

Thanks a lot! I am totally new here, just picked up my machine and did my first design yesterday! In Love with it but everything is so greek to me... so I have no idea what the STL importer is but please share more info... and thanks again...

Info on the stl importer.. http://www.carvewright.com/add-on-modules/STL-importer/

[oscarl48]

If you do 3d graphics or know how to manipulate them (there are several free programs) that is the add-on to have. It completely changed how I do patterns for the better. Still not great but greatly improved. I am embarrassed by some of my early work.

I am a huge fan of blender 3d but it is not a program you can just pick up and master. Its taken me a year of afternoons to learn the basics. But for importing 3d graphics and being able to do basic manipulation of already built models its perfect (its free!!). There are tons of tutorials and how to's on youtube.

Brent,

That is a sweet pattern. I am so taking it.

Regards,
Oscar

[PSQRD]

If you do 3d graphics or know how to manipulate them (there are several free programs) that is the add-on to have. It completely changed how I do patterns for the better. Still not great but greatly improved. I am embarrassed by some of my early work.

I am a huge fan of blender 3d but it is not a program you can just pick up and master. Its taken me a year of afternoons to learn the basics. But for importing 3d graphics and being able to do basic manipulation of already built models its perfect (its free!!). There are tons of tutorials and how to's on youtube.

Brent,

That is a sweet pattern. I am so taking it.

Regards,
Oscar

Oscar,
Quick question with regards to your blender skills and something on the pattern that was just posted for an example. If you notice there are some lines on the barrel of the pistol as with many 3d models I've imported I believe from the mask over the wire frame. Any ideas on simple ways how to smooth those out prior to importing, or is something I should reserve for another thread?

[blhutchens]

Oscar,
Quick question with regards to your blender skills and something on the pattern that was just posted for an example. If you notice there are some lines on the barrel of the pistol as with many 3d models I've imported I believe from the mask over the wire frame. Any ideas on simple ways how to smooth those out prior to importing, or is something I should reserve for another thread?

I clean mine up after I import to designer with the blur/smooth tool. I just grabbed this one and posted It really quick.

[PSQRD]

Awesome I'll have to give it a shot, I've been trying to clean up prior to import with minimal luck. Does that work out for you on rotary imports too? I'm going to give it a shot here in a bit, thanks again Brent :) not the first time you've helped me out. I hope you didn't take it as me knocking on your pattern, my imports never look as good as the ones you share for some reason. It'll get better with time I suppose, sorry for semi highjacking the thread.

[oscarl48]

Paul,

I was having the same issue when I was starting. Its all about the mesh. Even though it will look great on the screen when you port it into designer if the mesh is not dense enough it will come through as blocky. Here is a model I am working on now of my Ruger Blackhawk. I am half done but I am being careful that each piece has enough mesh that it will be solid when I port to CW. The complexity will bog down my computer by the time I am done but the results really are worth it. Give me another half hour and I will have this pattern done so you can see the results.

Forgot to mention while you have the basic mesh use smooth to even it out before adding additional mesh. In edit mode hit W and then smooth with mesh selected.

Regards,
Oscar

[oscarl48]

Paul,

Here is my brand spanking new model that crashed my computer twice before I managed to port it into CW. I have a word processing desktop with no graphics muscle at all. I am pushing it to its limits doing the patterns this way. Some of the techniques I am learning is to slice the models in half to maximize the depth. You can do that in blender or in designer when you first load it by bisecting.

Sometimes I do have to clean up the model with smoothing and blur depending on the look I want. This pattern doesn't have any but a little bit of smoothing may help it to get rid of the small lines on the cylinder.

As shown in the picture it is at .5 depth with 100 height with bit optimization at best.

Regards,
Oscar

P.S. I should mention that the wonderful folks on here are the ones that showed me how to do this.

[wwill84751]

Love it Paul and Oscar! I see you helped out... I will give it a test! This is such a great forum! Thanks a bunch!

[wwill84751]

Thanks for the link!

[eelamb]

Paul when you get a 3d pattern from the internet, most are of low poly, meaning they have not been sub-dived to a higher mesh. Below are some images of what I am talking about. The first is a pistol I created using quads, and the first image is of low poly. This is how the item is created, then once you have it the way you want, you sub-divide the model to a higher mesh and save that as a version of the low poly model. The problem I find on most internet 3d model is they have holes in the vertices, where when you sub-divide the mesh it tears. To use these you have to have a program to edit the mesh and weld the vertices. Plus many 3d model from the internet are in tri instead of quads, making it much harder to work with and get a smooth mesh. Many on here do not have the software to subdive the mesh so they use PE to blur the pattern after it is created, which is fine.

Last two images are of a internet pistol. Notice the tearing of the barrel, stock, chamber etc when subdivided in the last image. It would take hours ot clean this pistol up. Plus as mentioned it is triangles as can be seen best on the handles.

[PSQRD]

Wow, mind blown! Unfortunately I am and will be limited to what's on the internet free in terms of software for me, fortunately free software has made huge leaps and bounds in the last 10 years. I've been playing with sketchup, meshlab, blender, stl importer, gimp and pattern editor. The 3d softwares are newer to me and have relied heavily on tutorials on the internet and information on the forums here as well as individuals as some of you here in this thread to help me out. I'm going to give a few stabs at both methods where I can hopefully yielding good results but at least I understand the why now.