Pick Reference Image option for now and select the blueprint we downloaded earlier. Okay, let’s finally add the blueprint to our scene. Some examples include meshes, curves, images, text, etc. There are several different types of objects in Blender. Therefore, what panels you see depends on what object is selected. Different types of objects may have different panels. Select the image first and the panel will appear. After registering, enter Audi A5 into the search bar on their home page, scroll down to the Blueprint image search results and click on the Audi A5 (2008) listing shown in the image below. In this tutorial, I’m going to be using a 2008 Audi A5 blueprint.
Luckily, registration is completely free.
However, to download the free ones at the maximum resolution you will have to have a registered account there. This webpage contains both free and paid blueprints. You can find several places by searching the web on your search engine of choice. In such case, we get the proportional and dimensional accuracy from the blueprint and we get perspective angles from reference images to compare our model to. Here is where we can construct the best way to model – by combining the third and the second ways together. The third way is not the best way, though, because sometimes it is not clear from orthographic views alone how a certain detail needs to look in perspective. This is an even better way, because in this case, we don’t have to guess the dimensions of the object, as the most crucial data we need is embedded in the blueprint. Blueprints are accurate drawings of object’s proportions and sizes from several orthographic points of view.
The third way is to have blueprints of the object you want to model. Even if you do have them lying around, what if you suddenly decided to model something entirely different, such as a USS Nautilus nuclear submarine? Say, you wanted to model a Bugatti or a Lamborghini – I don’t think many of us happen to have any of these cars lying around. Best case scenario would be to have the object in real life because then you would have infinite angles to look from, whereas finding that many images from different points of view online may prove challenging, and often times impossible. This is a better way since you would have images from various angles to help you judge proportions and details. The second way is to have the object you want to recreate or its reference images in front of you. Unless you have super-human memory, of course! Depending on the object’s complexity, this method is unlikely to yield a result that is a carbon copy of the original. This is true because humans are pretty bad at remembering details and details are crucial for making an accurate replica. This is a great way to model if your goal is to make a similar-looking result with your own original spin on it. The first way that comes to mind is to recreate it from memory. There are several ways you can create a digital model in a 3D modeling package such as Blender.