Create an Underground Subway Scene – Part 1 of 2

Part 1 | Part 2

In this tutorial you will discover:

How to quickly model a tunnel and train tracks
How to use the array and curve modifier
How to use dupliframes to quickly create copies of lamps

From an early age I developed a deepset paranoia of trains. I’m not sure what sparked it, but one day I became terrified that someone would push me off the platform and onto the tracks right before a train arrived. There’s no real logic to this thinking, but it always crops up when waiting at the station. I blame videos like this.

Anyway, for some strange reason I decided to create a tutorial on my exact fear: subways. Yaaaaaay

Finished Result

The endless tunnel of grey.

Download the Finished .blend

At a Glance

Screenshots from the video:

Further inspiration

Not sure where to go with this tutorial? Check out these links for some inspiration:

Undercity – Documentary about life underground
The Tube – Short film project produced with Blender
Scary Japanese Sewer Photos

Watch Part 2

About Andrew Price

User of Blender for 9+ years. I've written tutorials for 3d World Magazine and spoken at three Blender conferences. My goal is to help artists get employed in the industry by making training accessible and easy to understand. I'm an Aussie and I live in South Korea ;)

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Create an Underground Subway Scene – Part 2 of 2 →

Snubili

hi i love your tutorials just wantet to let you know that bolts/nuts almost always hab 6 edges. . but never 5.

i´m a german mechanic
http://www.facebook.com/woohong1 Woohong Kim

I had the same problem with the curve scaling both sides.

Changing the curve’s pivot point solved it.

shortcut key is Shift Ctrl Alt c
Slanderman

Hi, great Video(s)… I have only one problem, always when I try to loop cut the plane (for the rail track) with Ctrl. + R it only creates two “select points (?)” on the right side.
But it doesn’t make these purple lines between the three parts, it lefts only the large square without its three parts… Is it possible to loop cut planes in Blender 2.65?
Sorry for my bad english (I’m from Germany)
Oscar Castro

Muchas gracias Andrew desde Venezuela, estoy aprendiendo con tus tutoriales ya he completado varios; ¡ impresionante tus conocimientos en blender !
http://www.facebook.com/jason.bossardt Jason Bossardt

How do you put the start vertex on the origin point?

http://www.facebook.com/sposito.thiago Thiago Sposito

I am with the same problem, how could I put the origin point in the start vertex?

BlenderNoob

Hi!This is one of my fave tutorial! pretty cool. I’ve only started learning Blender so please forgive my newbie question but whenever I try to do this I get caught up with the curve modifier. When I apply it, the tunnel turns sideways. Could you please help me with this? Thanks.
SHOOT07

Hey great videos! I am have a bunch of trouble scaling the curve in the right direction for some reason when I scale it, it goes both up and down; instead of just going straight up. Could anyone help me with this please!?

fergus

in edit mode, you need to put the start vertex on the origin point so it doesn’t scale on both sides. hope that helps!

fergus

thanks for the array+curve modifier! I can use hooks on blender now and the hooks on the curve which is attached to an object means I can animate an object changing shape a lot easier.
Akuattro

Hi, thanks for the tut!! just great!

I’ve only one question… can you tell me your pc configuration?
I ask you because i noticed that when you move objects with array and curve modifier your pc didn’t lag as mine!!! And if you know, it depend by cpu or gpu? I know that i can ask at blenderartist for support and i’ll do it… but if you could tell me your configuration for comparison it’s ok

Thanks and good job!!
http://sakrecoer.com Set

Dear Mr. Price,
Your tutorials are a DELIGHT, giving me the outlet for a longtime dream of mine, namely to draw 3d imagery. I’ve been scrolling through thousands of video tutorials by just as many different tutors. What is nice with video tutorials, is that as a student, you can become the puppet-master of the master, by pausing and rewinding, again and again. This however, when dealing with a boring tutor, is not very nice. But listening to you, repeating things again and again, remains pleasant.

You also have very nice ways to things, never locking out any other of the many different procedures available, hinting-in enough simple facts for a newbie to catch up real quick!

Perhaps a previous comment explained it, but for the information, the 3rd rail is only present in subways trains, as the tunnels are to low for the trains to take the current from the roof. By taking the current from the floor, you save costs when building the tunnel smaller then required if the current was taken from the roof. Thats why it’s a deadly rail. (I have been runing arround tunnels like these many times during my graffiti teenage )

Sending you loads of thankyouz and happy positive vibes from Stockholm,

Set Hallstrom
http://sakrecoer.com Set

Dear Mr. Price,
Your tutorials are a DELIGHT, giving me the outlet for a longtime dream of mine, namely draw 3d imagery. I’ve been scrolling through thousands of video tutorials by just as many different tutors. What is nice with video tutorials, is that as a student, you can become the puppet-master of the master, by pausing and rewinding, again and again. This however, when dealing with a boring tutor, is not very nice. But listening to you, repeating things again and again, remains pleasant.

You also have very nice ways to things, never locking out any other of the many different procedures available, hinting in enough simple facts for a newbie to catch up real quick!

Perhaps a previous comment explained it, but for the information, the 3rd rail is only present in subways trains, as the tunnels are to low for the trains to take the current from the roof. By taking the current from the floor, you save costs when building the tunnel smaller then required if the current was taken from the roof. Thats why it’s a deadly rail. (I have been runing arround tunnels like these many times during my graffiti teenage )

Sending you loads of thankyouz and happy positive vibes from Stockholm,

Set Hallstrom
Roger

Hi. What I did wrong? After using curve modifier – tracks move to the end of the tunnel. Thanks for your help (v 2.63)
newton

how did you scale the curve at 8:23 on only one side without extending both sides at once?

http://sakrecoer.com Set

when you have hit G, or S or R, if you then press either X Y or Z, you constrain your Grab, Scale or Rotation operation to the axis you chose,
Fergus

he moved the path so that the first vertex was on the origin point. hope that helps!

J

Great tut but I have a problem with the spaces in my lamps, blender always skips the second one how do i fix it x.x?
Max

Hi in my copy of blender it doesn’t show the normals?
http://www.knsart.pl Raf

excellent tut! really thanks!
landon

when I select the curve for the curve modifier the mesh is moved along the y-axis why and how do i fix this? Thanks in advance
Darko

Yea… I have a question… I finished this tutorial… it turned out really awesome… and I am wondering how do I save changes made with node editor and apply it to the final render. When I re-render it turns out normal, the way it was before I applied changes with node editor, so how do I add this to the final render so I can save a picture of it onto my computer.

fergus

I think you need to attach a composite node to every node the final viewer is attached to.

matthew

Hi, i have one issue with this subway thing im very new to this so i figured this would be a good project to start with but i can’t seem to figure out how to make the objects see through like you did so i can use the line that allows me to curve the tunnel please help. thank you

landon

Are you referring to wireframe mode( object is see-through with loop cuts visible)? If so then hit Z when you are in edit mode. Happy Blendering!

somebody

i have a problem,i cant get the track to curve with the curve.
can some one help me?
Patrick

Whenever I have made the rail and have it together with the first layer (tunnel), I can’t move it to the right and also leave that orange origin point where it is, so I can’t mirror it. I don’t see a button you’re using to do this. I went the this tutorial a second time hoping it would work but it didn’t haha. Hey, more practice right.

Sonic the hedgehog

I stil cannot get the curve to work and I’ve been going at for hours and hours! I even restarted each time used a cylinder, path curve, I’ve done everything and when I get to moving the anchor point, it doesn’t curve like the video shows! I’m getting so frustrated!

jake

I can’t get the track to curve as well

Kara

Blender keeps crashing on all 4 of my computers when I try to make the lights duplicate on each frame . Now I’m bummed because I can’t add lights *sniff*

fergus

I tried to do it manually (add the lamps and duplicate them across the tunnel in wireframe mode and top viewport mode. It went really slowly, and took forever to render, but I got a really good image in the end).

MEHDDIP

Hi
It is possible to download the video?
Timothy Magee

I really like tutorials, and I think yours could be very interesting. Unfortunately, I do not have Internet where I use blender, so I can’t use these web tutorials. Could you some how make these available for download or make text tutorials out of them? Thankyou.
Kara

Don’t know if anyone reads up on these….around the 9th minute when the curve is added. Can someone clarify on how to move the anchor points? When I stretch, it stretches both ends, and when I apply the cylinder to the curve, the cylinder goes to the mid point of the curve >.>

Simmel

Same problem here

Simmel

aha going form edit into objekt mode fixed it :]

landon

enter object mode then scale

Lukas H.

Man – really thanx, this is so helpful… and I admire all of your tutorials…
Shawn

forget my last comment i got it to work, and i saved the project last night, I’m new to blender so it could be something simple but when i opened my project this morning when i went into edit mode i could only select vertices on 1 object at a time please help

landon

When you enter edit mode you can only change the object that was selected in object mode if you want to edit both then you would have to join them(ctrl J) but save the file first just in case of blender messing it up. happy blendering

Shawn

Hello for whatever reason it wont let me extrude the rail segment any suggestions on how to fix this

naveen

extrude in edit mode then you will get it

mcmase

On my render i finish the compositing but i cant get the final product to save as an image so that i can open it without opening blender… Any help please?

Lukas H.

I have the same problem…

is there anybody who can help us?

(i’m using blender 2.5.8.0)

Dan

Damn, you are quick with those shortcuts. Nice work though, I learnt a lot by watching this.
Shane

Sorry for the other comment it was a simple problem next time i need to search the website more than what i did anyone else that has the same problem it’s here http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/3D_interaction/Navigating/Layers
Shane

Hey thanks for the great tutorial. I’m having a small problem when you create the rail with the clamp and go back to the original scene with the tunnel the rail doesn’t show up for me. How can i make it where it will show up cause it’s really starting to bug me. Hopefully someone can help me out.

http://edowler.wordpress.com Dowler

When you switch “scenes” from the rail to the tunnel using that little organizer pannel, press and hold shift while you click both scenes. Any adjustments you make will stay in the last scene you click.

lol

How do you make the polycount less? I’m trying to make a tunnel scene for a game and I was looking for a tunnel of the same lengh, yet less polygons.
Nikolaj

Hi,
Thank you for sharing your knoledge with us, but unfortunately I met some problems.
After 6 minutes when you add a plane, it sticked together with the cyllinder when I changed the mode! (New feature because I have a newer version of Blender?). Anyway, that’s not a big problem but the big problem came when I had to use the array modifier because it leaved a space between the objects!
Sorry for my bad English but I learned English only two years go
Can you help me???

fergus

on the modifyer options, you should see how far away from each other the objects are. carefully turn this down and you should see a big difference.

http://wotemplates.com/ Weisheng

Thanks alot! I hope I can improve my skill
Dany

When I go to make the circle for the bolts, I don’t see two circles showing up. But when I attempt to grab and move it, it mirrors as a semi circle. Any ideas?
dario

hi, the tutorial is excellent but I have a problem: at abot 9th minute you apply the Curve modifier to the cylinder and the plane and deformation axis is the X axis. I follow the tutorial exactly as it is but when i apply that modifier the cylinder and the plane rotate by 90 degrees and i can’t make it not. Can you help me?
P.S. Sorry for the bad English but I’m Italian
Thanks a lot
dario

Nate

Same problem… someone please help

lulin

Me too me too Help Us Andrew

Mikan

hey guys i got the same problem…

pls help

pls replay when you know how to fix that…

Mikan

hey me again i found this on a other tutorial

Posted by Chrome Monkey:

I have a suggestion to make about the difficulties with the curve modifier.

It is far better to leave the path-curve unrotated, unmoved, unedited and untransformed at the beginning. Instead, only rotate the leaflet object to match the curvepath.

The reason for this is that the default values and locations are already preset to work as-is.

The workflow is as follows:

- NO transforms whatsoever on curves until everything is set up

- Only rotate the leaflet (in Object Mode, to preserve the mirror modifier settings!) and do not apply rotation (will interfere with all modifiers)

- Do not change the object location, be sure the centerpoint is at dead center of the mesh data

- Add the array modifer (the array of objects will *initially* appear right-shifted, but that will fix itself in the next step)

- Add the curve modifer, and the entire structure will re-center about the origin to fit the curve as seen in Object Mode (tweaking of the curve length can then be done as needed)

This might appear counterintuitive, but it absolutely works. It’s also an ounce of prevention vs a whopping metric ton of cure.

it works now for me, i rotate the curve/path and the other Object only in Object mode and when i add the curve Modifires it dont turn the 90 degrees anymore.

good luck guys!

Anton

Hi! I had the same problem! Maybe you rotated it the wrong dircetion! So instead of typing “r+90+Enter” try: “r+ -90+ Enter.

arvin

this is the perfect tutorial for a beginner, really helpful…I’m just a bit confused since I’m using a laptop but more on camera views though I have change the some of the control and I want to change majority of it but it’s still too many that I might tampered other valuable keys.
http://www.blenderaristocrat.yolasite.com Olly

Hey guys, sorry for shamelessly promoting myself on such an awesome site here But go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/blenderaristocrat/ Would really appreciate comments!!
http://www.twitter.com/mickmode Mike

Greetings from Sweden! Best tutorial ever, astonished by the result! Keep it the fuck up, thanks a million!
Cat

Hey Andrew.
I’m currently working on this, and so far I’m at about 7:50. However, When I try to curve the NurbsPath on the Y-axis, it won’t curve and pressing ‘G’ only moves the NurbsPath and doesn’t curve the entirety of the structure like it should. Also, the aforementioned movement only moves stiffly and doesn’t curve like it should. Do you have any tips to remedy this? Thanks~
anpaw76

Hi Andrew,

I have followed your great tutorial and decided to make an animation – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41hwP2IhwM8

Thanks for your tutorial. I have learned a lot and had lots of fun to animate the scene
Robert

Hey Andrew. I just downloaded Blender 2.61 and in cycles render it doesn’t have the option to change from CPU to GPU. In the render tab it only has Display and Feature set. Thank
3niDko

nice tuts thanks
Michael

Seriously.. Im getting stuck everywhere… Like when u placed that cylinder at 20:32 and was going to rotate it, mine didnt want to rotate at all, fukking christ-.- yeye, and btw u are talking a little bit too fast just moving through everything like we people wathcing this tutorial do those things everyday too:p

3niDko

wow!

Create an Underground Subway Scene – Part 1 of 2

Finished Result

At a Glance

Further inspiration

Watch Part 2

About Andrew Price

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Create an Underground Subway Scene – Part 1 of 2

Finished Result

At a Glance

Further inspiration

Watch Part 2

About Andrew Price

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