I just bought a magazine called 3D Artist at my local book store and it has gotten me all fired up about producing role-playing game illustrations in 3D again. I have been thinking about mechs and all things Battletech and MechWarrior and so it was natural that I would be producing giant mechanoid images for my RPG materials.
While I was working on my latest 3D RPG masterpiece I came across a little promlemette, I was wondering how to make a photograph appear as the 
background to a 3D mesh I am creating. It’s a 3D model for use as a mech in sci-fi RPGs like Traveller the role-playing game, and it wouldn’t be the same without a futuristic game world skyline. Thankfully wiki books comes to the rescue again. The solution to my problem was really quite simple, but finding it myself would have probably taken half a night’s frustrated and increasingly desperate button clicking.
Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Render Settings – Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks
So now my giant mech can rampage across some of the more futuristic bits of my city – Vienna – without me having to do too much work in Photoshop. The architecture in Vienna is pleasingly futuristic and perfect for the sort of settings you find in RPGs, as long as you point the camera upwards or go out on photosafari on a quiet day. It spoils the effect if too many very ordinary looking passers by are wandering about munching on kebabs, walking the dog and doing other totally non fantasy role-playing game type things.
My giant RPG monster robot is far from finished but you can bet I’ll be doing a lot more work on this crazy 3D creation, it’s fun!
