The 3D Thread

[Capwn]

bump! Door I did for a mod recently. Concepted, modeled and textured by myself using Max, Zbrush and Photoshop.

[Rossco]

I'm sure I commented on that door when you posted it originally Capone!

Anyway, back at uni now for my fourth and final year of Computer Animation. Lecturers are already putting the pressure on me based on last years work and I'm feeling confident.

Two main projects on the go at the moment so far, one is a deserted prison environment at night and the other is an Italian style piazza/square with a Ferrari F40 sitting in it. The latter isn't due until May so I am focussing on the prison environment first which is due in January.

Spent a bit of time planning it all out and finding some referance material so eventually started a wee bit of the modelling tonight. And it feels good to be back!

It's a lighthouse that will sit at the edge of the prison with the light still on flashing round which I think should make a nice feature. It's based on the lighthouse at Alcatraz prison, which I am using quite heavily for reference in general.

I'll keep putting regular updates here which will hopefully entice others to do the same as it's very quiet around here recently and it's good to help and discuss each others work.

Still using Lightwave, planned to learn Max or Maya over the summer but it never happened. I'm very comfortable with Lightwave anyway so it'll do for now. Upgraded to 9.6 which is so much faster for renders and possibly a bit more stable! Also using FPrime now which is a fantastic wee tool for rendering.

[Capwn]

Sounds like you have a lot of time to do these! You have 3 or so months to do that prison?

I'll hopefully be joining you with 3D environment updates soon as am taking part in Unearthly2009 while I look for work. Am deep into concept work right now.

[Rossco]

Well this is along with another crappy character animation module and two more modules from January to May also. And it's not just making the prison, etc. There is alot of documentation you have to hand in, critical analysis of you work after it's finished, keeping logs of what you done and when, and you have to show all your planning, ideas, sketches, concept images, etc. Which is a pain in the arse! I just wanna model/texture!

That Unearthly 2009 challenge looks quite good, lots of interesting entries so far. Post the link to your thread in it so we can see your updates.

[Ran]

...and you have to show all your planning, ideas, sketches, concept images, etc. Which is a pain in the arse! I just wanna model/texture!

Aye, they put a lot of pressure on Students this way but the more thorough you are with this stuff initially the better the final piece generally comes out. If you head straight into the software and start modelling/texturing you can come a cropper and I can almost guarantee no matter how good the final result is it would have been better if youd worked it out thoroughly on paper first! (Thats what your lecturers would say anyway!). Best of luck with it dude

I do rather like that door Capone. I recognise a texture map and what I think is a bump map but whats the other thing you've got on that sheet? (would that be a specular map? Texturing was never a strength of mine!)

[pranny]

I just picked up the new Maya but I`m new to 3D programs. Where`s a good place to start if I wanted to teach myself to make something like Number 28`s amazing Ikaruga ship. I guess i`m looking for decent video tutorials unlike the bad ones I just watched on youtube.

[Kamatari]

I just picked up the new Maya but I`m new to 3D programs. Where`s a good place to start if I wanted to teach myself to make something like Number 28`s amazing Ikaruga ship. I guess i`m looking for decent video tutorials unlike the bad ones I just watched on youtube.

Now im the worst person for giving advice on this 3d subject ( i can't get my head round it) but i believe the Ikaruga ship you mentioned, i think Number 28 had the model from somewhere and he made up the textures for it...i may be completely wrong though!

As for tutorials, i dont think they're video tutorials but http://cg.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/autodesk-maya/

[Number 28]

Now im the worst person for giving advice on this 3d subject ( i can't get my head round it) but i believe the Ikaruga ship you mentioned, i think Number 28 had the model from somewhere and he made up the textures for it...i may be completely wrong though!

I used a plastic model kit for reference... but I modeled it all myself from scratch!

I've never really looked at many tutorials for Maya...coming from another package, i've mainly said "Where's this tool?" to a friend, and they've pointed it out.

A good tip is to make some shelf buttons for your most used operations. If you hold Ctrl + Shift, then click on an action, it automatically makes a shortcut in the 'Custom' shelf tab. You can move them about, and bin them (far right) with the middle button.

Oh yeah, it's probably best to turn the construction history off...can slow things down.

[pranny]

That`s a nice link Kamatari cheers! Bookmarked, i`ll try that out tomorrow. I`ll note that down Number 28 . The only 3D I`ve done before was in secondlife and that`s a massive leap since it`s shit.

[Kamatari]

I used a plastic model kit for reference... but I modeled it all myself from scratch!

I've never really looked at many tutorials for Maya...coming from another package, i've mainly said "Where's this tool?" to a friend, and they've pointed it out.

A good tip is to make some shelf buttons for your most used operations. If you hold Ctrl + Shift, then click on an action, it automatically makes a shortcut in the 'Custom' shelf tab. You can move them about, and bin them (far right) with the middle button.

Oh yeah, it's probably best to turn the construction history off...can slow things down.

Ah did you? im sure i remember reading a thread (i think?) where someone brought/aquired something like that and then textured it up...maybe im thinking of something completely different...

[Capwn]

Update on my Unearthly2009 environment, have more or less blocked it out now. Next is going in and making proper models.

[Rossco]

Looks interesting Capone, keep us updated with, er... updates!

Here's the latest from me. Pretty much finished the lighthouse, will tinker about more with the top section where the light will go later on.

And started the basic modelling of all the external areas of the prison.

Can't decide whether I like the razor wire or not. I spent ages making it like that but it's not as I imagined. Quite tricky to do I feel while not letting the poly count go through the roof!

Also, the scale of some sections are a bit off and will require some jigging about. But all in all, happy with my progress so far.

Open to constructive criticism as usual.

[Capwn]

Looks like a good base Rossco. Seems a shame all the fleshed out details are at the top of the lighthouse while all the lower sections (where the player will mainly be looking at if it's a 1st/3rd person game) consists mostly of box modeling. Maybe you're still working on that? or maybe that's just the design. As long as you fill the lower sections with props and details etc it should be ok.

The razor wire, is that all polys? I'm not sure that even today any developers would go with that method as it must be pretty hectic on the polycount. The common method would be with lots of alpha planes.

Keep on rolling!

[utero2001]

Looks like a good base Rossco. Seems a shame all the fleshed out details are at the top of the lighthouse while all the lower sections (where the player will mainly be looking at if it's a 1st/3rd person game) consists mostly of box modeling. Maybe you're still working on that? or maybe that's just the design. As long as you fill the lower sections with props and details etc it should be ok.

The razor wire, is that all polys? I'm not sure that even today any developers would go with that method as it must be pretty hectic on the polycount. The common method would be with lots of alpha planes.

Keep on rolling!

ahh nipped me to the post

The razor wire should be simple polys with wire mesh textures. Also yes more detail required on the ground. Maybe model in some paths and other ground details? Maybe benches, a tarmacked area or if you have space, a basic baseball pitch layout.

My last game with my old company I worked on was basically Alcatraz Island "Tycoon"

[Rossco]

Yeh the lighthouse I modelled it on is exactly like that unfortunately but seeing as that's not part of my brief to keep it an exact replica I should just change it ! Never really caught my attention that it was very plain at the bottom but makes sense now. Although it's not going to be a playable level, it still makes sense to start modelling this way so thanks for that.

The razor wire is all polys, I'm still not sure how I should be doing it. Should it just be a flat two sided poly with a texture and alpha map on it put into the shape I want?

And I'm still working on the external area utero, nowhere near finished that yet, so don't worry there's plenty of detail to come there!

[FozZ]

For the razer wire, make a cylinder with divides along it, and make it somewhat wobbly so it's not all uniform. Then make a texture which tiles, that has the wire in slightly diagonal lines, i.e.

/////

with an alpha. Apply this with cylindrical mapping and ensure it all lines up ok. If this is just in max or whatever program you're using, then make your wire material 2-sided. Presume it's not going into an engine.

Hope that helps

[Rossco]

Awesome cheers mate, I didn't know it was so easy! Just done the quickest test ever there and it's worked a treat, never even used an alpha map before so quite happy I pulled that off too!

Every day's a school day.

That's certainly gonna help the poly count anyway which was like 3,000 for the wire alone!

[Rossco]

May as well post some updates while I'm here too. Changed the guard tower to something much nicer, added tall spotlights and electricity poles/cables.

The lighthouse isn't going there, just chucked it into the render for good measure!

Thanks again FozZ.

[Number 28]

Razorwire looks good, but you want it to spiral right, not have hundreds of individual hoops? The scale seems a bit on the large side too.

I'd also do those electric cables in a similar fashion.

[utero2001]

looking good

is the prison going to be on a flat plain? or are you going to add some height to the ground?

[FozZ]

Razorwire looks good, but you want it to spiral right, not have hundreds of individual hoops?

This. Hence why I said to do the texture like tiling, like this /// and not like this ||| so that it gives the impression of a single spiriling piece of wire. To vary it up, you can also add in the odd plane that intersects the cylinder with random bits of wire on that look like they're tangles up in the main thing, or areas that have been joined together, etc. And yes, definately consider using alphas for your telephone wires, and lowering the number of sides on the poles (depending on how restricted your poly count is of course. I'm talking purely from a game dev viewpoint).

[Rossco]

Hehe sorry, should have said I was only doing that test to make sure I could do it easily enough as I had never used the technique before. I'll go back and do it properly at the texturing phase, I like to fully model everything first!

I'm not too sure how to go about it for the telephone wires though. At the moment it's a series of discs put together and obviously bent to show the wire bending which clearly takes up alot of polys. The only other option I can think of is to use flat polys followings the curve instead of disc shapes which will obviously reduce the poly count drastically but when textured would only really look good from certain angles would it not? Like when looking straight onto it. When looking at an angle it might not look so good?

The poles are 12 polys around, would you say that is generally too much? Bring it down to 8 maybe?

utero, the ground is going to have some variance in height, for instance I plan to make the road leading up to it have shallow ditches down the side. It was something I thought early on to make sure the ground had a good bit of variety in it, I think it can be overlooked quite easily and then the flatness can take away a great amount of realism.

Thanks again by the way guys, all the help is greatly appreciated!!

[FozZ]

12 sides for the telegraph poles sounds fine, it looked more than that.

With the wires, if you're going for solid geometry, then a 3 sided cylinder with maybe 5 divides/sections to make the curve with. You really shouldn't need more than that as they are up in the air, and rarely will a player be in a situation where more detail is needed. If you ever had an area in a level where this happened, then more detail could be added to that one area. This sort of thing happens all over in games. For example, the top half of a building exterior being less detailed than the bottom, and the roof details being very low. You just don't notice it if it's well done, and presume that the detail is maintained throughout the world.

Your other option, as said, would be to use a plane with an alpha on it. This gives you as smooth a curve as your texture resolution allows, but leaves it flat from below, however, you can then effectively use a normal map to give it extra depth from the best viewing angles.

Personally these days I'd go with a 3 sided cylinder and just make the curve as smooth as I can depending on available poly count. You've got to remember that in a game environment it's very likely that they would be animated to some degree to make them sway ever so gently in the breeze. This kind of movement really helps to mask the lack of detail.

...also how much attention do you pay to telegraph wires when playing games?

[Rossco]

Haha very good point! Although Im targeting a job in the games industry eventually, I still feel I should put as much detail as possible in since I'm still being graded for my degree on this. But then I also think on the other hand, I can use this to my advantage, by using all my documentation to explain that I'm on a limited poly count and have to find certain ways to overcome problems. Our reports are worth about 30% of our degrees so it needs to be good and I think making it a suitable a video game environment is a good angle to come from.

I'll try the 3 sided poly method you suggested anyway and see how I get on. The wires are certainly taking up way too many polys as it is right now that's for sure!

[FozZ]

Another point which has been raised again and again by a few of us in here, but is always worth mentioning. Make sure you use tris (triangles) for your counts, especially on anything that you'd put in a portfolio. One poly can have many hidden edges, which would ultimately mean several triangles if the edges haven't specifically been cut, and screw up your target count.

e.g. 1 poly being 4 tris

You should of course be aiming to cut all your surface into quads as far as possible, with the rest being defined tris.

[Rossco]

Yeh I always work in quads where possible now. Didn't used to bother as it was never really enforced by our lecturers strangely enough but I'm on board now!

And yeh, I almost forgot about poly counts as tris and not quads. Must remember that for portfolio time at the end of uni when I start looking for jobs.

So here's an updated render. I've reduced the wires from 8 to 3 sided cylinders. Previously they had 15 sections I believe and now they have 8 sections. So I've pretty much reduced the count on them by about a fifth. You can see the difference here but it's not too bad. Also brought down all the poles from 12 sides to 8 sides which you can't tell the difference with.

As you can see in the background, I've started work on modelling various buildings around the outside of the prison now. Seeing as the prison is the main show, I think I should do everything else first so that when I do the prison, I've got a wee bit more skill and confidence than before and will hopefully be better because of it.

[c-cat114]

Does anyone here use Blender and able to help me with a pic for a friend? It's a pretty simple water ripple thing I'm trying to do but I'm sick as a sick pig at the moment and unable to think for myself.

[rundll]

This the sort of thing? http://www.pekaro.de/blender/water/water_tutorial.html

[c-cat114]

Cool, but sadly not. What I'm trying to recreate is water ripples running into and then past an obstruction. sort of like this but in 3d.

((should have said fluid, not water doh. Told you brain wasn't working)).

[rundll]

This sort of thing? http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=157295