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The 3D Thread

suzakuseven

By suzakuseven
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Asura

Asura

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Posted
Asura that is beautiful, I don't know what it is, but it's ace! :(

Your light setup is ace too there, looks very lifelike in that sense.

It's just rendering using 3DS MAX's Light Tracer rendering feature. Look that up and you'll be able to find a tutorial easily enough; it's good to know as it's the best way to display untextured models.

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Spudulis

Spudulis

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I'm glad I found this thread. I've just been accepted onto a "3D Computer Generated Imagery: Modelling & Animation" degree at Bournemouth Uni. Well it's a Foundation degree with a top up 3rd year which I'd go on to if I successfully complete the 2 year foundation.

I really don't know what it's going to involve and have never done any sort of 3d modeling before, but seeing all this is getting me all excited and now I'm really looking forward to it.

How did you all start off? Did you do courses or was it something you did at home and taught yourself through tutorials and such? I'm just finishing grabbing *cough* 3DS Max 2008 so I can have a play but I'm expecting it to be well over my head and completely confuse the hell out of me.

Also people were talking about texturing being done in Photoshop etc. Does this mean I'm going to need Photoshop skills too?

Liking the look of the CDJ-1000 mk3. A DJ set up was something I considered doing too as I've a pair of mk3's and a xone:92 sat on my desk. Ahh I've so much to look forward to! :)

When I was at school a mate got hold of a copy of 3D Studio. This was before Max it was the DOS version (showing my age now!). We had a play around and leart a bit. I then did a product design degree and we were taught modelling with AutoCAD and rendering in Max. I also did various little projects on my own that I set myself. I remember modelling the Millenium Falcon in AutoCAD and stuff like that. I kind of went from there although these days my 3D skills have taken a bit of a backward step. I'm ok but it doesn't interest me in the way it used to.

These days there are so many tutorials to help you out. There are some nice basic tutorials that come with Max so give them a go. I'd stick with modelling and texturing to start off with. Do some tutorials then set yourself a project. The key thing when doing tutorials is to really try to understand each step as you do it. Its easy to do tutorials where you just press the buttons it tells you to and enter the numbers it tells you to and you end up with a nice final scene but you don't really know how you've got there. As you go through have a little play with each function it describes to try to actually understand what everything does as you go. It may seem quite daunting but you can create some nice stuff pretty quickly once you've got your head around the basics.

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Asura

Asura

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Looks sweet. Are you going to texture it and all that shiz? Rig it too! I still haven't rigged the Ikaruga. I don't actually know how to rig in Maya yet. Dang!

I'm going to texture it, with normal maps etc. But I don't know if I'll rig it (I'm not applying for animator positions; I know the theory behind rigging and can do it in XSI, so I know how to make a model that will rig well, but time spent doing that is time in which I could model something else). I'll just need to pose it.

I've been having 2 problems, namely:

1) Polycount - I went into the project just because I wanted to model GM Custom; I didn't really think about what platform for. I'd considered editing it for use on PSP, but I've actually come to like it a lot and think I might go the other way, Xbox360/PS3 model territory. The problem with that is the level of detail goes up a lot, and I haven't got enough photosource (either that, or the sources conflict (!!! no shit) to go for that level of detail).

2) Problems with photosource - I'm having trouble with some areas, like the hands, the backs of the knees and the ankles, because in some cases my references are incomplete, and in some, they actually conflict (the version that appears in the anime, the model schematics and the actual plastic model differ in some areas). This isn't much of an issue for PSP modelling, where the polycount is low and these areas just have to be clean, as they're too small to pick out fine detail. PS3/360 resolution though and you've got a problem. I'm especially having trouble with the hands.

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utero2001

utero2001

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I'm glad I found this thread. I've just been accepted onto a "3D Computer Generated Imagery: Modelling & Animation" degree at Bournemouth Uni. Well it's a Foundation degree with a top up 3rd year which I'd go on to if I successfully complete the 2 year foundation.

I really don't know what it's going to involve and have never done any sort of 3d modeling before, but seeing all this is getting me all excited and now I'm really looking forward to it.

How did you all start off? Did you do courses or was it something you did at home and taught yourself through tutorials and such? I'm just finishing grabbing *cough* 3DS Max 2008 so I can have a play but I'm expecting it to be well over my head and completely confuse the hell out of me.

Also people were talking about texturing being done in Photoshop etc. Does this mean I'm going to need Photoshop skills too?

Liking the look of the CDJ-1000 mk3. A DJ set up was something I considered doing too as I've a pair of mk3's and a xone:92 sat on my desk. Ahh I've so much to look forward to! :P

Nice one on getting on the course, hope you enjoy it

learning photoshop is going to be important for texturing, but if your just starting on modelling then prioritise on that. You'll need photoshop in a few months time though, and it is pretty much used by everyone to create texture art.

Try and do as many max tutorials as you can, I learn't a lot of things in max the hard slow way by finding them out by myself, its much easier if you learn things the proper way through tutorials. Theres multiple ways you can do the same job in max so its sorta like being taught to drive by your dad, you pick up all their faults, so check in the user reference if you want to learn about something specific

If you can before your course starts work on the tutorials that come with Max (you might not get those if its pirated) and work on basic modelling and then onto basic texturing ( i remember the texturing on each face of a cube pretty simple in learning early texturing ) so you learn the max menu system and layout.

I've gotta pull my finger out and start that ruddy STARCHASER model again

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Asura

Asura

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Did one of the gundam models a few years back. I remember modelling it in maya and animating it in max. God only knows where the animation went though.

What's the polycount on that? I'm trying to stay relatively low.

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Laters

Laters

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What's the polycount on that? I'm trying to stay relatively low.

Verts: 10554

Edges:18329

Faces: 8348

It was just a "something to do" type project. I seem to remember wanting to test it as a quake model.

I imported the model to max and had nothing but problems with the faces disappearing. If you look at the render, on top of his chest you can see some black looking faces. There were loads of those all over the place, and I never did find out how to sort it.

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Asura

Asura

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OK, so basic modelling is done. Now I need to optimise this model, before making a high poly version for normal maps (basically just adding in all the notches and grooves) then unwrapping, and texturing. But I'm getting there :)

testrender5fh6.jpg

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Asura

Asura

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Verts: 10554

Edges:18329

Faces: 8348

It was just a "something to do" type project. I seem to remember wanting to test it as a quake model.

I imported the model to max and had nothing but problems with the faces disappearing. If you look at the render, on top of his chest you can see some black looking faces. There were loads of those all over the place, and I never did find out how to sort it.

Are those faces triangles? Or polys/quads?

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  • 3 weeks later...
Asura

Asura

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Jeeeesus Christ. I'm about to put a fist through a window.

I was working on MAX ALL MORNING, doing the high poly version of that mobile suit so I could render out normal maps. It was FOUR HOURS work, in which I saved incrementally so that if there were any problems, I wouldn't lose any work.

Now I've tried to come back to it, and none of the scene files I have after I started working on the higher poly model will open. All of them crash as I try to open them.

I'm furious. There's a huge amount of work gone down the drain there, and though a poor workman blames his tools, when a whole series of cascading saves have been rendered useless - well - that's not really acceptable from any kind of commercial program. I mean what else are you supposed to do?!?

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Asura

Asura

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Send the files to someone else to see if they can open them. Maybe your machine can't cope with the polys. If they can open them, they could break the model down into bits, so you can hide/unhide sections. Maybe you did that anyway, I dunno.

I managed to sort-of fix it in the end. I created a new scene file, and bit by bit merged all of the models into the new file from the old, corrupt one. Turns out it's the high-poly left foot causing the problem.

:)

Anyway, at least I can progress from here.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Asura

Asura

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Posted

I seem to be the only one still using this thread, but anyhoo, I finished the high-poly version of the GM Custom model and fixed a couple of problems with the low-poly one. Rendered out a quick cel-shaded shot whilst I was at it. Next, I need to unwrap the low-poly model, then render out the normal maps, then texture it, and then I'm done!

I'm considering doing the texture mapping entirely using my graphics tablet, using no photosource (apart from a few reference pictures of the suit). That's a bit of a gamble though, so I might stick with my current technique.

gmshzp8.jpg

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