All in all it's been nice to develop my ability to model accurately, render, texture and composite.
Tuesday, 10 January 2017
AC Cobra Modelling Challenge Outcome
I'm really happy to conclude this little project I've had on the fly, a Car Modelling Challenge. The primary objective of the project was (as per the description) to focus on the modelling of a vehicle. I chose the AC Cobra 427 partly because it's iconic curved bodywork presented a challenge as it would clearly force me consider the changes in its geometry, the curves as pinch points: and partially because I've always been fascinated by the vehicle, even as a kid. I still had one of those 1:30 scaled toys of the Cobra on my window seal.
All in all it's been nice to develop my ability to model accurately, render, texture and composite.
All in all it's been nice to develop my ability to model accurately, render, texture and composite.
Monday, 5 December 2016
Vehicle Visualisation: PT1: Modelling
I'm delighted to share with you all the first update of my latest personal project; creating a vehicle visualization based from orthographic sketches. This first post covers a step by step of the modelling construction process of the vehicle and some little hints and tips for people who may find this a daunting task or are simply interested in how I tackle modelling procedures inside 3DS Max
Tip 01: It's really quite handy to arrange your view ports/ screen space in such a way which is comfortable and coherent for the user. I personally quite like to use my second screen to cycle through reference images, which gives me a better idea of the shape and contours of my model WIP and an easy way to compare differences.
My second tip is to utilize your modifier stack so that you can always move down onto the 'fundamental levels' (if you will) to edit the shape and curvature of the model at hand. Creating a mesh should be tackled in the same way as laying the foundations for a home. (If the foundations are incorrect you can guarantee the bricks which come later will not hold). My typical stack could contain a modifier selection something like this...
Shell
Turbosmooth
Symmetry
UVW Map
Edit Poly
...theres no wrong or right way to model.But I would strongly encourage a modifier stack somewhat similar to the above as you can quickly move up and down the stack, and vehicles are generally pretty symmetric (so you're cutting your work flow in half by moving back and forth between the symmetry modifier).
My third tip is to use the see-through and clay modes to help visualize your model WIP. This tip is more a personal choice. See-through mode (Fig.2) can be accessed by RMB and clicking on the object properties tab, allows you to model your mesh and display a reference/orthographic scale drawing to model against. Obviously very handy.
Secondly I like to use clay modelling a lot because I find that various textures and colours inside the viewport can become distracting and hinder the objective of working out the shape of the model. 3DS Max will by default assign different colours to different layers, so if you're solely focusing on modelling and not texturing at the same time, it's pretty easy to end up with a multi coloured viewport.
Without further ado, here are some very quick renders for my work in progress. I hope these quick tips help some of you out there, even though I can appreciate a lot of this is basic or common knowledge. Thanks!
Fig.6: Wheel Mesh Wireframe
Fig.8: AC Cobra Rear Cam
Fig.9: AC Cobra Front Cam Wireframe
Fig.10: AC Cobra Rear Cam Wireframe
Fig.11: Beauty Shot
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Legacy Work: Uni Outcomes
This post features some of my legacy pieces of work from my university days. I felt that these videos were particularly important to my progress throughout CG art and animation.
The topmost two videos display my Minor and Major project outcomes, whereby I had to devise game assets and an environment using Autodesk Maya and the Adobe Suite (2015).
It was my task to develop a concept from scratch, develop the concept in 2D before creating the assets in 3D. I stumbled across the idea for the Aqua Marines because I was particularly concerned with the contemporary environmental issue of trash vortexs inside the Pacific Ocean. I therefore decided to make a game designed to educate young children of the environmental disaster. The game concept featured a series of animals from the Pacific Ocean who used the various personal attributes to overcome missions to save the environment. (Think ThunderBirds but with live creatures instead of an assortment of machines).
The final video was a small project I undertook to produce some assets based on historic evidence. I chose to design assets from the battle of Arnhem WW2. This was an excellent project which introduced me to the notion of LODs and correct UV texturing processes for games. It was also really nice to learn about the sacrifices of the soldiers and to build something important and meaningful to our history.
I hope you enjoy these legacy videos, it's a pleasure to share some of my professional past with you all.
The topmost two videos display my Minor and Major project outcomes, whereby I had to devise game assets and an environment using Autodesk Maya and the Adobe Suite (2015).
It was my task to develop a concept from scratch, develop the concept in 2D before creating the assets in 3D. I stumbled across the idea for the Aqua Marines because I was particularly concerned with the contemporary environmental issue of trash vortexs inside the Pacific Ocean. I therefore decided to make a game designed to educate young children of the environmental disaster. The game concept featured a series of animals from the Pacific Ocean who used the various personal attributes to overcome missions to save the environment. (Think ThunderBirds but with live creatures instead of an assortment of machines).
The final video was a small project I undertook to produce some assets based on historic evidence. I chose to design assets from the battle of Arnhem WW2. This was an excellent project which introduced me to the notion of LODs and correct UV texturing processes for games. It was also really nice to learn about the sacrifices of the soldiers and to build something important and meaningful to our history.
I hope you enjoy these legacy videos, it's a pleasure to share some of my professional past with you all.
Thursday, 15 September 2016
Render Update
It's been quite a while since I last managed to post some personal work online, this being said this post is an opportunity to share some of my latest little renders with you all.
The images below are by no means my best works, but they have definitely helped me to learn some new techniques in both materials and modelling with 3DS Max and VRay.
In particular I've been getting creative around procedural maps within composites, as well as exploring translucency and caustic refraction.
Modelling has just been about getting more precision in my models and working to a higher functionality, maintaining a nice and easy geometric flow in models whilst adding more technical details. the boombox for example has lots of intersecting faces and holes to model around.
Fig.6 Boombox 04
Sunday, 3 July 2016
Product Visualisation: Rendering a Wedding Band
In this post I'm just going to take you through a few advanced modelling techniques I used to create this wedding ring/band, and again highlight some of the processes I used to generate a render for this product visualisation.
Before rushing into modelling it's good to look at reference images to work out how you can minimise your workflow and start to think about what techniques you will deploy throughout the creation of the object to ensure you are working in an optimal workflow.
One of the first features I noticed in rings/wedding bands were repeating sections. An easy way to minmise and enhance control over your workflow is to build repeating sections of the band and then deform them into the specific shapes.
In my case I used the a square socket shape for the diamond sections of the rings to create a repeating shape from.This involved me creating reference objects and then deforming them along a spline path using the 'Path Deform' modifier. Reference objects allowed me to control the entirety of the diamond repeat sections by modifier just one portion. I.e you can then apply UV mapping or any modifier to the original to effect the references.
In order to create a sharp edge on the diamond geometry I simply used the auto smooth function at a degree of 1 over the entire object in the edit poly modifier settings. See Fig.6
Here are the results before the final texturing and lighting...
Fig.9 Rings UVs
Thursday, 2 June 2016
Product Rendering: The Watch
Just a quick one, I thought I would share this nice watch I designed and made inside 3DS Max. The larger learning curve for this mini project was working with advanced shaders to produce realistic rendering results. I took my light rig from the previous post (Automotive Design project) and altered some values. Leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. Ta.
Fig.2: Advanced Metal shader
Fig.4 Final Outcome
Fig.5 Final Outcome Wireframe
Automotive Concept PT 3: The Outcome
So here she is, she's been sitting in my drafts for a while waiting to be posted. I didn't do anything spectacular with render layers for the final (although if I did have the time I would like to go back and revisit it; perhaps for another day), there was merely an alpha channel, beauty and AO pass, with a little bit of touching up inside of photo shop. All in all I'm really happy with this project, I got to learn a few new modelling tricks, I think the design of the car sits cohesively. Many thanks for all of your input.
Labels:
3DS Max,
Automotive,
Compositing,
Design,
Gallery,
Rendering,
VRay
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