Greeble Tool and Final Touch Ups

Week 6

This week in the practical Mario came over and had a quick look at my models and happily seemed quite impressed with the work I had produced (especially my Y-Wing) and offered me a few very helpful tips in which to improve my work further from mainly a technical 'nit picky' way.

I was playing with textures on my TIE Fighter when Mario suggested I look at the bump map texture shader. A shader which creates the illusion of detail and depth by tweaking the aspects of the texture map applied to it. I guess this is done by darkening the parts of the texture that are dark to begin with, to create a visual feeling of depth.

The next little tool (and by far my favourite) was a 3rd party plugin for Max called 'Greeble'. This excellent little tool uses a seed system to generate a bunch of module like blocks on the currently selected face/object and is just perfect for creating all the little details along the side of my Venator cruiser as it replicates perfectly what the modules along the side would look like. Also very effective for Death Stars and Star Destroyers might I add!

Finally Mario suggested that I do abit of clean up on some of the finer details of my models such as my Y-Wing, as where I have used the boolean tool to cut out shapes and details, Max has filled in with unnecessary lines and edges. This creates more polys and by removing them, although no change can be seen visually, technically it makes my model much more efficiently designed and lows the poly count, which in turn would make it alot more friendly to use in games, Below you can see a before and after shot of a section of my Y-Wing after I had cleaned the edges. If you can't see the lines, just take note of the poly count in the top right. I did this by simply selecting the lines I wanted to remove, and then clicking the Remove button in the modifier tab! Simples!

Before









After

The TIE Fighter

Week 6

As mentioned before changed my choice of a Vulture Droid Starfighter to a Imperial TIE Fighter. I did this because alot of the images I found of the Vulture Droid were either simple, too samey angles or useless photos of legos models.

While moddeling the TIE Fighter I actually made around 3 versions. The 3rd being my final model in which I used the 2nd version as a template and made small adjustments to things like sizes and detailing which actually look alot better.

Version 2

I felt overall I had successfully done good overall model, at least to use as a basis for a better, more detailed model. This versions proportions and sizes are slightly incorrect though, evidenced mainly by the cockpit window being smaller than it should be, The struts on the sides of the wings are also quite messy and don't really represent the struts accurately. Its also worth noting that even though TIE blueprints are easy to obtain, I ended up doing this entire model by eye without even realising.

Version 3 (Final)

For the final version I added alot more detail onto the body and fixed how the struts were. Instead of using just one shape I used two blocks for each strut and pulled them through the wing to save on polys. I cut in some vents using the Boolean tool on the wings to add more depth to the outer connectors.

Adding panels and details to the body was challenging due to the spherical angles. I found that pulling out a polygon and then extruding it would create a shape exactly on the angle of the body. I used this methods to make the various panels around the body.

Side Note: I was playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 recently and was flying around the in game Venator Cruiser model and comparing it to my own. I was pleasantly surprised to discover my Venator model is more detailed than the one used in game. All their detail was done using textures, while some of mine are actually 3D objects. It also has 10k polygons... But principle right?

Week 6 - Finished Models

This week I finished my final Venator model as pictured below. This is by far the model I have spent the most time and effort on, and was the one I finished first. The sheer size and scale means there was alot of detail I could have kept adding and adding, but I felt like if I carried on adding more detail to this, I would never get round to finishing my other models.

The final model has around 10,000 polygons even despite me doing my best to try and keep it as low as possible. I think the main cause of this is the detail I put into the engines as there are 6 in total, with bevelled and extruding cylinders. Another cylinder based object that is quite prominent on the ship are the turrets. With 10 in total, I think i made the bodies of the turrets have way too many sides for what they needed.

In conclusion I am very proud of this model, considering it is my 'first attempt' at making a finished 3D model and accurately recreating one of my favourite ships from the Star Wars universe.

The next model I finished this week was my Y-Wing fighter. I choose this for two reasons. 1. Because everyone does X-Wings and I wanted to do something different. 2. I felt the relatively simple shape of the ship would be easier to reproduce and add detail too.

The problem I got with this that all the reference images for the ship are very inconsistent. With versions of the ships missing parts, being a ever so slightly different model with detail changes, engine sizes etc making it hard to find just one set of images to work from. So I adapted my design slightly and opted to go for a more 'fresh out of the factory' look, over the tatty and battered Rebel Alliance versions. This would help minimize surface detail and inconsistency. 

In the end I feel that the Y-Wing came out alot better than I expected, especially if you compare my Version 2 with this. 

All that is left to do is my 3rd ship and after trying to find some decent reference images for a Vulture Droid starfighter, I couldn't most o them being useless lego images. So I have decided to change my 3rd ship to a generic TIE Fighter as they have plenty of images and should be easier to make a better model from.

Connor Gambles Blog Review

Connors blog is great at describing what he is currently working on, and the processes he uses to improve his models. These describtions are always accompanied by clear images showing the design process.

Each post has the title of the week it was posted (Along with the time stamp) which when you scroll through the entire blog, shows how he has improved week after week when you compare earlier versions of models to the newer ones.

I think some improvements that could be made is thta the pictures of the models he has created could be bigger, and have more variation in the angles, allowing us to see the entire model and if he does any detail, a close up of it.

All in all a very good blog which shows a clear process of design and improvement in using the software.

Link to blog - http://arusstarwarsmodellingproject.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2015-01-01T00:00:00Z&updated-max=2016-01-01T00:00:00Z&max-results=5

3rd Venator Cruiser!

Week 5

Just a quick update with pictures of my 3rd Venator Star Destroyer Cruiser. This is by far the most complex and time consuming model I have created so far, but I feel like it has come out really well for a 3rd attempt. Each time I create a newer version I feel I improve on using the software. This model has more detail than my previous two, but is lacking finer, smaller details. I modelled its turrets and engines seperately and then imported them into the Venators scene.

Engines

Back View

Turrets and Hanger

What may be hard to see in these screenshots is the angles of the ship. The Venator is quit tilted, and the back end is alot thicker than the front. It took some time to get the proportions correct, but I feel this attempt has them pretty accurate. I will use this model as a base template for my final model.

Y-Wing and Vulture Droid - Model Progression

Week 4

This week I started modeling my other two ships, as I felt I had spent alot of time on the Venator and needed to try my other two choices. I quickly made a basic, 1st draft of both ships, seen below. Both are realtively easy to model in a basic format, the shapes being very simple too and I found this to do with ease.

Y-Wing Front

Y-Wing Back

Vulture Droid Draft

I made these two drafts with visual references. There aren't that many good pictures of the Vulture droid, but I found plenty for the Y-Wing. 

In this weeks lecture Steve showed us how to import 'blueprints' and reference images into Max itself, in order to create more scaled and realisticly shaped objects. This was done by using the lign tool and simply dragging a image onto a plane object. I then used this technique on my 2nd Y-Wing, seen below.

As you can see, this one is more detailed, as I included details such as the turret, the R2 unit, more detail on the struts on the engine cylinders and the overall shape of the starship. Since the basic shape of the Y-WIng has been made on this version, I might use it as a template for my final model.

3DS Max Practice

Week 3

This week we were intorduced to more features and techniques of 3DS Max, making use of tools like the Align, Mirror and Splines, and how these cna be used to quickly and accurately recreate a model. Also learnt how to insert segments and polys onto an exsisting shape. Mario also showed us how to import a reference image into Max to work from, something I found highlyuseful in getting the shape of my Venator correct and in proportion.

1st Attempt at a Venator Class Star Destroyer

In this weeks practical we had a been set a simple house building task, something I completed fairly quickly and with no real differculty, before I went on to keep practicing my Ventator building skills. Below is my 2nd attempt at the Venator, and as you can see, it is more detailed and shaped much better than my first attempt at the ship. I think for now I will start practicing a different ship, such as the Y Wing, and then when I make another Venator, start adding in more minimal details (such as turrets and antenna) refine the body shape as well as I can to prehaps use as a basis for my final model.