How do you model? - Time lapse references
polycounter lvl 13
Hi guys and gals,
I'm in the middle of defining some new modeling tools for 3ds Max, and directly looking at how people work is very inspiring, allowing to spot what are most used commands, features, or repeated series of actions. I try to figure out how to make the process faster and hopefully better by developing missing tools or sets.
I'm looking for links to polygonal (NOT ZBrush/Mudbox) modeling time lapses in any 3D software, of any kind of model being organic or hard-surfaces, low- or high-poly.
YouTube and Google can provide a vast number of examples, but that's not quite what I need. Everyone can record a crappy time lapse and put it online. I'd like to find worthy ones, like those made by you polycounters, or someone you regard with esteem.
An example I hold dear is this quite old video, one of the very first time lapses I guess, by Irfan Celik modeling a head in 3ds Max 4 with Laszlo Sebo's Meshtools.
http://irfan-celik.blogspot.com/2008/03/tutorial.html
And the whole series of Martin Krol's time lapses of his modeling in Mirai. (YouTube it, as they don't seem to be on his website anymore)
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=martin+krol+mirai
Thank you for your time and help.
I'm in the middle of defining some new modeling tools for 3ds Max, and directly looking at how people work is very inspiring, allowing to spot what are most used commands, features, or repeated series of actions. I try to figure out how to make the process faster and hopefully better by developing missing tools or sets.
I'm looking for links to polygonal (NOT ZBrush/Mudbox) modeling time lapses in any 3D software, of any kind of model being organic or hard-surfaces, low- or high-poly.
YouTube and Google can provide a vast number of examples, but that's not quite what I need. Everyone can record a crappy time lapse and put it online. I'd like to find worthy ones, like those made by you polycounters, or someone you regard with esteem.
An example I hold dear is this quite old video, one of the very first time lapses I guess, by Irfan Celik modeling a head in 3ds Max 4 with Laszlo Sebo's Meshtools.
http://irfan-celik.blogspot.com/2008/03/tutorial.html
And the whole series of Martin Krol's time lapses of his modeling in Mirai. (YouTube it, as they don't seem to be on his website anymore)
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=martin+krol+mirai
Thank you for your time and help.
Replies
http://www.vimeo.com/2879397
The transparent panels = mac though I think? I don't recall being able to do that on my pc. I've been using it only on my mac lately though.
http://jeremywynn.com/video/video.html
@ segreto: thanks for your effort, I like your work very much, and I find it valuable because don't have experience in mechanical modeling. If you plan to go on with videos, could you please increase compression quality a bit? If it doesn't make the file huge of course. I'm glad you use IllusionCatalyst and advertised it on Threedy Forums. If you don't mind, I'll bother you for some feedback in the future.
(Do you know that your nick means "secret" in italian language?)
http://blog.whiteblaizer.com/?p=106
Modeling in perspective as opposed to ortho seems to get better results? I was starting to think it was what was causing me so much problems with figure modeling. Watching that fly come together in perspective seems much more natural.
I really enjoy using IC btw, it's been really handy. I especially like the IC.shape tools. So much better than Max's standard brush tool!
Yeah, lol when I was younger I was looking through an Italian-English dictionary and saw the word.. been using it since on various forums.
Here's the timelapse for some parts of this model
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/93793/Videos/01%20Main%20Shape.avi
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/93793/Videos/02%20Stuff.avi
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/93793/Videos/03%20Useless%20Hole.avi
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/93793/Videos/04%20Lens%20Cap%20Front.avi
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/93793/Videos/05%20Lens%20Cap%20Back.avi
he shows how to make it look like that here if your interested:
http://www.vimeo.com/2389416
And to answer your question yes modeling in perspective has huge advantages.
Polyhertz that seems interesting! I don't think I can make much out of the video tho as it is quite obscure to someone not familiar with the app I think. But yes i seems quite flexible!
Is there a text transcript somewhere? Or even better, some kind of basics tutorial covering the core Blender polygon modeling toolset? It would be nice if an enthusiast could compile a lightweight build of the program with just such core tools, sculpting tools aswell, and nothing else! Like making a Silo out of Blender.
I've always been curious about this weird Blender best in the past it never 'did it' for me...
[ame]
(this one has really stupid annotations intended for a quake tutorial)
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i should note i wasn't serious in any of these videos (i.e. horrid uvs) but it does demonstrate my workflow with Blender. This is not how you should model or skin ever.
As pior talked about blender; I am currently reading an great tutorial about Blender modeling edge loops and poles. This one review many of the interesting poly tools we use in blender.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93651
also his models don't look very good, i'd tend to avoid things like that where it's a huge chunk of theory with no real practical applications shown...
http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php?t=907
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shows max and silo side by side.
show how you woulda done it
thats what this threads all about.
http://www.dejawolf.com/UVmapping.avi
its me UVmapping. 23 minutes of it. in DivX format.
- Select by Planar Angle could cut down on a lot of the tedious selections.
- Assigning matID's as you model can also be helpful in isolating mechanical pieces while unwrapping. It also comes in handy because you can hide/show based on matID.
- You spent a bit of time finding, sorting and scaling pieces. Starting off with better grouping in the beginning could cut that time down, along with MoP's normalize script, which was rolled into Renderhjs TexTools.
- You could probably select a matID group, apply box and move it off to one area, and do the rest for the others. Keeping them grouped would also allow you to more quickly arrange the pieces in a more ordered state, which would be easier to paint on.
- Not sure why you switched to UVWMap just to do a planar operation? When working in UnwrapUVW you can scale the Planar gizmo the same way.
- I noticed you pulled up pelt to relax (might have missed something else there)? Why not use standard relax from the tools menu? I have it bound to R I use it so much.
Great SubD info on this site. I never knew anything about N and E poles. CT, XT, etc.
well, it tend to not be very reliable in editable poly mode, (it selects faces on other elements)
so i generally just tend to forget about it in unwrap UVW.
i'll try to remember it though.
thanks! thats very useful, i'll try and do that.
afaik, RenderHJS's plugin is on on max9.
i'm on max 8, so nogo. upgrade will cut me short another 4600 (yeah, max is even more insanely expensive in europe)
right. didn't know about the matID trick, so i'll try and keep the mirrored parts on a separate ID and pack the rest. manual packing is a pain....
anal retentive perfectionism. my eyes start to swim when i try to scale by eye, so i just type in
a square value into length and width in UVW unwrap, and i know the circles won't be oval when i start texturing.
plus UVW mapping has a normal align to face feature.
i'd love to see those tools in the UVW unwrap though.
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actually, its the same reason as above, anal retentive perfectionism.
i figured out that applying the pelt map modifier to the piece will create a perfectly square UVW,
so its sort of a shortcut instead of using the UVW map. but it still doesn't have the normal align.
relax is great in most cases, although if you have a flat plate that you just planar-mapped,
it'll just bork up the whole UV. same if the UV is mirrored. it goes bork.
i have relax assigned to E btw. R is for unfold
most of max tools are great imo, its just that they're poorly streamlined, and all over the place.
They're all terms borrowed from NURBS.
http://vimeo.com/5718097
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=52415
I agree, align to face would be handy. In 9 or maybe 2008 they added a "quick planar map" button that does roughly that. Super effective. Before that I think it was a script, might want to search script spot, I forget what it was named... might have been part of soulburn scripts, or James Haywood tools? Maybe Paul Hormis... or maybe pen tools... bahh its out there somewhere.
Yea drove me nuts for a long time too. If it freaks out, flip it and it should relax fine. It attempts to flip pieces that are inverted (wrong reading). Select > Select Inverted, whatever it highlights should be flipped before being relaxed. You can flip it back again afterward.
The random relax freak out, more or less stopped being an issue for me. When I started grouping things and running a quick box map or planar map on the group that way they all start right reading and there is less chance for something to be flipped.
When you do a planar in Unwrap UVW the local Z axis should face the same way the normal does, out into space not in toward the model. if it faces in it is creating a inverted piece which will attempt to flip on relax.