The Vagabondage of a Novice
polycounter lvl 18
Greetings! I'm completely new to game modeling and in order to motivate me I've decided to make a thread about it. Hopefully this thread will be like a journal for my models and maybe get some feedback and maybe get some questions answered. I'll try to get one model done a day. Let's get into it!
Item Chest: This will be a chest that a player will run into in order to pick up items. It's suppose to look strong and hard to open.
Front:
Front + Top
Side + Back
Comments:
This wasn't that hard but I'm sure I didn't do something right. I think the side of the chest looks a bit weak. I wanted to add maybe a block with a large ring so it looks like handles but I wasn't sure how to do that.
Questions:
I'm experienced with doing textures for models so I would really like to UVmap this and paint it. However, I'm a complete nub on UVmapping and the best way to do it. I've checked some online sources but I'm having a real tough time with it. If anyone has any hints or tips for me that'd be awesome.
Did I model the side correctly? I think the middle section, with the 4-5 horizontal lines could of been cleaned up better.
Does it look like a "treasure chest"?
Is this the best way to show models that aren't textured? Is it hard to spot flaws?
That's it for today!
Item Chest: This will be a chest that a player will run into in order to pick up items. It's suppose to look strong and hard to open.
Front:
Front + Top
Side + Back
Comments:
This wasn't that hard but I'm sure I didn't do something right. I think the side of the chest looks a bit weak. I wanted to add maybe a block with a large ring so it looks like handles but I wasn't sure how to do that.
Questions:
I'm experienced with doing textures for models so I would really like to UVmap this and paint it. However, I'm a complete nub on UVmapping and the best way to do it. I've checked some online sources but I'm having a real tough time with it. If anyone has any hints or tips for me that'd be awesome.
Did I model the side correctly? I think the middle section, with the 4-5 horizontal lines could of been cleaned up better.
Does it look like a "treasure chest"?
Is this the best way to show models that aren't textured? Is it hard to spot flaws?
That's it for today!
Replies
Something that helps me when I work is to think about the detailed story of said object. Looking strong and hard to open is a start but maybe some more info could lead you to refining the details and adding interest. Things like, how is this transported, is it mass-produced, did this one fall off the top of a stack and have a funky bump on one corner because of that, are they prone to getting kicked because of their height, do soldiers use them as makeshift tables during their watch and spill rations on it?.. etc.
My suggestion would be some kind of hand-hold, or make larger ridges on the underside for use with some kind of palate-jack or forklift equivalent.
Depending on how you extruded them, there are some squarish bits on the front and back that may be causing a few six-sided polys.
It does have that "hey I hold items" look to it.
Luck!
it's not clear from the model itself: is this intended to be a medieval/fantasy chest, or something science-fictiony? in both cases, carry handles could be something to look into, but primarily you're not really communicating the stated intent of "looking really hard to open". if it's scifi, consider almost something that looks like a bank vault locking mechanism... make it big, taking up most of the front of the chest. and if it's a scifi chest, why can't you play with the form factor more? why does it have to look like so standard a chest?
one of the first design exercises i did in college as an industrial design major was to create a light fixture. now close your eyes and think of the first image that comes to mind when i say the word "lamp." you're probably thinking the same thing google image search comes up with: one of those traditional style lamps with a tapering cylindrical diffuser on top. good design means breaking out of those immediate associations, or at least playing with them a little.
what does this have to do with this chest? well what's the first thing you picture when i say "treasure chest"? something that doesn't look all that far off from what you've modeled. now, in the context of a game, that sort of iconic construction can be a real asset, because with the player interacting with it, we want to make sure that he or she knows that it's a treasure chest that they're looking at. something that says "open me, i'm potentially full of goodies." but there are a lot of different and potentially more interesting ways you can communicate that same method without having to model the same old chest.
hope this unsolicited lecture is of some use
Zergxes: I'll try to put a handle on it. It would really bring it out more. A lot of those details you talk about I could bring out in the texture once I figure out how to unwrap it. Are six-sided polygons a no-no?
Gauss: Thanks for the lecture!
DVD Case: I looked around my desk for the first thing to model and this was it! Nothing special, but it's easy and it's easy to mess up on something so easy. I said easy a lot.
Comments:
I do believe that the horizontal lines going through the entire front of the model are wrong. I'm not extaclly sure but it looks funny to me and could be cleaned up some how. I'm pretty happy with the "curve" of the side. I wasn't sure if I was going to figure that out but I played with it and I think I did pretty good there.
Questions:
I'm trying to clone the top vertices to the bottom ( in the picture, the vertices that I'm trying to clone are the blue ones and the vertices I'm trying to connect to the object are red)
This brings up the question of "What is an Object?" Well, an Object is a named set of verts, edges, and polygons which are not necessarily actually connected, but just share the same name and are editable at the same time.
Back to the original question. I think what you are trying to do is possibly weld the vertices together? If you showed a viewport render of the area in question with edges turned on, and then explained your actual intent, it would probably help me, or someone else, to help you with this problem, since I cannot quite tell what it is you want to do, nor where those verts lay on the actual model.
Keep going though, you're doing good for a beginner and some of us are here to help (although I've been mainly a lurker til now, lost my old account and have been waiting to get it back, but decided to give up and start a new one to help you out.)
Some things to keep in mind: Try to keep your model in quads, its alot easier to see whats actually going on with the topology that way, and easier to work with in general. Much more consistent and predictable results. This means that any any polygon should have only 4 sides whenever possible. Even if an edge is totally straight, it doesnt necessarilly mean that it is only 1 edge. An example of this is the bevelled bit on the right-side of the case. The 4 polygons that border it on top and on bottom break up all of the ones they are bordering. This is a pretty hard concept to understand I think now that I'm this far into it, maybe someone else could explain better? Different example, a little easier. The top face on the front of the case is a good example. Notice that it is bordered on bottom by 2 polygons, and so it has 5 edges. If you were to select that vert where its 2 border-edges meet and drag it down, you would see that it actually has 5 sides, and is just disguising itself as a quad.
A way of being able to see this in action: Right click on the object, go to "Properties" and untick "Edges only" This will let you see ALL of the edges on your model, rather than only the border-edges. (Note that I havent used Max in a few months, switched to Silo recently, and so I'm not sure if I'm exactly right in telling you how to turn off "Edges Only" but its something very similar to what I just said, maybe a few words are different, if anyone else could please clear it up if I'm wrong in any way)
Hope I helped some, even though I couldnt answer your question.
I guess the best way to put it is you want your stuff as clean and efficent as possible. That's the 'why' answer.
If you would like to be able to move those 2 verts and still have them connected to the original verts at the same time you can select an edge in subobject mode and shift+drag the edge and it will stay connected to the original verts. Something to note, this is only possible with an open mesh so for example if you make a cube and try this it will not work, however if you make a cube, delete a face, you can then shift+drag any of the edges along the opening in the mesh.
looking at your model... If you wanted to add another segment along the vertical axis you could delete the polys you want to seperate, select the open borders in subobject, shift+drag to where you wanted the xtra verts and then target weld the seams together in vert or edge mode. I made a gif of the process but I dont have any upload software to my host on this pc... Ill see if i cant put it up soon for ya.
on a side note you could chamfer an edge loop to form the extra verts but if the loop is on an angle of any kind it will distort your original vert placment alittle.
In maya you can select an isoline and just drag and it will add a perfect continous line along the mesh but thats with nurbs, not polys. I have yet to see this applied to polys in a program... this is probably because nurbs verts are placed in 3d space according to mathmatical calculations that follow its own laws, where as polys you can manipulate any way you want.