Share your blockin models...

jocose

Shot in the dark here....

I'm really curious if any of you have any block in models that you would be willing to share. I've been practicing block in modeling lately just trying to get better at representing proportion and primitive forms before I tackle the real mesh, sculpted or sub-d.

I think this is a particular useful skill for anyone working of rough concepts.

If any of you have any of your roughs saved and would be willing to post/share them might be helpful/useful. I would love to see how others start thier projects

Also any advice or insight into how you integrate this step in the process into your workflow, or perhaps you don't. Either way any information would be nice

ZacD

For scenes or individual models?

jocose

Either, or characters/creatures. They are completely different problems on one level, but the general idea is the same across the board. I'm really just curious to see how people visualize things before they dive in.

Alberto Rdrgz

I don't have any at the moment to show, but generally... you just want to create basic boxy models that capture the shape or silhouette but there's really no wrong way of doing it. if i have time i'll post some when i make a new model.

ZacD

Yeah you generally want to do just enough to capture the basic silhouette and proportions, just basic extrudes, don't spend more than 15 minutes on it, sometimes I concept and block stuff out in sculptris :P

jocose

Cool, thanks Alberto, oh, and this was posted here awhile back. Has some really good examples, but i'd love to see more

http://www.nextgenhardsurface.com/showthread.php?401-NGHS-Article-The-Importance-of-a-good-blockout

And both of you, what do you do if the perspective is in question, say your handed a 3-quarter view, or the prop/scene was concepted at an angle of some sort. I know some people set up a camera, others just wing it. Any rules of thumb or philosophy there?

Personally I usually just eyeball it so I don't obsess over the perspective or any slight discrepancies. I saw stoofoo alt-tabs back and forth between the concept and his mesh. Thought that was a good trick to keep you from hyper focusing on irrelevant discrepancies.

gray

for biped characters you really only need one or 2 simple meshes. find a nice clean simple layout. then use soft select to find your form. that should take 10, 15 minutes tops. same if your modeling to photo ref. you should really just get the gesture and basic proportions in the poly model.

you should learn how to take that and block everything in quickly with brushes. in zb or mb.

I don't think about polys until after when you need to re surf.

as far as the meshes go its not even really worth posting. it should be simple and clean. the default human mesh in mb is prob as good as any.

jocose

Right, yeah most biped are solved for in several ways. I can see that not being as big an issue as something more exotic or ill defined.

seth.

slipgate did a movie of the first iteration block-out of Nightmare for brawl, here you go:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1312931&postcount=83

taken from this thread :

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82126

beancube

Apartment Whitebox blockout:

http://www.beancubeoflove.com/A_WHITEBOX.html

Xoliul

jocose wrote: »

Cool, thanks Alberto, oh, and this was posted here awhile back. Has some really good examples, but i'd love to see more

http://www.nextgenhardsurface.com/showthread.php?401-NGHS-Article-The-Importance-of-a-good-blockout

And both of you, what do you do if the perspective is in question, say your handed a 3-quarter view, or the prop/scene was concepted at an angle of some sort. I know some people set up a camera, others just wing it. Any rules of thumb or philosophy there?

Personally I usually just eyeball it so I don't obsess over the perspective or any slight discrepancies. I saw stoofoo alt-tabs back and forth between the concept and his mesh. Thought that was a good trick to keep you from hyper focusing on irrelevant discrepancies.

Heh, I was gonna offer some of mine, but all of them are in that article already

You seem to focus a bit on the technicalities of a block-in (out?), but that's not the point. HOW you do it doesn't matter, preferably just as simple and fast as possible, while still nailing the proportions.
It's about seeing and feeling if things look right without putting too much effort in it too soon.
If you want to see a more detailed runthrough, the very first part of my Dozer DVD details me doing the blockout. I talk a bit about why and so on.

Nick Carver

I do quite a lot of blockouts for concepting, as well as for in-game assets, and I tend to wedge primitives together for more blocky forms, and use shell pieces for more organic-looking stuff. So for instance, with the buggy blockout below, for the body I think I just started with a plane with a few divisions and extruded and split off different sections as I went along.




I tend to model in Smooth Preview mode in Maya to get a feel for the different curved surfaces. I also turn off the viewport lighting a lot of the time so that I'm just looking at a black silhouette, which helps me focus on the overall shape. If this starts to get confusing, I'll apply a shader with emissive to some of the sections/details so that I still have a good idea of the individual forms.




A good blockout really just needs to capture the first read in order to be successful. If you're working from a pre-defined, 2d concept then make sure you jump back and forth between model and concept frequently. Also, be aware that some things that look plausible in 2d don't work 100% when translated to a 3d model so the blockout stage is a good test of how translatable a 2d design is and also an opportunity to tweak shapes to fit.

Hope this helps!

jocose

Awesome, Xoliul, your explanation about feeling the model out is somthing I can relate to. I also very much relate to dustins need to understand how somthing works from a logical stand point. I think both are good and critical to a good prop. Gotta use both sides of the brain.

Everyone,

Thanks for sharing, all the links and images are really helpful.