Hi all, I never model anything until now, but I need a "gothic classroom" and I want to make it by myself. What are the steps to bring this project to life ? What kind of primitive should I use to start ? Thinking 3dmodeling is totaly new for me. Thanks for all inputs Laurent

You should really start on something a little more obtainable for someone who has never modeled anything before. It takes time to develope skills, and be good at this. How about starting out with picking a modeler...then learn the tools and how to use them. After that try some tutorials for the softare your using. See, because had you done this ahead of time, you wouldn't have nneded to ask your question. I'm really not trying to sound like a prick, but if you want to learn how to model you need to learn how things work first.

Step One -Patience. This is a very big project for a beginer.

I would sugest you model some of the items you will need before you attempt to model the whole room.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Gothic Classroom"

Can you elaborate by showing us an inspirational picture of what you are trying to make?

Hi there Laurent.

Listen, it's not really going to be possible to answer the question without knowing a few things. for starters

Which Modelling application are you using?

What's the gothic classroom going to be used for when its done?

Have you designed it yet? Made any drawings or sketches to work from? Do you have any reference pictures or photographs to show what you want to do?

For starters there's a good thread over on the Wings forum showing different ways of making Arches and round windows - key elements in gothic architecture, but it is very specific to Wings.

So what are you using?

regards

peejay

Don't forget Rhinoceros! It's one of the best modelers you can use. Check out Rhino here at R'osity as well. Try the free download, which is a fully functional version of the real thing. They give you so many saves and once those are used up, you can still use the program, you just can't save your work without purchasing a licence.

Also the support from the McNeel Software company is phenominal. They have a moderated newsgroup where the owner even lurks around to answer questions. And as for Peer to Peer; Rhino at Renderosity is the greates on-line user forum the world has to offer!

I own Lightwave 7.5 and just start to understand how the modeler is working. I used it for rendering but I tought it was a good idea to learn the modeler part too. The room I want to make could be a castle room like "Harry potter" one (best exemple in mind for the moment). I plan to use all the item for a small movie i try to make. That a bit creazy cause I made a dress in few minuts but still looking how to start this room... Anyway, thanks Laurent

Ok, thanks for that.

Firstly, if your going to be using it in animation, then you probably want to keep your mesh size down, that is model with as few polygons as you can get away with, and do as much with textures and bitmap images as possible.

So you need to design a room without a lot of fine detail in the structure. In other words, put the detail in the texture not the structure. Have a look at the work of ENI OKEN, sorry I don't have a link, but any search engine should find her. Look at the way she uses complex textures against plain ones on very simple objects to get very rich, gothic looking results.

Second, you must get out your pens and pencils and draw what you want to make. For example, if it is for animation - do you need the whole room at all? Perhaps you only need half a room, or one end of a room? Don't waste time making what you will not use.

Third when you have some sketches, post them here or in the Lightwave forum, and someone will take it from there

good luck

peejay