I'm trying to create a graphic for my roleplaying group (for a map), and am having some trouble... I'm hoping that someone might have a suggestion for a model that I might be able to use to replicate this object from a "top down" perspective. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. :)

hmm..it's a bit curvy. Try the Wings 3d forum, Lightwave, and Rhino forums. I suppose the general shape could be done either from a cylinder and some work with the ends, but getting the filigree work on the sides is a bit past me..;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

Yeah, I tried modeling it from a cylinder and other basic shapes in Bryce... Needless to say, I failed horribly. :) I actually don't need to worry about the sides- I'm looking for a straight "top-down" view. That being said- I've not been able to replicate the overall "effect" yet.

I might be willing to give it a shot. I haven't had a lot of time recently to work on modelling and texturing, so you may have to bear with me a bit, but I think I could do it with a bit of effort. And there is absolutely completely and positively no way whatsoever to model this in Bryce. I'm sorry, but that kind of setup is well beyond Bryce's modelling capabilities (unless you want to spend several weeks creating it). Do you have a bigger picture of the object?

Unfortunately, that's the only picture I have of the object- it's from a magazine. If you'd enjoy the challenge of modeling it, I'd obviously appreciate it- but I don't want you to go to immense trouble... Either way, I appreciate it. :)

You want a picture of it as seen from the top? Sounds like the least time-consuming solution would be to draw it in illustrator and add shading to it in photoshop.

Message edited on: 02/08/2006 16:30

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Had a few minutes to spare so I thought I would give this a shot, so tell me what you think of it so far. I am modeling this from the "top-down", and refining and adding details as I go. It looks a lot like a lapis and silver pendant I purchased from a merchant in Katmandu some years back.

I often assign a different color to areas that will need further shaping and a different texture in Bryce. I think I can do a pretty fair job of modeling the fillagree areas with subdivision and will post some updates to see if this is shaping up as something you can use. Here's another preview from the top. I did a couple of extrusions and then a test smooth and I think it is coming along pretty well.

Okay, well since Danamo is going for it too, I might as well post a WIP. Here's my first shot, rendered in Bryce. Not too great, needs a lot of work (didn't really intend to post yet). sagastl-- What is this thing, anyway?

Lol, I just had some spare time and thought I would give it a shot Shinyary. Besides, it sounded like you had a lot on your plate, and I figured you must be tired after your excellent "engineering core" model.;-) Looks like you model from the top down too.

MAN- this is unbelievable (especially considering how quickly you're both doing it)! Both of them look great! Shinyary- it's essentially a magical lantern. It plays a relatively minor role in a published adventure, but I've increased its importance in my (long-standing) roleplaying campaign. Thanks to you both for your efforts... Like I said before, no need to do this if you're not enjoying doing so. I'm definitely appreciative of your efforts. :)

I think I'll go ahead and finish my version since it's a fun object to try to model. I'm really not in this as a competition, but I enjoy the fun and challenge, so I hope you don't think I horned in here Shinyary. Sagestl might like to use both versions. You really can't have too many magic lanterns!

What the heck? It didn't post my response. This is the second time this has happened. danamo-- Same here. As I TRIED to say in the message that it didn't post, it's as much about learning new stuff about Wings (in a Bryce forum, no less) as it is about helping out a fellow forumite on his role-playing adventures. No worries; it's all fun. It'll also be interesting to compare artistic style on the finished product.

waits desperately for his render to finish and for some spare time to pop up so I can try my hands on this thingy too I'm confident I can reproduce this thing in exact detail... -- Ray (Common Cay hurry up and kick some mental ray booty already!!! (Cay is my laptop))

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Thought I'd post an update. I'm working my way from the top down, concentrating on one area at a time. This may not turn out to be an exact replica of the picture, but you have to figure we're going from one angle shown in a small pic so hopefully it will be close enough when it's finished. @Sagestl- Since this will be a "magical lantern" do you want the model to be hollow to allow easy placement of a light inside? Also, are the transparent parts regular glass, or prismatic lenses? Well, back to wrangling vertices,lol.

My guess is that the blue parts glow. At least, that's what I'm going to do with it. =)

Yeah, it would be great if it were hollow to allow placement of a light. The transparent parts are colored (blue) glass. That's looking awesome, by the way. Would it be helpful if I tried to find appropriate textures (for the metal parts, for example)?

Thanks Sagestl. I will make the model hollow, but it will make the model quite a bit more "poly-heavy",lol. As far as mats or textures; sure, you bet, go ahead. I thought I would make a UV mapped ver. and a non-UV version with separate material zones to make it easier to apply different materials in Bryce. As a for instance; I could make areas of the lamp that would normally have more contact and wear be a brighter metal color, and areas that are more recessed could be a darker color.
Often times you can use one metal material and tweak it to look darker in the lower areas. The advantage of this is that the two mats seem to flow together naturally. Of course the glass parts would be transparent or translucent.

If it's a problem from a poly perspective, it can be solid- I can achieve much of the same glow/lighting effect with lighting and postwork, if needed.

Lol, no problem for me on my end. Bryce handles high-poly models pretty well. I guess it all depends on how much ram you have, and how many polys and mats you have in the rest of the scene. I've been building a lot of fairly simple low-poly stuff lately so this is fun.

Thought I'd post an update of my progress so you wouldn't think I'd forgotten you. I'm working my way towards the bottom, refining as I go. It's been my experience that if it looks okay in openGL then it will look okay rendered. I expect at this rate I will have a finished model for you before the weekend is over.

Wow! That looks great! Thanks for your (and everyone else's) efforts on this.

lol, I'm left in the dust. I haven't had much time to work on it recently, and I expect a busy weekend. I'll probably still go ahead and finish it off, but it may take me a while. =) Since I think that danamo's going to beat me to the punch, maybe I'll modify it a bit (oh boy, more fun!). At any rate, very good work danamo and I look forward to seeing the finished product! =)

Attached Link: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1110/681/1600/indigo%20lantern.jpg

If it helps (may be a bit late now... :P), I stumbled upon another (larger) image of the lantern on the web.

I clicked the link and got an "access denied" error, but I went to blogger.com and found the larger pic. It's much clearer in detail which will aid me a great deal! Thanks! @shinyary2- Thanks for the kind words Mate! I'm looking forward to seeing your interpretation of this object too. *and Rayraz's too,lol.

"acces denied" hmm... might not support remote linking to images or such?

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That's what I suspected too Rayraz. I just entered "indigo%20lantern.jpg in the search engine there and it took me right to it.

Huh, that's odd... Here's an upload of the image (so others don't have to go to the trouble of searching).

This image clears up a few issues I was having trying to get the detail right.

Well, I'm about 95% there, at least for my version of the magic lantern. After some false starts and numerous modifications, I've pretty much finished the meshwork and am toying with the idea of making a textured UV map, but I'll post a Bryce render using procedural mats on the model. The Model has been hollowed out and will be saved as an .obj file, unless you prefer another file format?

Well, I did a quicky render in Bryce with some slightly tweaked materials I had on hand, just to check how the mesh looked under lighting, and lit from within. I hope this looks like something you can use. I have the untextured .obj zipped and ready to send. It is 1.86mb, so I could even send it to you via email. Now, I hopefully get to kick back and see what Shinyary, Rayraz, and Cyba-Storm come up with.

This is AWESOME! As far as format goes, .obj is great. If you want to send it to me via e-mail, feel free- you can send it to sagestl at charter dot net (with the obvious conversions...). I'll host a link after I get it so others can make use of it... Thanks again, this is wonderful! (I'd love to see what others have done, too- like someone said earlier, you can never have too many magic lanterns... :P)

Sweet....

Okay, I will send it via email ASAP. Glad you like it. @Shinyary, Thanks!

Attached Link: http://webpages.charter.net/sagestl/MagicLamp.zip

I've hosted the file on my web space- I'll keep it there until I hit my limit. :)

I'm pleased to see this post is still running. I thought for one horrible moment the work I have been doing for the past few days was going to be for nothing.

Lol, trust me, all your hard work will not be "for nothing". I really enjoy 3D modeling for its own sake. This is a kind of object that I'd never tried before, and I learned a great deal and had a lot of fun in doing it.
IMO with every model you make you will become better than you were before, and learn new methods and shortcuts to achieve the effect you are striving for.

Someone recently posted a picture of a ship's bulkhead light in the Wings forum and asked how they might go about modeling it. In order to explain it, I actually had to build the model which I offered to the person. Even though they changed their minds and ended up using a different style of light, I did not feel I had wasted my time. With a little modification the "bulkhead light" became a Sci-fi skyscraper I plan to use in a future pic. It's a shape I might never have come up with on my own, and very different than any building design I'd come up with before.

"Now, I hopefully get to kick back and see what Shinyary, Rayraz, and Cyba-Storm come up with" ooh haha I see I'm actually expected to find the free time I wished for :-P haha Lets see what I can do 2night ;-)

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Cool Ray, I'd love to see what you wip up in 3DMax! The tools are layed out much different than in Wings I know, and you have many more of them.:-)

Here's a work in progress after about 5 hours of modelling. (who needs sleep?)

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still have to weight vertices, bevel some edges to make sharp corners. and there's some more fresn new geometry to be made orcourse.

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Lol, sleep is way over-rated, especially when you are young. Looks very good so far!

Looking very cool so far!

oh ouch, after some sleeping I just noticed some stuff I have to change. I'll need to take a step or 10 back I think.. lol ah well, it's nice to have checked them other 10 steps first so I at least know they work. hehe

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Lol, I went through much the same thing Rayraz. As I was modeling I would look at something I had done previously and decided I would have to change it to make the rest of the model as accurate as I could make it.

oh well it's not really a topology problem. Topology is something I think of before I start modelling ;) Thinking through your topology before you start modelling rather then during the modelling process can save you hours and hours of making up for mistakes later on.

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Lol, live and learn eh? I learned a lot doing this one. I think I will be better at the "thinking through" process on my next model.

I guess it also depends a lot on the modelling software you're working with. I think in wings it's probably harder to get your topology right because I didn't really find many of the tools I'm used to in 3dsmax lol. like where's the "create poligon" tool to draw poligons between vertexes? and where's the weld tool? lol never found them in wings :-S

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Here's a new WIP didn't have THAT much time to work on it some more, but I think my rebuilt extrusions are starting to look pretty good, I think I'll leave them this way.

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