Hi

Can anyone suggest some sites with good basic 3d modelling tutorials ? The software used isn't too important as I'm really looking to get basic ideas of how to go about modelling simple stuff like mugs, bowls and everyday objects etc.   (not heads or figures or anything - that's for in the future:)). I'm really new to modelling, and not really sure about the best way to go about things. I'll be using Silo and have a basic grasp of fundamental concepts and general tools such as lathe, subdivision, etc.  I have found various tutorials but alot of them seem to be for more experienced modellers which I'm not (yet - lol).

Many thanks in advance for any replies.

www.3dtotal.com  try them out. Good tuts there for numerous apps.

I agree for the most part the program it is written for matters little but it is best to start out with ones made for the specific program you are working with. Why? Well there are some things some programs will and wil not do. Wings for example has no lathe or loft tool so a tutorial written around those tools would not work. Once you get your feet wet and know your toolset you can then go on and try as many different tutorials as there are.

Sorry, there is no one basic collection of tutorials I know of that is good for everything. This is simply because the way for doing some things may differ quite a bit depending on if it's nurbs/spline or box/mesh/subdiv style modeling.

For box modeling, look at tutorials for: Wings3d, silo, 3DS, hexagon. Also subdivisionmodeling.com covers the theory of the approach in general. (But sometimes I finding myself wishing they'd invest in a faster server.)

For nurbs, I'd suggest looking at tutorials for: Rhino, AutoCad, Hash, Maya, AnimationMaster... I'm not sure if there's a place that covers nurbs modeling method as a general topic, but odds are good there's one out there.

And some apps seem to crossover with modeling methods, but typically an app will handle one approach much better than another.

I almost forgot, nurbs and box/subdiv stilll don't cover everything out there. (Close, but not quite.)

You've got modelers that use a "sculpting simulation environment", these will use meta objects (shapes that'll stick together like fluid or clay) and deformer/sculpting tools. These programs try to approximate modeling with real-world materials. Z-brush is probably the best known one in this category.

And then there are programs that use boolean methods for modeling. Modeling purely in the Brcye rendering program follows this approach. But then you're only limited to developing forms based on the primitive shapes you start out with. Other programs may again combine this method with nurbs or box modeling.

Hmmm...  Maybe there should be a big list of tutorials sticky thread that breaks everything down by method, application, and skill level. I think it'd be a great resource, and it'd probably fill in some specifics for newbs that are likely to ask very generalized questions.