Ok, guys, time for most of you to DE-lurk.  I thought it might be fun to start a thread like this.  I've seen them in other forums, and they're pretty cool.  Basically, you just post whatever it is your working on model-wise; be it a wireframe, clay render, or production render, to keep the thread growing.

All skill levels welcome; beginners to advanced, and doesn't matter what software you use.  Don't be shy. It's a fun way to learn, and get inspired too.

I'll begin.

Spent the day playin around with  concept chair designs.  I call this one the Triskelion Chair, for obvious reasons (I hope).  The idea came to me after stumbling on a video tutorial about spline modeling a Omega Chair, which is a pretty simple modern chair design.  I got a little bored of the tutelage, and decided to take it in a much more experimental direction.  Personally, I find the lines unusual but sleek, and it "could" actually work in fabrication; I'd seen some two-legged, angled chair designs that actually stood pretty solid, so this could work too.  The twisted, flowing legs here are admittedly extreme, but it looks pretty interesting with textures and proper materials.  I've got it all UV mapped, and just about ready to roll out as a freebie.  Here's the wireframe:

I started it as a spline model with patch topology, but then converted it to polygons, and continued editing it with your average edge and poly modeling operations.  It's all quads, except for two damned tris hidden down in the corner of the legs somewhere.  Not a big deal, so I'll leave em.

Total modeling time: about 30 minutes, mostly because I couldn't decide what "ornament" I wanted for that hole in the back (I like making holes in objects for no reason, then deciding what to do with them later - hehe).  The chair's profile reminded me of a Triskelion motif, so I went with that.

Who's next? ;)

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I made a pair of S-curves like the ones used in aesthetic callesthenics (exercise which also looks artistically beautiful).

Mini test video is here on YouTube : http://youtu.be/SV532sRfMyA

To see a real life demo by some folk I do not know, see this video on YouTube ( just ignore the first several seconds of the guy prepping for the demo !) : http://youtu.be/Fo6qxye-Vbc

Eternal Hobbyist

 

I've been working on a garden / courtyard kit for creating some scene settings.  I've almost got all the prop models built, few more small decorative items to make and also a cypress tree to figure out how to make (plants are something I've not done much of so that's going to be a new challenge).  The fountain is built in sections to allow it to be taken apart and re-arranged for variation and the water spouts on the fish have a morph to control how far the water stream shoots out.   There are a couple of props not pictured here (a wall niche that inserts into the wall, a pedestal base, some decorative garden urns and vases).  The bench is still being tweaked, but will also come in a curved version and there will stone back that can be attached to it to change its appearance futher.  The decorative bits on the columns are individual props that can be added where ever you like (I'm making a set of 4 different decorative medallions).  Also the finials on top of the columns are separate and there are currently two different types, I may add a third.  The tops of the columns also morph shape from pyramid to completely flat.

I have virtually all the texturing and bump maps to do still.  The limestone block walls are the only thing with a finished texture and displacement map.  All the detal in the fountain is modeled in the mesh, no bump map on it at all. 

I'm also still pondering what to call this kit.  I'll worry about that when its finished.  I hesitate to say how long because everytime I do something comes up or goes wrong and it all gets delayed so I'm just not gonna jinx it.  LOL

The modeling has been done entirely in Blender 2.67b.  Textures and bump maps were done in a combination of Blender, Filter Forge and GIMP.   The background is a stock photo from CGTextures on a simple semi-circle surround prop I also made in Blender.  Most of the prop meshes are around 1500 verts each, except for the fountain which with all its parts totals around 40k verts (I splurged on it since its the center piece).

So definitely still a work in progress.

My daughter is building her own place - well, with the help of a contractor, of course - and she let me have a peek at the plans. Which I've imported into Blender and am now having a play... not terribly accurate, but i't more so she can have a rough idea if like - in the attached image - a window over the sink can actually work.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

infinity10, those look really cool, especially in that quick animation.

BardicHeart, great work there!  Lots of cool details put into that, like those spitting fish, and those twisted ornaments on the columns.  That's looking great so far.

RobynsVeil, that looks very good so far.  Love that refridgerator.  The only thing is that the table appears a little too tall.  Otherwise, very interesting, and I'd like to see how this comes along.  I was working on my own kitchen layout recently.  I might upload that to this threa at some point.

Great work so far everyone, keep the thread going.

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LuxXeon - Thanks, its been a fun project though at times frustrating.  I've rebuilt the meshes of some parts so many times I know the verts by heart at this point.  LOL  But that's just the perfectionist in me.  The fish spouts were one of those frustrating challenges.  I started out in Blender using is fluid dynamics simulation trying to create a spout of water that way.  While I got some pretty cool results, they were also so high poly there was not way to use them (300k verts, looked awesome but... ugh).  So eventually I went back to a small cylinder, array modifier, curved on a path, then added some distortion to add some variation.  Worked pretty well and also made creating the morph target easy.  The columns were a fun touch, just "screwing" around in Blender with the screw modifier (pun intended, been waiting all day to use that!).  LOL

Looking at the mesh for your chair I was noticing how you mapped the quads around the circular cut out.  That's something I need to get better at doing.  Its a very clean mesh and I can appreciate the skill that went into making it.

Robyn - Building a room is something I want to do in the near future.  I'd like to do something Victorian or Georgian or Queen Anne.  Did you build from a floor plan or measured drawing?  I'm thinking about using a home architect program to create the floor plan I want, then import that as a plane into Blender, match the scale and use that to work from.

@LuxXeon, thanks. Getting the animation done took some tweaking, and I'll need more time to get a good choreography going. 

Eternal Hobbyist

 

Quote - @LuxXeon, thanks. Getting the animation done took some tweaking, and I'll need more time to get a good choreography going. 

I looked at the real life video, and it's really amazing stuff.  Never saw that kind of dance before; it's both beautiful and unique.  I think reproducing this in keyframed animation will be no easy task.  Good luck, and keep us posted with the progress.

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Was bored about a month ago and looked out my window wondering what I could start to model. Seen the ole' Dodge in the driveway and took a few pictures of it and played around off an on with it for a week in Cinema 4D. So after I played withit in 3 other programs an finally into Poser to finish the Dodge I decided to go back to Cinema and build my dream truck a monster. Am working on the finishing touches, still have a couple weeks of texturing between my golf, boating on the Mississipi, and riding the ole Harley cause the weather been great for the last week and will be for next week. But it'll get hot again so I'll have to wait to finish it then. Named it "Guts n Glory",

Schurby

 

Quote - RobynsVeil, that looks very good so far.  Love that refridgerator.  The only thing is that the table appears a little too tall.  Otherwise, very interesting, and I'd like to see how this comes along.  I was working on my own kitchen layout recently.  I might upload that to this threa at some point. Great work so far everyone, keep the thread going.

Thanks, LuxXeon.

I'll have to admit: the fridge is a BlendSwap model - one I did a bit of tweaking to, including changing the shader - by Sendercorp. The table (and everything else you see) I modelled myself, but I agree - it needs to be resized a wee bit, yet. I'm modelling the chairs atm, but since the emphasis is getting it so my daughter can get an idea when the room looks like, so I'll be concentrating on cabinetry and stuff like that.

So, this isn't so much an artistic effort rather than a quick archvis project... what's nice is that I can use real-world measurements, which I did use on the benches and will do for the table, since Blender uses 1 metre as default unit of measurement, same as we do here in Oz.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks

Schurby - That's an impressive truck model.  Look forward to seeing what else you do with it.

Ok, I'll play.  I modelled this today in Cinema4D.  Can't show the finished render, because it's part of an arch shot for a client, but I can show the wires without issue.  My colleague did the exterior structure, and facade.  I did the interior models.  We have a brilliant texture artist that really made this shot look incredibly real in the final render, with some insane Vray mats.  Our lighting guy is credited for this light setup, which is completely lit from the outside (it's an enclosed room).  But this is a modelling forum, so that's my work below.

C4D / Vray render.

Quote - Was bored about a month ago and looked out my window wondering what I could start to model. Seen the ole' Dodge in the driveway and took a few pictures of it and played around off an on with it for a week in Cinema 4D. So after I played withit in 3 other programs an finally into Poser to finish the Dodge I decided to go back to Cinema and build my dream truck a monster. Am working on the finishing touches, still have a couple weeks of texturing between my golf, boating on the Mississipi, and riding the ole Harley cause the weather been great for the last week and will be for next week. But it'll get hot again so I'll have to wait to finish it then. Named it "Guts n Glory",

Those are impressive models.

@sinnersaint - I like the way that mesh looks even without final rendering.

Eternal Hobbyist

 

Detailing my Aerotrain some.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - Detailing my Aerotrain some.

That looks interesting so far, Shawn.  Are the door panels modeled into the geometry as well, or are they just mapping details?  Also, is that black square in the front/middle, between the two "intake scoops", a deleted polygon?  Just wondering if that's an intentional detail, or if it's a reversed normal, or render artifact?

Sinnersaint, that's a good looking room.  I like that chair.  Did you model the tree/plant as well?

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Quote - > Quote - Detailing my Aerotrain some.

That looks interesting so far, Shawn.  Are the door panels modeled into the geometry as well, or are they just mapping details?  Also, is that black square in the front/middle, between the two "intake scoops", a deleted polygon?  Just wondering if that's an intentional detail, or if it's a reversed normal, or render artifact?

 

Doors are modeled into the shell.  The hole in front is for a video camera to see out, so the pilot has a forward view on his monitor.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

I got the V4.2 model loaded into Marvelous Designer as an avatar.  Made a one piece bathing suit.  Friend wanted a skirt to go with it.  Have some issues with collision and how it works in dynamic cloth in Poser.  Prolly have to separate the skirt from the suit as totally separate objects for Poser, not sure yet. 

Playing with LunarCell.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

What is Lunar Cell?

Here's another object I've been working on a bit today.  It's a 3D-printable "Faberge Egg".  The details are all modeled in, and in some cases, so tiny you really need to zoom in to see them.  Very painstaking, but simple polygon modeling here.  About two hours of work, but only 25% completed.  Once done, I'll do an STL check, and then send this off to become my first actual 3D printed object (fingers crossed).  It only appears to have thickness at this point.  I'll add a shell modifier to thicken it up when the polygon details are done.  We will see how much of the details are actually going to make it into the print.

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That's interesting Lux

LunarCell helps make planets.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT2p39ypras

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - LunarCell helps make planets.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT2p39ypras

Yeah, I Googled it after I asked, and found it.  Looks interesting, and useful for making the texture maps, etc.

Here's my latest.  I did this model today, and about to finish up the maps for it.  I'll upload it to freebies tonight.  A tufted hydrolic footstool.  Started out where I just wanted to model some wheels, so that I had them to use in future projects (these kind of wheels come in handy), but went the whole nine yards and made the entire chair.  Took about an hour total modeling time.  All quads, and unless I decide to add any more detail, which is unlikely, it currently sits at 14,500 polygons.

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Quote - Here's my latest.  I did this model today, and about to finish up the maps for it.  I'll upload it to freebies tonight.  A tufted hydrolic footstool.  Started out where I just wanted to model some wheels, so that I had them to use in future projects (these kind of wheels come in handy), but went the whole nine yards and made the entire chair.  Took about an hour total modeling time.  All quads, and unless I decide to add any more detail, which is unlikely, it currently sits at 14,500 polygons.

Well, this model is finished now.  Here's the production render:

It's also now available in .obj download from freestuff here, as well as on Turbosquid and ShareCG.com.  All parts are UV mapped independantly, but I only provided the texture maps for the seat part.  The others are just as well with procedural metal and plastic shaders.  Here's the links to download the model:

Freestuff on Renderosity (.obj is up, and .max version should be approved soon)

**Turbosquid.com **(obj and .max files as separate download)

**ShareCG.com **(both obj and .max files in one zip download)

**
**

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Not bad.  What was used for the UVmapping?  3D-Coat straightened things out for me.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - Not bad.  What was used for the UVmapping?  3D-Coat straightened things out for me.

Thanks, Shawn.  In this case, the model was UVmapped in 3dsmax.  The seat was a little tricky, as UV mapping isn't my forte, so I employed a plugin called Unwrella, which creates very good "automatic" UV maps in Max.  All other parts were simply done with the standard UVUnwrap tools.

I hear 3D-Coat is an excellent tool.  Personally, there are cases where I will export a model for unwrapping to Sculptris, which does an excellent job of automatically unwrapping a model, then paint texture maps in there, and export back to Max.  I try to avoid this if possible though, because the UV coordinates Sculptris provides isn't very friendly to someone trying to create their own textures by hand.  Unless you also paint your maps directly in Sculptris after the unwrap, the UV "packing" and seam layout it provides would be very complex and confusing to a texture artist trying to paint on them in Photoshop or the like.  Not a big deal, unless you plan to distribute the models to others, and want to keep things as user friendly as possible.

Did you have problems with the maps on this model?

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That's the trick with UVs sometimes, using an already existing texture pattern that the UVs lay over, or painting the textures manually over the UVs.  Then there is the texture baking that locks in the UVs from changing.  But you can still re-UV and bake again using the new UV layout.

I will take a look at Sculptris again.  I never tried the UVmapping it has.  3D-Coat spoiled me with its one-click auto-UVing.

3D-Coat found some overlapping and some stretching of the UVs for the seat.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - That's the trick with UVs sometimes, using an already existing texture pattern that the UVs lay over, or painting the textures manually over the UVs.  Then there is the texture baking that locks in the UVs from changing.  But you can still re-UV and bake again using the new UV layout.

I will take a look at Sculptris again.  I never tried the UVmapping it has.  3D-Coat spoiled me with its one-click auto-UVing.

3D-Coat found some overlapping and some stretching of the UVs for the seat.

That's funny about UV overlapping for the seat, because I ran the CheckMate Lite tool on it, which is the standard that Turbosquid uses, and it found no overlapping UV's. 

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Shawn, here's the UV coordinates.  I don't see any overlapping seams or verts here, do you?  Not saying there's not any stetching, because I'm sure there is.  I set a margin of error for stetching to 0.1.

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I don't see any either in that image.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - I don't see any either in that image.

I ran yet another check with Max's own UVunwrap tools, and still no overlapping UV's.  Hmmm.  I trust Checkmate Lite for evaluating the mesh and UV's, so I don't know why 3D coat turned up that issue, and that concerns me.  Although I have released some free models where I knew the UV's were overlapping, I certainly don't want to release any that I think are not, but actually are.

I may have to download the trial of 3D coat and see what's going on.  I'm wondering if perhaps the fact that I separated the UV zones on the seat into 3 different groups, for the 3 different color textures, has anything to do with 3D Coat reporting overlap?  I think maybe the reason is that when I export the model to .obj, those 3 distinct material groups get merged into one.  So that indeed would cause overlap.  However, the overlap is not present in the .max version of the model.  If that's the case, then I'll have to figure out another way to export unique maps for the same UV coordinates.  I might have to split those parts into separate objects, which kinda sucks.

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It looks like just a rendering issue in 3D-Coat.  Either a normal map or material name has a different spec assigned to it.  But it's minor.  But give its UV mapping a try.  It clears up the preview render of the seat when the UVs are more unified like this.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - It looks like just a rendering issue in 3D-Coat.  Either a normal map or material name has a different spec assigned to it.  But it's minor.  But give its UV mapping a try.  It clears up the preview render of the seat when the UVs are more unified like this.

Interesting.  I'll have to give 3DCoat a try for it's UV mapping.  Thanks.

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Now rendering an animation.  Here's a frame from it.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - Now rendering an animation.  Here's a frame from it.

Looks good, Shawn.  Will you render out with motion blur, or add it in post?

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No motion blur.  Just texture filtering so far.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Animated clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsKv6dB2zZU

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - Animated clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsKv6dB2zZU

Great stuff, Shawn.  I like the production quality, and even though I thought I would miss the motion blur, it wasn't a big deal.  Typically, animations without some motion blur have a tell-tale "strobing" effect;  I didn't get that impression with your sequence there for some reason.  Also, when you showed the still image earlier, I thought you may have too many of those trees repeating in the background terrain.  However, once again, the final result didn't give that impression.  It looked very good.

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I thought I'd have too many trees, too.  I had it on its lowest setting.  But forgot that adding a blank object to the trees would have spread them even farther apart and fewer of them.  Next time.  Lots of errors can be found in the clip.  Put the brain doesn't see them on the first go-around.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Fastnet lighthouse.

Just off the west coast of Ireland, or some way off the east coast of America depending on how you look at it!

I took a boat trip out and around it a few years ago and was humbled to say the least. I live in London and you loose track of the elements, I've digressed

Anyway this was a quality build and cost £17000 around the turn of the last century.

My suspision is that each stone is more or less the same size so as the diameter increases at the bottom there are more? My thoughts turned to UVs and how?

I'd UV map it the same way I'd map a cylinder.  Then use procedural shading to generate the blocks, grout, and grime on it and bake as textures maps.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

You're right Shawn, I've over thoght this. Thanks

At first I always think I'm going to paint texture image mat over my model.  Never seems to work.  Then I just do procedural textures and then bumb it.

After that, you can paint the rust marks from the windows on the model itself and re-bake.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

So far......

Quote - So far......

That looks good.  What's that red bit?

The red block is just a 2m height ref.

I'm going to do the rock as well. Are there any alternatives to a mesh? Say G2H or Vdisp, just thinking out loud with this aspect.

airflamesred, the lighthouse model is looking really good so far.  Impressive, and ambitious work there.  I'll be interested to see how you decide to attack the terrain.  Personally, I would stick with a mesh, even if it's a triangulated quick fix from terrain height data.  It's predictable and precise, compared to displacement alternatives, and of course more widely compatible if you ever decided to distribute, or re-visit, the scene in the future.

Here's my latest offering; a modern "Saturn Chair".  Should be available in Freestuff here soon, as it's waiting for approval.  It should also be on Turbosquid and ShareCG.com very soon, as with all my freebies.

All quads, finished with 25,898 polys total, and 25,868 verts, which I don't think is too bad, considering the detail on the base and in the seams.  I optimized the topology as much as I could before the desired profile changed.  ShawnDriscoll, if you see this, I used 3D Coat for the auto-unwrapping on the seat portion for this one.  Checkmate Lite said no overlapping, so if 3D Coat reports any, then it's 3D Coat's fault. haha.  The base portion I unwrapped with Max.** ;)** 

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Some stuff I'm doing in my spare time.

Quote - Some stuff I'm doing in my spare time.

Very impressive.  What are the specs here?  What software, poly count?  Can we see the wire?  Im about to take an advanced course in organic modeling in the fall, so works like this have particular relevance to me now.  Any info on your workflow could be helpful.  The course I'm enrolled in will be creating the base mesh in 3dsmax, which I'm very familiar with, but then they say the beauty work will require Zbrush, which I'm NOT familiar with at all, and the thought of learning that application is giving me anxiety.  I've been practicing over the summer in Sculptris, and while it's obviously a great application, it's still quite awkward to me.

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Thanks. It's ok. The more I look at it the less happy I am with the design. This was done, start to finish, inside ZBrush using Dynamesh. The current count is about 6 million polys across 8 subtools. That's only because I'm using Dynamesh for all parts at the moment. I can bring the poly count down using ZRemesher. What class and where are you taking it?

 

ZBrush's Dynamesh feature is very similar in some respects to the way Sculptris works. The interface of ZBrush can be intimidating but really, you don't spend as much time screwing with it as you may think. Most of your time is spent with your brush and your object (ZBrush calls objects subtools).  You can watch some of the creation of this guy - which started from spheres - right here:

 

http://youtu.be/3KaJDh0qzfc

and here:

http://youtu.be/86uZqu3KOuo

 

And this one is another Dynamesh model. Here you can see the entire workspace and how quickly I was able to get from start to finish using ZBrush's Dynamesh feature (there's a timer running as I work). Dynamesh is great for speed sculpting.

 

http://youtu.be/PPyS5C-aMf0

Teyon, your sculpting work is remarkable.  The sign of a great artist is someone who is never truly satisfied with their results, and I can tell no matter how great everyone else thinks your work is, you are always finding the flaws and wanting to improve.  My last professor noticed that about me too, so I can relate (not to say i'm a great artist, although I'd love to be someday).  This is my second year attending a local University in my area that, fortunately enough, has been offering some really excellent, professional courses in 3D modeling.  Utilizing this resource last year is what afforded me the opportunity to get 3dsmax, and learn it.  Before that, I had been modeling here and there in Wings3D, but the University was instructing 3dsmax, so I felt that was my window to expand my resume.

Anyway, I noticed in the early part of your last video that you attached elements to your figure automatically, like the ears, that were already modeled.  How does that work in Zbrush?  Are things like ears considered primitives, like we have geometric primitives in most traditional poly modeling applications?  Sculptris only offers the clay sphere, and a flat plane as primitives.  Interesting stuff there.  How good are the retopology tools in Zbrush, because according to the cirriculum outline I have, we will be working with retopology in 3dsmax, using it's own tools for that purpose.  I'm aware Zbrush has them,  I'm just wondering why we wouldn't be using/learning them.  Then again, this class is focused more on the 3dsmax software I think, because the instructor is Autodesk certified in Max, and I had him in my class last year as well, so that would explain it.

I might be hitting you up in a month or so for some Zbrush tips. haha. ;)

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Thanks, yes I'm always trying to improve and always learning. Figure once I stop learning I may as well go ahead and die. 

 

You're super fortunate to be taking a class in school! I had to teach myself all this stuff and only now, years later, am I taking the odd on line course at ZBrush Workshops. While a lot of what's shown there are things I knew, there is always something I learn be it a new way of thinking, seeing or doing. So by all means, study your craft and ask lots of questions!

 

As for adding objects like the ear...there's a number of ways to do that in ZBrush. The easiest (now anyway) is the Insert Multi-Mesh brushes. These are user defined brushes that have a collection of parts you've made and saved as a brush to be recalled on the fly. ZBrush comes with a bunch - heads, bodies, ears, nose, mouth, etc. - so you'll have a easy place to start. All you do is pick the brush, hit the letter M and choose the mesh you want to add to your scene. Pretty painless.

 

For blending it in the way I did, you'll want to be using Dynamesh, which is the closest thing you'll get to working with clay in a digital medium these days. LOVE IT.  LOVE IT.

 

ZBrush has several retopology features. The fastest being the new ZRemesher. It works pretty well but can cause spiraling topology if left to its own devices, so I suggest using guide curves if you want clean circular loops. If that's not a concern, then have at it.  There are other more manual methods but I personally prefer Topogun's toolset for manual retopology. I have Max and the toolset there is good - comparable to Topogun in a lot of ways - but I just like Topogun more and that's what I use for work despite having access to Max, Modo and Silo which all have great retopology tools. Personal choice.

I only retopology in ZBrush to get a sculpt with subdivision leves from a dynamesh model (dynamesh doesn't use traditional subdivision). In that case, I'd run ZRemesher and then contine on my merry way, sculpting while going up and down subD levels. Once complete, I'd retopo in Topogun, UV in UVLayout and rig in Poser (I work for Smith Micro so all my models end up in Poser).

Teyon, that's some really fascinating info on Zbrush.  The thing that really intimidates me about it is the unconventional UI, and the unconventional tool system.  I know people often criticize Max for it's congested UI layout, but I always found it to be one of the easiest to grasp.

I've heard of Topogun, of course, but haven't tried it yet.  I have literally spent every free moment I could over the past year or so learning the ins and outs of 3dsmax, both in classes, and in my spare time.  I've probably put in well over 200 hours of my own personal time just experimenting with the modifiers alone, and learning to master its parametric modeling techniques.  Probably another 200 to 400 hours fooling with all the tools in the Graphite Modeling ribbon, and playing with the Loft and Spline tools.  It seems the depth of the software is endless.  No matter how much I "think" I know, or what technique I feel I have mastered in Max, I find someone somewhere that reveals yet ANOTHER method to do something.  There's probably 10 different ways you could model a simple vase in Max, for instance.

As I said, I may contact you again regarding Zbrush once these classes begin, if you don't mind, as I may need to "pick your brain" about some things.  I'm determined to graduate this class in the top 3.

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Hi, I am currently working on what I call "The Aerolounge" - aboard a huge airship/airliner, this is the ballroom and dining room. The ribs with holes in them were the biggest challenge since each one has a unique shape dictated by the bow of the Aerocruiser (already created).

All mesh modelling and UVs done in Blender, transferred to DAZ via OBJ format.

Anyhoo, the Aerolounge is mostly made but once again, I have a good model (or two) that could be made into content for sale here but I lack the time and currently the knowledge of how to rig for Poser.  . . .so, anyone want to mke some pocket money and collaborate with me to get things up on the site?

Not sure this will work, first time posting image here in the forum:

Quote - Hi, I am currently working on what I call "The Aerolounge" - aboard a huge airship/airliner, this is the ballroom and dining room. The ribs with holes in them were the biggest challenge since each one has a unique shape dictated by the bow of the Aerocruiser (already created).

All mesh modelling and UVs done in Blender, transferred to DAZ via OBJ format.

Anyhoo, the Aerolounge is mostly made but once again, I have a good model (or two) that could be made into content for sale here but I lack the time and currently the knowledge of how to rig for Poser.  . . .so, anyone want to mke some pocket money and collaborate with me to get things up on the site?

Not sure this will work, first time posting image here in the forum:

The image isn't showing up in the thread for some reason, but I did find it by following the image link in the HTML.  Not everyone will know how to do that though, so you may want to try this post again.

From what I see, it's looking good so far.  I know what you mean about the "ribs".  I recently created a Cappellini S-style wicker chair, with the wicker fully modeled, and the curves were a challenge at first, because each one was it's own unique size, plus interwoven with other geometry to create the wicker surface.  Once I got the workflow sorted, it was easy sailing.  There's a WIP thread of it's build in this forum somewhere.

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Model for the Bad King Monster Brush contest. I'm modeling the head from scratch and then trying to blend it into artwork by Danny Williams (aka PointPusher), Tihomir Dimitrov, Trevor Crandall, and Dominic Qwek. Should be a fun piece once completed.

There should be a nudity flag on the image above. I forgot and now I can't flag it.

Quote - Model for the Bad King Monster Brush contest. I'm modeling the head from scratch and then trying to blend it into artwork by Danny Williams (aka PointPusher), Tihomir Dimitrov, Trevor Crandall, and Dominic Qwek. Should be a fun piece once completed.

Great sculpting.  I see you got stingy on the details when it came to his package, and I can't blame you there.

Our team is currently working on a new home for a real estate dev company in Argentina.  My job is to do all the modelling for the kitchen area, for the previz walkthrough.  Normally we'd have a ND agreement, and I wouldn't be able to post anything until well after the project had been presented and approved (sometimes not ever).  However, this time there's no such stipulation about public WIP's, so here's what I have so far, as a blueprint wireframe render.

Teyon, fantastic character.  The details and expression you captured in it are amazing.  Great work.  I have to wonder though, is this a rigged figure, or did you sculpt it in that pose?  If it's designed that way, I assume it's for a still render only, and there would be no way to ever rig the creature for animation?

SinnerSaint, cool render effect there.  I'm assuming that's done in Cinema4D, since I know you mentioned that was the software your studio uses before?

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Thanks, it's for a still, so it's not rigged. I'm sculpting assymetrically in Zbrush. I could go back to before it was posed and recreate the figure I guess. Some of the details would be different but it's possible in theory.  Or I could just make something better, lol.  Here's a Poser render of the ZRemesher version without displacement. I am still working on the model's detailing and textures but I wanted to see if it would even render well. Often what looks good in preview may not look so great when lit. Went for a more moody, silhouette feel here. Rendered in Poser Pro 2014.

Quote - Thanks, it's for a still, so it's not rigged. I'm sculpting assymetrically in Zbrush. I could go back to before it was posed and recreate the figure I guess. Some of the details would be different but it's possible in theory.  Or I could just make something better, lol.  Here's a Poser render of the ZRemesher version without displacement. I am still working on the model's detailing and textures but I wanted to see if it would even render well. Often what looks good in preview may not look so great when lit. Went for a more moody, silhouette feel here. Rendered in Poser Pro 2014.

That's a decent SSS shader, it seems.  I like the  deep backscatter in that render.

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Here's some wires and a preview render of the latest freebie I just released.  I did some tight chamfering on the edges to help with detail and provide highlights in renders, and had fun making the pouf cushion.  Still, I managed to quad everything up, and kept the poly count below 30k for both objects (table and barstool).  There's a few minor issues with the placement of the UV seams, but hopefully no one will care.

 

Fun models to create. Modeling time all total was only about an hour, but the UV unwrapping and texture painting took a solid 2 hours, with the cushion taking up 90% of that effort.

Here's a production preview render of the cushion from the top view:

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Quote - Thanks, it's for a still, so it's not rigged. I'm sculpting assymetrically in Zbrush. I could go back to before it was posed and recreate the figure I guess. Some of the details would be different but it's possible in theory.  Or I could just make something better, lol.  Here's a Poser render of the ZRemesher version without displacement. I am still working on the model's detailing and textures but I wanted to see if it would even render well. Often what looks good in preview may not look so great when lit. Went for a more moody, silhouette feel here. Rendered in Poser Pro 2014.

That subsurface efect looks great on the ears, but some of the other parts need a map to controle how deep the scatter is, because his fingers look like they have no bones since the scatter depth is about the same as the ears, which should consist of cartilege. The redness outside the shadowed areas is nice.

Luxxeon, I downloaded your table and chair to check out the mesh close up.  Not bad.  The texturing looks good to me, except that the cushion has some repeating patterns that don't quite line up correct between some of the seams, if that's what you mean, but you would need a very specific camera angle to notice that.  Overall, the modelling looks good, except the top of that chair could use a few more edges to smooth out the curved parts a bit more.  It's only noticable in very close shots, but there's some low rez edges there that trigger my OCD.

:-) Good points

Quote - Luxxeon, I downloaded your table and chair to check out the mesh close up.  Not bad.  The texturing looks good to me, except that the cushion has some repeating patterns that don't quite line up correct between some of the seams, if that's what you mean, but you would need a very specific camera angle to notice that.  Overall, the modelling looks good, except the top of that chair could use a few more edges to smooth out the curved parts a bit more.  It's only noticable in very close shots, but there's some low rez edges there that trigger my OCD.

That's a fair critique.  Yes, that's the "problem" I mentioned about the cushion earlier, and one of the many drawbacks to using an "auto-unwrap" feature.  For the unwrapping, I employed 3DCoat again, as with my last freebie, for some of the sub-elements.  It's spoiled me a bit, as the results are very good usually, and fast.  However, the way the UV's are packed, and the seams it creates, can lead to problems when using patterned textures like this.  99% of the cushion seams are fine, but there's a few spots that keep it from being perfect, and I'll work that out next time, by unwrapping manually.

As for the lower-res edges: just subdivide the model in your application of choice before rendering.  My goal has been to provide models that are efficient, detailed, and well crafted.  However, I've found that most people who download them prefer if the mesh contains a reasonable polycount.  In this case, I feel that the model is as good as can be without offering a densly tessellated mesh.  Most 3D applications today have some form of Catmull SubD implimentation, and this model is perfectly suited for adding another iteration IF you choose to.

The barstool comes in at exactly 20,346 quads.  Should be perfect for medium to distant shots, and quite acceptable for close shots.  However, for really close up shots, I might suggest a single iteration of SubD at rendertime, which would balloon the resolution of that object to 81,384 polygons;  OK for rendering, but not so great for distribution.

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Luxxeon, to your credit, I did attempt to terminate some edges on your models in C4D, just to see where I could free up some polys in order to add some more edges to the top, and I must admit I wasn't able to do very much without altering the profile, so you did a fantastic job at keeping all the polygons meaningful, and the objects have very good topology.  I was able to attach some edges to the top, without Hypernurbs smoothing the object, but in order to keep the polycount right around where you had it, I was still forced to remove edges elsewhere, and was then left with some less than perfect curves in other places. Somehow ended up with a few Ngons too.  Kudos to you for intelligent edge placement.  On the other hand, I will say that I was able to save over 200 polys just by removing some of the bevelled edges, which I felt wasn't helping much, especially on the seat, where no one would see that detail.

I also thought it was good, Lux. A couple of awkward polys at the top and the cushion UVs aside, another fine product. I see them being used in renders, which must be pleasing.

Quote - I also thought it was good, Lux. A couple of awkward polys at the top and the cushion UVs aside, another fine product. I see them being used in renders, which must be pleasing.

Thanks very much.  Yes, there's at least one guy over on DA who I know uses them quite a bit, and I've run into a render here and there where someone has used a chair or two, so it's a great feeling that people are finding a use for them.

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Here's my latest work.  This one was originally a model I made for someone at ScriptSpot.com, which is a maxscript resource website.  He had a script for 3dsmax that allowed the user to create incredible compound lofting and lathing, all in one easy-to-use tool.  I liked his script so much, I modeled a fairly complex lamp with it in less than 5 minutes, which I called the Nail Lamp, and made a render of it for him to use in his advertisements of the script, or however he'd like, as a promotional image.

Long story short, I decided to revise the lamp by making it a screw shape instead, and improving upon some of the details, then offer it out there for anyone to use in their renders as a freebie model.  Here's some wireframe shots, and production renders of the model I just finished today:

The model was done in 3dsmax 2012 (of course), and is 100% quads.  I UV mapped it half by hand with the tools in 3dsmax, and half with 3DCoat.  I'm happy with how the shade came out, and included the lightbulb as a bonus object.  I did the basic lofting and lathing for all the parts with his script, but the revisions (the switch on the socketshell, the shade harp, and the finial decoration) were all done with standard polygonal modeling techniques.

I just uploaded this completed model, with all the textures, etc. to my account here, so it should be available to download soon.  It's also up right now on Turbosquid and ShareCG.com, if anyone is interested in looking at the topology up close.  I've provided it as .obj, so it doesn't matter what modeling app you use.

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Dear Group,

I would like to recommend to you a new site I am working on, Leopoly.com where you can CREATE 3D CHARACTERS for free. My aim is to establish an online, 3D sculpting app for easy 3D printing and for fun. The site allows users to co-create each others designs. You can even paint objects online, which is also a worlds first... I would be more than happy if you would visit the site and give feedback about it. www.leopoly.com

I've just created this alien in 1 hour. You can also further shape or paint it if you feel like. Just click on the picture at: http://leopoly.com/view/?id=5888&object=grey-1

All the best,

Newest model in progress... a high detail Dream Catcher.  Basically an exercise in spline modeling and compound lofting in 3dsmax, this model will demand at least 90% spline modeling techniques, and quite a bit of mathematical modeling (as you could see from the phyllotaxis spiral of the inner webbing).  Of course, the end result will be polygonal, but i'm finding out this would really be a challenging model to do any other way.

Any thoughts so far?  Anyone ever try modeling one of these?  I'm thinking I'll do the feathers as FULL geometry too, using splines.  I have a handy maxscript that can make very convincing feathers without the use of opacity mapping, or texturing of any kind really.  I've been wanting to try that out for a while now, and this is probably a good candidate to do it.

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Quote - Newest model in progress... a high detail Dream Catcher.  Basically an exercise in spline modeling and compound lofting in 3dsmax, this model will demand at least 90% spline modeling techniques, and quite a bit of mathematical modeling (as you could see from the phyllotaxis spiral of the inner webbing).  Of course, the end result will be polygonal, but i'm finding out this would really be a challenging model to do any other way.

Any thoughts so far?  Anyone ever try modeling one of these?  I'm thinking I'll do the feathers as FULL geometry too, using splines.  I have a handy maxscript that can make very convincing feathers without the use of opacity mapping, or texturing of any kind really.  I've been wanting to try that out for a while now, and this is probably a good candidate to do it.

 

This really interests me, Luxxeon. I could reproduce Phyllotaxis patterns using MoGraph in C4D, and we've done examples of it in Xfrog.  We also modelled a test using Rhino with Grasshopper, but my math needs tweeking.  I've been wanting to do this for an architectural presentation, where the ceiling of the structure would introduce a phyllotaxis system in a dome-shaped responsive framework..

**SinnerSaint, **I probably could have used a mathematical plugin for Max to get this, but i thought that might be overkill.  I did the webbing "by hand", using S-shaped splines, rotated and instanced every 15 degrees, then mirrored and welded together to form the phyllotaxis pattern.  While it's not as precise as formula-generated geometry, neither would be the real-world counterpart, which are often made by hand.   I just started adding some beads, which is done by simply instancing a cylindrical primitive every 15 degrees along a circle shape.

I'll probably repeat this everywhere the splines intersect.  Poly count is going to be high on this one, but I'm optimizing wherever I can, without sacrificing detail.

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looking good. how do you get around the intersection, or will the beads hide all?

Quote - looking good. how do you get around the intersection, or will the beads hide all?

Thanks!  Currently, there's intersecting geometry where the splines cross, and I'm covering some of that up with beads.  I'll then go back and simply delete the hidden geometry under each bead manually.  The other option is just to move the splines above or below each other so they never intersect at all, but that's not really how these things work in real life, so I don't think I'll do it here.

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Quote - looking good. how do you get around the intersection, or will the beads hide all?

Mark, you really got me thinking about this now.  The spline geometry intersections are going to be problematic to delete, just because of their nature, and how many intersections I'm dealing with in this.  I hate intersecting geo, but it may be unavoidable in this model, unless... unless I could find a way to re-mesh the interior edges of a circularized plane, or cylinder cap, into a phyllotaxis pattern.  If there's a way to do that, then I could use that as a basis for creating a phyllotaxis lattice, which would NOT intersect.

I won't spend that much time on it, but I'm definitely going to explore that possibility.

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BINGO!!  Oh my god, I feel soooo stupid.  I got the fibonacci phyllotaxis pattern by remeshing a tube primitive fairly easily in one go!  All that you need to do is chamfer the vertices, and then weld the nearest neighbor!  OMG, it's so simple.  As you could see in this test, I remeshed a simple quad cylinder using this basic technique, and what do we end up with on the cap??  A perfect phyllotaxis pattern!

So now all I need to do is isolate those cap polygons, inset them slightly, and delete the inside faces.  I'll be left with a quad lattice in the shape of the phyllotaxis I need.  NO overlapping edges, no self-intersecting geometry!

 Thanks, airflamesred, for causing me to re-think this approach!  It will certainly result in a much cleaner, better mesh!  It was soooo simple, I could puke that I didn't think of it earlier.

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Ugh.  Ok, now I'm absolutely feeling like a dumbass.  This pattern is even easier to achieve in 3dsmax than the technique I just discovered.  Looking at the results of the vertex chamfering I did above, I realized that the remeshing option for this was in front of me the entire time.

3dsmax has a complete tool pallette for remeshing any geometry topology.  One of the options is to change edge direction, which on a quadrangular disk surface, would result in a phyllotaxis re-arrangement of vertices.  So, all I needed to do was click one button.  Blah!!

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LMAO!  I guess this isn't an exercise in spline modelling anymore, huh?  I see where you're going with this now, and that's a really elegant and simple solution.  Very interesting stuff.

Quote - LMAO!  I guess this isn't an exercise in spline modelling anymore, huh?  I see where you're going with this now, and that's a really elegant and simple solution.  Very interesting stuff.

Nope, no need for splines for the webbing at all now.  Here's the result of using that re-meshing technique on a tube cap.  I simply selected all the new polygons, inset slightly, deleted the inset faces, then thickened the resulting lattice.  Now I have the phyllotaxis pattern in the form of a single, continuous manifold; all quads.  I added support loops to the "joints", just in case I want to turbosmooth the result.

If I want to, I could smooth it up a little with one iteration of subD, and it's still a lighter, cleaner geometry than before, with NO self-intersecting edges or vertices.  Can't believe I didn't think of this technique before.

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once again, i get the blame!!

Quote - once again, i get the blame!!

Haha.  It's a good thing though.  If I hadn't come to that realization, I would have modeled this thing all wrong, and had tons of self-intersecting geo, which makes my skin crawl.  So I'm definitley blaming you for helping me get a better model! ;)

Anyway, the model is coming along now.  I'm about to add the feathers, and finish it up with some more beads and decorations in the webbing.  Poly count is up there.  I'm nearly at 70k before I even attempt the feathers.  My plan on doing the feathers as detailed geometry still stands, but if it pushes the poly count to unreasonable limits, then I'll back off and go the same route everyone else does when it comes to feathers, which is model a feather with simple edge modeling, and use opacity maps and texturing for the details.  Will see which way to go shortly.  Here's what I have so far...

It's still 100% quads, but I'll probably have to do some edge termination to cut the poly weight at the end.  I plan on offering it as a freebie.  If I wasn't doing that, I wouldn't care about poly count, and I'd go nuts with insane details. ;)

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Fantastic thread very interesting and inspiring, you guys do some very nice work!

Here's how I decided to attack the "feathers" in the Dream Catcher model.  This is a screencap from inside Max.  Basically, it's a little different, and more high poly than the other feather techniques I've seen out there.  99% of the time, it's just an image of a feather on a single-sided plane, with opacity map.  While that's a good alternative, it can result in problems when trying to render in some render engines, and limits the materials you could use, like translucency and SSS, which react with lights in the scene.

I've created each 'barb" as splines, then poly meshed those, and added a texture. The Rachis (or stem) is also just a polygon spline.  I think this more detailed approach to feathers will allow them to render quite well in some of the more physically accurate render engines, and allow the user to apply some deeper material options, like translucency or SSS, which can look really cool when backlit.  The downside, obviously, is that each feather contains 2400 polygons. (sigh)  I know, that's a lot for a feather.  However, in this model, the feathers play a major visual role, and I think the added detail and rendering flexability will be worth it.  I'll try to cut polycount on some other areas of the model, to help the overall weight of the object in the end.

Any thoughts?

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Ok, thought I'd do the BMW tutorials at Digital Tutors on the BMW model in Softimage.  I'm glad I did.  Learning more tools and techniques and workflow.  Here's what I have so far.

EricofSD, nice work so far!

Just an update on the "feathers" for the dream catcher I've been working on.  Managed to tweak the process a bit, and ended with a model I think looks better than before, and has a LOT less polygons to boot.  Here's a screencap:

This version is only 814 polygons.  MUCH better than before, and somehow I think this version looks better than the one that had 2400 polys.  Go figure.

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DreamCatcher: almost complete.  This will be my last WIP of it in this thread.  Sorry fro flooding.  Just going to fancy it up a bit more with some additional feathers, beads, and adornments.  Only 52k polys so far, so I made room for some extra stuff.  I thought I'd be at around 90k by this point, but I was able to save some geo weight on the feathers after all.

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Luxxeon, I didn't like the original feather.  Thought it looked dangerous.  But the new verison looks a lot better, and actually compliments the model very well.  That's going to be an awesome model.

EricofSD, are the surfaces of the car subdivided?  How many polys so far?

Thanks Lux, love the feather.  Here's an update.

Sinner, yes, they are subdivided.  I used the xsi smoothing tool to round out the front end.  The hood is just a subdivision of the original low poly build.  So far 93K tris.  The offensive stuff is the front grill.  I hope the Digital Tutors guy talks about optimizing.  His final is 163K and from what I an see, I'll blow by that very fast.

Here are the stats

.

Teyon, that character is spectacular.  His mid-section is freaky.  Not sure I fancy that helmet; it looks photoshopped in there or something, although I know that's not the case.  I like the tattered wings on him, but I think they could stand to be a little bigger.

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Amazing work in this thread!

Dream Catcher model:

 

100% quads, finished at about 64k polys.  Most of that weight is in the centerpiece detail, which you could see in the render above.  Extremely high detailed latticework in that part alone.  Some of the polygons I needed to inset for that piece were so small, I couldn't inset more than .001 inch, or the edges would overlap each other.

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Now that's a pretty impressive model, Luxxeon.  I didnt think your feathers were going to look as good as some others i've seen, but they turned out very good in your renders here.  Excellent actually.

Got a quick technical question though.  How the hell did you create that middle piece?  I'm not sure what to call it, but I'm referring to that white circular geometry in the center of the object.  I can see you must have deleted some polygons and thickened the cage, but how did you get the edges into that pattern to begin with?  Is it a plugin or some feature only available in 3dsmax or something?  I've seen this type of tessellation before, like in some weird Topmod models, but never understood how to achieve it in Cinema.

Quote - Now that's a pretty impressive model, Luxxeon.  I didnt think your feathers were going to look as good as some others i've seen, but they turned out very good in your renders here.  Excellent actually.

Got a quick technical question though.  How the hell did you create that middle piece?  I'm not sure what to call it, but I'm referring to that white circular geometry in the center of the object.  I can see you must have deleted some polygons and thickened the cage, but how did you get the edges into that pattern to begin with?  Is it a plugin or some feature only available in 3dsmax or something?  I've seen this type of tessellation before, like in some weird Topmod models, but never understood how to achieve it in Cinema.

Thanks.  It's available for download in Freestuff.

To answer your question, the pattern on that part of the object was done simply by combining two different subdivison algorithms, and then some basic poly operations, which aren't exclusive to Max at all. I added an iteration or two of Doo-Sabin subD to a circularized plane, originally comprised of something like 16 triangulated segments, which produced that pattern in the form of subdivided edges. Then I just selected all the new surface polygons (which contained both quads and ngons from the doo-sabin operation), did a tiny bit of inset/bevel, and then removed all the interior faces, which left me with only the lattice mesh you see there, in the form of all quad polygons. Then, I just added some depth with a shell modifier.

I should mention that Doo Sabin isn't a native subdivision option in 3dsmax. Max natively only supports the Catmull-Clark, Loop, and NURMS subD set of algorithms as it's standard subD schemes. In order to use Doo-Sabin's algorythm to subdivide geometry in Max, I employed the use of a Maxscript plugin called "Subdivison Reversion", which has a Doo-Sabin option.

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Here is mr happy.  A non human character i am model.

Been working off and on with this project.  It was brought up in the 3dsmax forum.  Someone wanted to use a render from a website of a fancy office environment, but couldn't get in touch with the owner fo the render.  He wanted a room, obviously, that looked just like the room in the render, or at least very similar, but didn't want to use that actual image, without permission.  So I offered to recreate the room for him myself,  which would resemble the reference as close as possible, without being "exact".  Actually, he wanted the room "flipped" opposite of what it was in the reference.  Meaning, the bookshelves on the right instead of the left, etc.  I modeled it all from the ground up, over the course of the last 3 weeks.  I'll most likely break down this scene and use some elements as freebies for the community later on.

Here's the original thread where the discussion, and subsequent project, took place:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2871675

Here's my WIP on it so far.  It's still grainy, because this is only 20 passes in the Octane render engine, as a lighting test.  The final production image will be done later this evening.  The OP is happy with it, and I'm proud to have completed it within a reasonable timeframe, from scratch, based on just one selective reference render.  I was doing a lot of other work in between working on this scene, so had I taken it on as a paid or exclusive project, I feel I could have had it finished in 7-10 days,  rather than 3 weeks, but I'm still proud of the progress.  All textures compliments of CGTextures.com, free texture resource.

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Here's the completed render, resized.  The original is 1500px wide.

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Lux, good room.  I have one going but not ready to share yet.  You have great work there.

Here's my car so far.

Thanks, EricofSD.  The room turned out to be my largest "non-personal" project to date, and I'm happy with the result, considering the limitations I had to deal with; there was only one perspective in the original reference, and the image as fairly small resolution, so some of the details were hard to see, and it was very difficult to judge the dimensions of the room and decor objects.

Your car is looking excellent so far! Great curves, and I love how the hood looks from the top.

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Stunning render Lux, whats the FOV on that? Your dreamcatcher is really good mate.

Quote - Stunning render Lux, whats the FOV on that? Your dreamcatcher is really good mate.

Thanks, Mark.  I really appreciate it.  I'm not sure offhand what the camera specs are for that shot (I'm away from my workstation right now), but I know it was a very wide, and perhaps somewhat unrealistic, focal length.  While Octane does employ physical lens specs on its camera parameters, you have the option to push them past standard ranges, if desired.  I tried to match the original perspective as best I could, but since my version wasn't done in the same units or measurements, it was impossible to get it exact.

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Coming soon...

One heck of a detailed lamp post.  Been working on this one most of the evening, and the modeling is about 80% finished.  Tons of complex lathe and lofting work, and those "arms" were a bitch to get right (I used a really ornate lamp post from the downtown area as a study for this model), and as you can see that's where most of the mesh density is.  So far, it's at about 27,000 polygons (all quads), which I think is reasonable.  The only thing I have left now is to add a "flag" type thing hanging off that ladder rest. Then it's on to the unwrapping and texturing.

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Looking forward to the render especially.

Hmm, the uv stamp arrangement seems a bit chaotic.  I realize it was a way to compact the mesh, but makes for a difficult work in something like Photoshop or PSP or Gimp.

Lets say I design a WW1 airplane and want the wing and the aileron located next to each other so that the emblem of the country overlaps correctly both mesh.  If the aileron is angled and tucked into another area, I have a LOT of work to do in my 2d app to split the 2d image, rotate, size, locate....

UV templates need as much attention as the detail of the original modeling mesh.

Just my humble opinion.

Eric

Quote - Hmm, the uv stamp arrangement seems a bit chaotic.  I realize it was a way to compact the mesh, but makes for a difficult work in something like Photoshop or PSP or Gimp.

Lets say I design a WW1 airplane and want the wing and the aileron located next to each other so that the emblem of the country overlaps correctly both mesh.  If the aileron is angled and tucked into another area, I have a LOT of work to do in my 2d app to split the 2d image, rotate, size, locate....

UV templates need as much attention as the detail of the original modeling mesh.

Just my humble opinion.

Eric

 

What is this in reference to?  If it's one of my models, then I can only say that in most cases, I'm not worried about someone re-texturing the object.   In cases where I concern myself with someone coming up with their own textures for the model, I provide the UV template, and arrange the tiles properly for Photoshop to work.  Otherwise, they could just texture it in something like Sculptris or 3D Coat, where they can paint directly on the model, and not worry about hte arrangement of UVs.  Or just use a tileable texture over my original.  Depends on the model.  However, my main concern is that the model's UV's are not overlapping, and are as free as possible from stetching.  So custom procedurals work very well in a pinch too.

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Here's a screen cap of the lamp post.  I decided to go really worn and dirty with the textures; instead of clean and elegant, which was my first choice.  I did the unwrapping of the post, arms, and light shields as one object in 3d Coat, where I hand painted most of the details.  The glass, and the banner were unwrapped in 3dsmax by hand, and then I created those textures in Photoshop over the UV template.  So the main part of the object was auto-unwrapped, and then 3D painted, but the banner and glass were done old-school style.

I'm about to package it up as a freebie, but meanwhile, I'm contemplating adding something like an entire street corner "facade" to this, so it would be more like an actual stage/scene than a simple object.  Hmmmm.  Not sure yet.  Prob just gonna call it a finished project and move on.

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Looks good Lux, I like the texturing. Am I right in thinking this a painted glass effect?

Quote - Looks good Lux, I like the texturing. Am I right in thinking this a painted glass effect?

Thanks, Mark!

Well, the screencap isn't showing the textures in detail obviously; it's only a low-res representation of them.  This is the map I'm offering with the model as an "option" to use in the diffuse/color channel of your glass material.  I'm intending it to represent old, lime-encrusted glass, but it can also be used to create certain frosted glass looks (the dirty parts at the bottom are NOT optional, however).  You'd have to replace the map with your own diffuse map if you wanted a different look, or just use a procedural glass material.  I am including the full, manually-packed UV template to the glass parts, which can be easily painted on in Photoshop.  

I will also provide high res, custom Diffuse, Bump, Specular/Reflection, AND Illumination maps for the glass parts, which should provide enough control for even for the most demanding realistic renders.  The banner element will also come with a custom UV template, so users could easily take it into Photoshop and create their own custom banners.

The metal parts of the lamp, however, were auto-unwrapped, so the packing of tiles for that element isn't suited to manual map creation in Photoshop.   However, the UV's are flat, with very little distortion, so the object is still very easily suited to 3D painting in something like Sculptris, Zbrush, or 3D Coat.

I actually should have used a few tris in the topology for this one, as some of those points on the decorative arms would have been much easier to accomplish, and saved me a few polygons, but the stubborn modeler in me kept it all quads.  Around 30,000 total polygons in the end.

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Renders of the street lamp I've been working on.  Available for free:

Turbosquid.com
ShareCG.com

Pending approval in Freestuff here on Renderosity as well.

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Quote -

Renders of the street lamp I've been working on.  Available for free:

Turbosquid.com
ShareCG.com

Pending approval in Freestuff here on Renderosity as well.

 

the texture used in the glass twice takes away the illusion of realisim, you should consider making two different textures. Other than that this model is excellent.

 

Quote - the texture used in the glass twice takes away the illusion of realisim, you should consider making two different textures. Other than that this model is excellent.

You are 100% correct.  The texture was simply mirrored to the other glass piece.  I had intended to manually add some differences to them before release, but I completely forgot.  Unfortunately, this model has already been uploaded to many locations as a free download, and I can't change it.  However, if people wanted to make them asymmetrical, I do provide the texture maps and UV templates for the glass parts, which are easily adjusted in something like Photoshop.

Thanks!

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Quote -

Renders of the street lamp I've been working on.  Available for free:

Turbosquid.com
ShareCG.com

Pending approval in Freestuff here on Renderosity as well.

 

Incredible model!  Very nice in the textures and the polygons.

Working now on a Remote Control car.  Digital Tutors training for Softimage 2014.  I have 2009.  There are a few new tools introduced for the current version.  One, making thickness, is a bit desireable.  But I can still get there with a little elbow grease in my version.

Still a ways to go.  Will likely do uv and texture next weekend.  This weekend I hope to finish the modeling.

 

Zandar, I really like that!

Quote - Still a ways to go.  Will likely do uv and texture next weekend.  This weekend I hope to finish the modeling.

 

Zandar, I really like that!

 

That's actually my model Zandar was showing there, Eric.  Thanks though. ;-)

This RC is looking really good.  I see what appear to be a couple minor smoothing artifacts, but overall it's awesome.  Especially those tires!

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My latest model.  All the work was done entirely in 3dsmax 2012, with some of the UV unwrapping in 3D Coat.  17,915 polygons total, 99.6% quads (there's 64 triangles total, and all of them are on the eyes, where I used hemisphereical primitives).  This happens to be one of my first completed attempts at a truly organic modeling style, without any freeform sculpting (all old school subD techniques).

The model should be available for free download on Renderosity soon, but you can download the model, and see all the wireframes here:

Kitty Candle (Turbosquid)

Kitty Candle (ShareCG.com)

It was a fun project.  I wasn't sure where I was going to end up when I started it (originally it was going to be a simple Jack-O-Lantern, but I accidentally discovered how to model a cat's head while messing around, and decided on this instead).

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Here's a couple wireframes:

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great work, Lux. Loving the bump

Working on a new freebie; a "fresh" grave.  Here's a screenshot:

As you can see, it's up around 58,000 polys (all quads), but I've decided to model in most of the details for the dirt mound here.  Other models I've seen rely heavily on bump or displacement maps for things like this, which is perfectly fine, but I wanted to keep as much of the details in the model as I could for this one.  I think it will allow for a lot more of the small details I will eventually add into the textures to show through all the more in a final render.

Everything here was created directly in 3dsMax, including the dirt mound, which I modeled procedurally with various modifiers.  As you might guess, that is also where most of the polygon resolution resides.

I'm almost finished with the modeling phase, and about ready to do the unwrapping now.  I was thinking about adding some more details, like some loose stones, and perhaps a random skull as well, but I don't want the polycount to get out of control.  My goal for this model is/was to keep a polygon budget under 70k.  So I still have some room for further details, but I will have to choose them carefully.

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Luxxeon, you modelled that purple grave object without any sculpting tools, just modifiers?  I'm surprised you were able to get that kind of mesh deformation with only 50,000+ polygons. But then again, there isn't that much fine detail there, mostly large surface changes.  I really like that wooden cross, even without textures, it's clear what its made from.  If you add some small rocks and stones around the grave, and maybe a few strands of grass, then you will have something really cool there.  If you do the textures right, it could be a premium model.

Here's the textured, final version of the dirt grave model I was working on.  I was able to keep it under 70k poly budget, and 100% quad topology.

The unwrapping of the dirt pile was probably the most laborious of any model I have worked on to date.  It was just a really difficult, high res model to texture without distortion; lots of nooks and crannies.  I'm pleased with the results though.  I think if I ever work on a model like this again, I'll know a lot about how to fix several annoying UV issues, just from having worked on this set.

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Really good Lux, I see this also being very popular.

Quote - Really good Lux, I see this also being very popular.

Thanks, Mark!  It took me days to get the texturing right for this, and still there's some issues with the UV's (hopefully not very noticeable) in certain areas, which I couldn't resolve.  Probably would have been a much easier model to do in a dedicated sculpting application like 3d Coat or Sculptris, but as a personal challenge to myself, I wanted to do it all with standard polygonal modeling techniques.  I think it paid off in the end, as I was able to keep a lot of the detail modeled in, rather than baked out to maps.  Not that there's anything wrong with that either.

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That's very good work, Luxxeon.  My only crits are that the rocks look too clean, and I feel you could have added some blades of grass randomly in the dirt, and maybe on the outer rim of the object.  Even just some low poly strips or something to simulate grass. 

A little word of advice:  if you're going to keep offering this level of quality on Turbosquid, you better think about charging something for them.  Even if it's a dollar (American).  Otherwise, you might get booted from there.

Slow progress, I'm afraid.

Quote - Slow progress, I'm afraid.

I like what you're doing there, Mark.  There's a lot of detail in the lighthouse, and the texturing so far is looking good.  I think the weathering bit at the bottom might be a little high up the tower, and possibly a bit strong, but if you're working from a reference, you would know better than I if it's correct or not.  Maybe just blend the transition from dirty to clean a little more?

The environment is taking shape nicely as well.  What technique did you employ to create the terrain?  Did you use height maps, or are you just modeling it offhand?

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Thanks Lux, just edge extrusion. While you're here, the rock and concrete ares are overlapping geometry atm. If I take the rock section over to sculptris, will it cope?. I don't need a complete mesh?

I'm going to go 10m below the current waterline, with the rock, to allow for transparency etc

This will be right up Terragen/Vue street I think.

Quote - Thanks Lux, just edge extrusion. While you're here, the rock and concrete ares are overlapping geometry atm. If I take the rock section over to sculptris, will it cope?. I don't need a complete mesh?

I'm going to go 10m below the current waterline, with the rock, to allow for transparency etc

This will be right up Terragen/Vue street I think.

I don't think it will load in Sculptris.  At least not in my experience with bringing over separate geo as one object, which you are describing.  It either crashed out upon loading, or gave me an error message and refused to load it.  It also won't load any geo that has more than 18 edges pointing to a single vert.  Normally, I'd never have a pole like that anyway, but there are few times, such as a cylinder with tris at the cap ends, where you might have such a situation, but Sculptris won't handle it.  That's kind of why I switched over to using 3dCoat instead.

PS:  I could be wrong about the separate geo, so best to just give it a shot.  However, I know from past history that it doesn't like to work with open, overlapping shapes.

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Ooops.  After reading over your post again; if you bring over just the rock segment as independant geo from the rest of the terrain, it should handle it.  However, if you try to load both sections together as one object, with overlapping edges, it might fail.

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Yes, just the rock. The concrete will do with bump and because I've modelled the stairs, the geomerty leaves a lot to be desired.

Started my Xmas freebie.  Working on some pine needles, but it won't be a Christmas tree; I won't have time for that.  Doing something else instead, but I need some realistic pine needles (garland) for it.  This will probably be the most time consuming part of the whole thing. Not difficult, but just takes a lot of up-close work, and snapping/instancing.

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Here I've created one stem of pine needles.  No, it's not a low poly tree, it's just one stem. ;)

From this, I'll duplicate, and use some bending modifiers to make it appear more natural, and add it to the Xmas item I'm creating; which will be Christmas bells, such as those in ** this image**.

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I've been working off an on with a holiday freebie.  Unfortunately, real life has prohibited me from finishing this in time for the holiday, but I'll offer it as a free download from my DA page when it's done tonight.

Here's my work on the bow, so far.  This is just the base geometry, and will be subdivided with more detail, of course.  Simple edge extrusion techniques here, about 10 min of work.

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Added some edges to create creases in the ribbon...

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Quick inside edge extrusion...

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And the result, after 1 iteration of subdivision.  Going to add some thickness, crease some edges to this, and should be done...

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Starting to piece the object together, now that all the elements are modeled.  Not quite as easy as I thought.  I didn't consider the angle of the bells when I was modeling them, so I had to manipulate the objects after UVmapping, which I don't particularly like to do.  My software has a "preserve UV" feature, which I hope did what it was intended to do, otherwise the UV's might be a little skewed.  I'll only offer this freebie as a limited download on my DA page, because i'm leary about the texturing.

I was hoping to just add arbitrary UV's here, because the intention on these objects is mostly for whatever procedural maps you want to apply in your software of choice, but I did include a "Happy Holidays" displace or bump map for the bells, if you wish to use them.  You can see them in this wireframe screecap.  They're just black and white maps, which can be placed in the bump or displacement channel of most software.  There will be no color or specular maps included, because most materials are just your standard metal, and velvet (for the ribbon), and diffuse color channels.

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I might have to rescale the bells and ribbon in proportion to the pine needles.  I modeled the needle branch "to scale".  It's roughly 5 inches long.  So each bell would be about 8 inches.  Probably too large.

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Fixed the scale (somewhat), and duplicated the pines, with some random bending to give a more natural look.  Not sure I'll keep it like this or not.  I'll run a test render, and see how it looks.  Kinda like it though.

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Final screencap before rendering.  I'm adding a wire to hang it by, and that should complete the model.

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Finished model.  Didn't have time to prepare it for redistribution, but Merry Xmas!

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Nice render.

Merry Xmas.

Attached Link: Holiday Bells (.max scene file)

Thanks.  If there's any 3dsmax users in this forum besides myself, I've uploaded the .max scene file, containing the geometry in the final render.  I've also included the bump maps used on the bells to create the raised text.  No other textures are included, but could still be useful to examine the geometry, or use different parts of the model in your own scenes.

It's in my StAsh file on DA.  Click the attached link to download.

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Working in my spare time on another pouf Ottoman prop.  This one is quite complex topologically, with diamond tufting, and inset buttons, modeled in.  The holes will be filled in with buttons created as a separate element.  I'll probably use normal mapping or displacement for the additional creasing details, because it's already high poly, and those features would put this object well over my poly budget. 

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Here's the wire.

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Well, I had to take a break from DT training.   Thought I'd model something from a blueprint and decided to make a sailing ship.  Its the New England Fishing Schooner Benjamin W. Latham, 1902.  Found some really cool blueprints at http://woodmodelbuilding.blogspot.com/p/plans-and-drawings.html

Got the bulkheads built with cv curves and lofted polygons for the hull.  Its still a bit of a mess, but off to a roaring good start.

I'm doing this in XSI.  I think the lofting is better for this in Max. Max lofted cleaner and had some decent adjustments compared to XSI. (though lofting in nurbs and converting might be a better way to go, not sure yet)

But the rotoscope issues are not so good in Max.  Maya has the ability to set up image planes (like Max and XSI and just about any modeler) but Maya does not have distortions in the ortho views (unlike Max).  However, I am not familiar enough yet with Maya to do this so I went back to XSI. 

By the way, XSI can do image planes, but doesn't need them.  I'm finding it a real fast thing to set up the rotoscopes and make some attach to the camera and some remain fixed.  It really helps a lot, and being able to change the xyz size/location of the rotoscope for either camera or fixed projection is also very useful.

Maybe the next project will be in Maya.  For now, I hope to complete the ship and get it textured.  Lots of detail.  Won't be a low poly model.

Looking good, Eric.  Nice work.

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ok got the lofting under control. had some issues and had to reparamaterize the CV's.  I'm going to move this to a new thread.  Thought I'd have a "journey" thread on making this and see what others have to say.  hopefully the workflow will be helpful to some.

I dont know if this is the place to post this, but I am working on a project and I need as much help as I can get. I am trying to build an interactive, virtual tour of Gilligan's Island. I am using the freeware version of the Unity game engine. I can do most of the 3d objects but I am new to working with game engines. If you are interested in helping, let me know. This is only for fun and for the love of the show, so I am not able to pay people to do this.