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Jewel
May 2, 2009

Odddzy posted:

what are the material settings you used for that kind of glass bead?

I'll get em later, but it's mostly just a bit of reflection and specular (I think there's specular, at least, although thinking about it it doesn't do anything because there's no direct lights in the scene), lit by a sky with a HDRI texture and global illumination.

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Internet Friend
Jan 1, 2001

Jewel posted:

How did you view the normals, by the way? The normals weren't flipped, since they were all the same color, but I guess they were pointing in weird angles? How do I see that myself?

In the Edit Normals modifier change "Select By" to Face and pick a face. It'll show that face's normals in red.

snorch
Jul 27, 2009

floofyscorp posted:

Maya doesn't do this :smug:

I think Maya's normal handling is different than that of other apps. I have frequently seen stuff exported from Maya where the normals are all kinds of hosed up when imported in 3DS Max, only to have it looking fine in Maya. I don't know if they fixed it in later versions, but mirroring geometry in Maya also flips the normals.

I am real compulsive about always creating my polys counter-clockwise...

floofyscorp
Feb 12, 2007

snorch posted:

mirroring geometry in Maya also flips the normals.

Yeah that's true, and it's really loving stupid. Not only does it flip the normals, but it activates an 'Opposite' node on the mesh so it looks fine... in Maya. Export that mesh to anything else(like say a game engine) and all your normals are hosed and you don't know why. I don't know why this is the default behaviour except ~Maya~ :smith:

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
also happens in max. Mirror a piece and it looks fine, attach it to another piece non-mirrored and it gets hosed up, and it all goes a bit pear-shaped if you weld them together without realising.

GFBeach
Jul 6, 2005

Surrounded by wierdos

quote:

general gripes about abNORMALities

I... I'm so sorry. I had to make the pun. :smith:

One trick I've gotten in the habit of doing in Maya is to disable Two-Sided Lighting in my viewports while modeling. Any polys with reversed normals will go solid black, making them easy to spot. It also helps improve viewport performance in dense scenes as well.

Sparr
Jan 17, 2006

Oh! I made this thing in zbrush based off this kids drawings.


concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
Hi guys does anyone have any experience of baking out normals here? I used to use the awesome poopinmymouth method in max but I want to use Xnormal now like the big boys.

Trouble is even if I set my rays to like 0.01 or use a cage with a tiny push it's still not baking out as well as I want.

For instance one boot is clipping on to the side of the opposite boot which would suggest the ray is way too big. Is there a decent tutorial or method anyone here knows?

edit: kinda fixed it playing with the mesh scale.

concerned mom fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Nov 20, 2012

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."
It's still early days for me and Blender but I just don't seem to be taking to it like I did with Softimage. Softimage let me make new surfaces from arrangements of vertex points and seemed to make it much easier yo create unusual shapes, with Blender it seems I always have to start with a generic mesh, and I can't just "bridge" vertexes or edges to join things together. Am I missing stuff or is this just not done in Blender?

Sigma-X
Jun 17, 2005

concerned mom posted:

Hi guys does anyone have any experience of baking out normals here? I used to use the awesome poopinmymouth method in max but I want to use Xnormal now like the big boys.

Trouble is even if I set my rays to like 0.01 or use a cage with a tiny push it's still not baking out as well as I want.

For instance one boot is clipping on to the side of the opposite boot which would suggest the ray is way too big. Is there a decent tutorial or method anyone here knows?

edit: kinda fixed it playing with the mesh scale.

xNormal allows you to build cages in your 3d program.

You probably want to check your display and system units - if you're using 3ds Max you'll export to one (like meters) while working in another, which can cause issues when trying to figure out ray lengths, etc.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

BizarroAzrael posted:

It's still early days for me and Blender but I just don't seem to be taking to it like I did with Softimage. Softimage let me make new surfaces from arrangements of vertex points and seemed to make it much easier yo create unusual shapes, with Blender it seems I always have to start with a generic mesh, and I can't just "bridge" vertexes or edges to join things together. Am I missing stuff or is this just not done in Blender?

Select two seperate edges or vertexes, hit F. :tipshat:
Yeah it's labelled as 'Make Face or Edge' but what are you going to do? :blender:

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."

SynthOrange posted:

Select two seperate edges or vertexes, hit F. :tipshat:
Yeah it's labelled as 'Make Face or Edge' but what are you going to do? :blender:

Okay, cool. Is there a way to lay down new vertexes or whatever? Say I was making a gun and I wanted to draw out the outline as a 2D shape to then detail into the finished model, could I do that without starting with a cube or plane and adjusting it into shape with manual vertex-adding and adjustment?

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
Can you drag out an edge? In max it would be shift drag which makes a new poly from that edge.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

concerned mom posted:

Can you drag out an edge? In max it would be shift drag which makes a new poly from that edge.

Yeah this would work better. If you want, delete all but one vertex. Then hit E, position it, hit E again, repeat to draw out your shape.

Simpo
May 1, 2008

SynthOrange posted:

Yeah this would work better. If you want, delete all but one vertex. Then hit E, position it, hit E again, repeat to draw out your shape.

yeah e is the hotkey to extrude whatever you have selected.

You can also ctrl-click to draw out new verts. With no verts selected this will draw an unconnected vert. Otherwise it will duplicate whatever you have selected where you clicked and connect it to what was previously selected if possible.

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."

concerned mom posted:

Can you drag out an edge? In max it would be shift drag which makes a new poly from that edge.

Yeah, you can extrude a vertex to make a new edge. But you still need the start point, so if I wanted that card cutout of the gun I'm making or whatever, I would need to put a mesh down as the start point. It all seems a bit clunky, in Softimage you drew the shape and selected to turn it into a surface.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

Yeah, you have to start somewhere. Just grab all the vertices and merge them (alt-m) for a single vertex if it bothers you.

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer

BizarroAzrael posted:

Yeah, you can extrude a vertex to make a new edge. But you still need the start point, so if I wanted that card cutout of the gun I'm making or whatever, I would need to put a mesh down as the start point. It all seems a bit clunky, in Softimage you drew the shape and selected to turn it into a surface.

Well you only have to start with a plane. Why I'm a bit wary of placing verts is because it seems a bit loose and prone to error. Plus it would all be in 2d space so you'd have to move them all after. Why not just do it from the start with a plane. A great example is how to make an eye (lid) using the Joan of arc method:

http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/head1.php

Canned Bovines
Jan 15, 2008

Anyone mind critiquing a WiP? I'm planning to bake this thing onto a game-res mesh once I've got it finished, normal mapped, and textured.

http://p3d.in/hSNP1/spin

The texture is just simple blocking at the moment; white is metal, grey is chain mail, brown leather, red cloth, gold trim. My main points of concern are the right shoulder and the skirts. Not sure if I should copy the left shoulder armor over to the right arm, leave it as is, or try modeling a different shoulder entirely to keep the asymmetry.

Also, serious thanks to SVU Fan for linking this p3d site earlier. This thing's great.

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
That's a really nice model I think. I like the silhouette, it all looks good to me. I think I'd possibly be tempted to keep one shoulder armoured and the other even all leather like they're set up to joust etc. I think you could push the armoured shoulder a bit more, and maybe the cloth skirts. A lot is going to depend on the head and what you do with it but so far I think it's looking solid.

uglynoodles
May 28, 2009


I've been learning 3DS Max. With what I've seen of Max, it's terrible in comparison to Maya, and I'd much rather be learning Maya. (Why does Max treat polys as triangles!? What is this poo poo about having to turn edges!? ARGH.) The teacher who currently works at TT Fusion would much rather teach us Maya as well, but the course has been outlined for 3DSM. I'm therefore learning Maya on my own and going to be bombarding my teacher with questions.

This is my progress on Ye Olde Joan of Arc tutorial.
It's only my second model, the first one was a little blobby man tutorial from somewhere else.

Not much here yet and it's incredibly slow going... It took me just over an hour to do this leg. :(

This here is something I did just at home... I try to work in 3D whenever I can so that I can pick it up. I've had absolutely 0 experience before this class so I'm a total beginner, but trying very hard to learn. This was my first attempt at doing something without using a tutorial. I used my own art, and edge loop modelling. I didn't know stuff had to be all radial at the time I built this, else I would've built it differently.

It took me about 6 hours I guess which is way too long.

I'm really terrified that I'm just doing awfully. I do 2D art a lot. This is something fun that I did for our concept art assignment on the same course where I needed to design an alien from scratch and make it into a model sheet:


I'm used to things I make being of a certain quality so it's really frustrating for me to be back at 0, and I'm kind of terrified that I'm just not cut out for it at all and that I won't ever really 'get' it. Before starting the class in September I tried to mess around with Zbrush a little and got nowhere.

I'm looking into obtaining some Gnomon DVDs for Maya and watching those when I can. I really want to learn but I guess I'm just not confident. I'm really hoping some amazing modellers have started out the same way! :ohdear:

uglynoodles fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Nov 22, 2012

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."
What's the class you're taking? I was wondering about an evening class if such a thing existed somewhere.

uglynoodles
May 28, 2009


The class I'm taking is at Futureworks in Manchester, UK.
It's in the evenings, yeah. I believe the Degree courses are as well. This one is Foundations.

Sigma-X
Jun 17, 2005

uglynoodles posted:

I've been learning 3DS Max. With what I've seen of Max, it's terrible in comparison to Maya, and I'd much rather be learning Maya. (Why does Max treat polys as triangles!? What is this poo poo about having to turn edges!? ARGH.)

Do you think Maya doesn't have triangles or something? If you're modeling in quads that aren't completely jacked up it isn't a huge issue either way, but this is just showing off your ignorance of 3d. Everything is a triangle at the end of the day. Maya has a turn edges command as well.

uglynoodles posted:

The teacher who currently works at TT Fusion would much rather teach us Maya as well, but the course has been outlined for 3DSM. I'm therefore learning Maya on my own and going to be bombarding my teacher with questions.

Ignoring the fact that you think Maya is some sort of cure for your inability to learn the basics of 3d modeling, this is good initiative! Do that.

uglynoodles posted:

This is my progress on Ye Olde Joan of Arc tutorial.
It's only my second model, the first one was a little blobby man tutorial from somewhere else.

Not much here yet and it's incredibly slow going... It took me just over an hour to do this leg. :(

Do you think that is fast or slow? Do you feel you are learning anything? Do you understand the concept of edge flow yet?


uglynoodles posted:

This here is something I did just at home... I try to work in 3D whenever I can so that I can pick it up. I've had absolutely 0 experience before this class so I'm a total beginner, but trying very hard to learn. This was my first attempt at doing something without using a tutorial. I used my own art, and edge loop modelling. I didn't know stuff had to be all radial at the time I built this, else I would've built it differently.

It took me about 6 hours I guess which is way too long.
What do you mean by "radial"? The best way to learn how to build things is to build some things wrong and learn how to solve all of those shapes. A dolphin is a hard guy to model because he's a bunch of intersecting organic curves.

Why the gently caress do you continue to worry about time? 6 hours for a great dolphin is not much time. 6 hours for a lovely dolphin is a lot. 6 hours for learning a bunch of stuff is fine. Stop. Caring. About. Time. Spent.

uglynoodles posted:

I'm really terrified that I'm just doing awfully. I do 2D art a lot. This is something fun that I did for our concept art assignment on the same course where I needed to design an alien from scratch and make it into a model sheet:


I'm used to things I make being of a certain quality so it's really frustrating for me to be back at 0, and I'm kind of terrified that I'm just not cut out for it at all and that I won't ever really 'get' it. Before starting the class in September I tried to mess around with Zbrush a little and got nowhere.
Your art is awful and looks like poo poo, and you have a long way to go until you hit a professional level (you need to push harder on the 2d as well). GET OVER IT. Everyone makes a ton of absolutely terrible poo poo that they would be embarassed to show to anyone. You have to work out the bad. You will make 100 lovely models before you make one you feel OK about, and 100 models later you will hate yourself for ever thinking that was good enough.

uglynoodles posted:

I'm looking into obtaining some Gnomon DVDs for Maya and watching those when I can. I really want to learn but I guess I'm just not confident. I'm really hoping some amazing modellers have started out the same way! :ohdear:

Literally everyone starts off looking like poo poo and making terrible models. Anyone who says differently is lying about when they started. Relax, do it every day, realize there is always a better way to do things (and try to find it each time!) and realize that sometimes you have to scrap work rather than trying to polish it. This last bit is the most important part of learning how to model, in my opinion - when you first model a shape you typically don't know what the gently caress you're doing, and so you'll have a really lovely mesh that you can't clean up into a good one. If you model a new one instead (maybe using the old one as a guide for volume) you'll be able to build better topologies that actually work for your shape instead of ther terrible poo poo you do on the first time with a lack of planning.

Eventually as you get better you'll start to learn how to build meshes that will accommodate the later stages of the model, for example, building a better face that has natural flows for the eyes rather than cutting a circle into a face, etc.

In short, relax, don't get frustrated, and model and draw every day, without exception. In a year you'll be completely different and in 3 years you won't even remember how to gently caress up as badly as you do right now.

uglynoodles
May 28, 2009


Thanks for your reply.
Like I say, I don't know very much. I'm really only speaking on my impressions of things. The interface for Maya looks a lot more intuitive. I don't think it's going to be some fix-all, though, don't worry. Sorry for giving that impression! I think a lot of what I'm saying comes out of being confused and a little frustrated. I'm sorry for that. I read a lot about how in order to succeed I have to be the best and greased lightning at the same time, and I stress a lot because I hate my work, so that's why I mentioned time. I want to be the best, and I work hard. I feel like I'm incredibly slow.

As for radial, I mean how all the shapes are meant to kind of fan out in circular patterns. I'm guessing that's called edge flow?

As for my art, that's not the best example of it to be sure. I included it because I felt it was relevant to the subject. I'd be really appreciative if you could elaborate beyond 'awful' and 'poo poo.' Not that it isn't a valid assessment, is just like to know how to get better. I draw every day and do some freelance illustration, so I'm always interested in getting better.

Thanks for your advice. I really appreciate it.

EoinCannon
Aug 29, 2008

Grimey Drawer
I find that Maya better than Max in a lot of ways but I defintely wouldn't say that modeling is one of them. Max has really good modeling tools once you learn how to use them.

Internet Friend
Jan 1, 2001

Seeing how you're a student, you can sign up at students.autodesk.com and get personal student licenses for Max, Maya, and Softimage and try them all yourself. I learned the basics in Maya, tried Max and never looked back. Regardless of 3D package you're going to want to customize the UI to the way you work. Pay attention to commands you use a lot and make your own keyboard shortcuts and quad menus (the right click menus). The defaults in most software leave a lot to be desired.

Internet Friend fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Nov 23, 2012

Canned Bovines
Jan 15, 2008

uglynoodles posted:

I've been learning 3DS Max. With what I've seen of Max, it's terrible in comparison to Maya, and I'd much rather be learning Maya. (Why does Max treat polys as triangles!? What is this poo poo about having to turn edges!? ARGH.)

I'm not familiar with Max, but in the end everything is triangles because that's how graphics cards work. Quads in Maya are actually triangles pretending they're not triangles for the sake of modeling. You can see this for yourself if you make a non-planar quad (make a plane, grab two opposite vertices, and pull them up) and rotate around it. Watch how the shading between vertices changes.

uglynoodles posted:

This is my progress on Ye Olde Joan of Arc tutorial.
It's only my second model, the first one was a little blobby man tutorial from somewhere else.

Not much here yet and it's incredibly slow going... It took me just over an hour to do this leg. :(

Don't stress the time. You're just starting out and an hour is speed-modeling territory. I probably spent more than that on the last leg I made just tweaking the shape after all of the topology was done.

As for the model itself, I have a couple of suggestions.



I've marked two vertices (possibly one, the subd smoothing or whatever of the mesh may be throwing me off) that can be problematic. The vert on the left where 6 edges meet together is a 'pole'. These can cause shading issues, get nasty if you subdivide the mesh, and can make the mesh deform oddly. The vert on the right appears to either be a free-floating vertex in the middle of an edge or just weirdness from whatever is making the mesh appear smooth. If the former is true, then the face above it has 5 edges and is therefore evil. You generally want to have all quads when you're modeling.

Real easy fix, though. Just delete the edges I've drawn over in red and add edges where I've drawn in green.

uglynoodles posted:

This here is something I did just at home... I try to work in 3D whenever I can so that I can pick it up. I've had absolutely 0 experience before this class so I'm a total beginner, but trying very hard to learn. This was my first attempt at doing something without using a tutorial. I used my own art, and edge loop modelling. I didn't know stuff had to be all radial at the time I built this, else I would've built it differently.

It took me about 6 hours I guess which is way too long.

Doing stuff on your own is good and 6 is hours is nowhere near too long. With where you're at you don't need to worry if your stuff is bad because it is going to be bad. The important part is that you learn something from it.

uglynoodles posted:

I'm really terrified that I'm just doing awfully. I do 2D art a lot. This is something fun that I did for our concept art assignment on the same course where I needed to design an alien from scratch and make it into a model sheet:

I'm used to things I make being of a certain quality so it's really frustrating for me to be back at 0, and I'm kind of terrified that I'm just not cut out for it at all and that I won't ever really 'get' it. Before starting the class in September I tried to mess around with Zbrush a little and got nowhere.

I'm looking into obtaining some Gnomon DVDs for Maya and watching those when I can. I really want to learn but I guess I'm just not confident. I'm really hoping some amazing modellers have started out the same way! :ohdear:

I know where you're coming from. Frankly, I think my own work is dogshit. But you're probably better than some of the people in my grad program who've been doing this for a year and a half. You're not good, yet, but all you need to do is take the time to learn and accept that you're not going to be pumping out Dominance War winners on day two. Just don't do what they did and give up.

mutata
Mar 1, 2003

Hee hee, 6 hours... I've spent 40+ on nude base meshes. Modeling is way more meticulous and monotonous than people would have you think. If you're sick to death of looking at the same kneecap for the nth hour, you're doing something right.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

Learn Zbrush, death to polygons! :black101:

Wait, what do you mean zbrush uses polygons? :downs:

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.
I spent 50+ hours on a model in Maya just on lighting. Granted I'd never used Maya before and was blindly loving around with settings for most of the time, but if you think six hours to crank out a model is too long maybe you shouldn't be getting into 3D modeling. Hell, I know Rhino like the back of my hand and it still took me 12+ hours to build a model of a room, which I then imported into Maya to render and wanted to kill myself trying to do the lights.

And now that I've (mostly) figured it out my office has designated me the official Maya learner and I now have to teach it to everyone else :suicide: At least I'm getting paid to sit around and watch Digital Tutors all day.

SVU Fan
Mar 5, 2008

I'm gay for Christopher Meloni
Hey guys, now that I'm working a 3d job, I've been in the market for a nice new computer that handles all my zbrush/maya work. What kinda computer are you guys using these days? What is it that contributes to faster rendering speeds/more software stability?

This is something some of the guys in hardware/software have mocked up for me:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/oKIp


edit:

uglynoodles posted:

My thought re: time come from a desire to do models for games eventually, and we all know what that industry is like for deadlines! My thinking was that I should aim to learn to get things out fast.
You guys are totally right though, I'll not put a second thought to time taken anymore. :)
Thanks so much for the advice and reassurance. I will definitely sort out that One of 5 Evil Edges!

Learn how to model before you try to learn how to model fast. There are so many nuances involved with any art medium, this one included, that you are going to be spending hundreds and hundreds of hours learning before you get anywhere near proficient. My advice is, learn your anatomy (going to take more than 6 hours), learn your modeling techniques (also gonna take more than 6 hours), learn how to make appealing characters and model them really well, and THEN worry about your speed and making them game res.

SVU Fan fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Nov 23, 2012

uglynoodles
May 28, 2009


My thought re: time come from a desire to do models for games eventually, and we all know what that industry is like for deadlines! My thinking was that I should aim to learn to get things out fast.
You guys are totally right though, I'll not put a second thought to time taken anymore. :)
Thanks so much for the advice and reassurance. I will definitely sort out that One of 5 Evil Edges!

chimheil
Jun 22, 2005

[quote="SVU Fan" post="409868566"]
Hey guys, now that I'm working a 3d job, I've been in the market for a nice new computer that handles all my zbrush/maya work. What kinda computer are you guys using these days? What is it that contributes to faster rendering speeds/more software stability?

This is something some of the guys in hardware/software have mocked up for me:

[url][/url]

How much are you looking to spend? I have an Asus server motherboard with 2 Xeon 3.2ghz quad core processors and 24gb ram. It was cranking out frames in maya at 8 mins per frame. I spent about 2500 on it (at the time). The school has a 12 core mac pro with 16gb ram and 2.66ghz xeon processors and they were taking over 30 mins per frame (exact same scene). I would personally go the workstation route so you can drop in more than 1 CPU. The new xeon E5 processors are even faster than the x5500/x5600 xeon processors and have up to 8 cores per cpu. They are also more expensive. You will spend at least $3,000. I would love to hear what others have to say though.

Sigma-X
Jun 17, 2005

uglynoodles posted:

Thanks for your reply.
Like I say, I don't know very much. I'm really only speaking on my impressions of things. The interface for Maya looks a lot more intuitive. I don't think it's going to be some fix-all, though, don't worry. Sorry for giving that impression! I think a lot of what I'm saying comes out of being confused and a little frustrated. I'm sorry for that. I read a lot about how in order to succeed I have to be the best and greased lightning at the same time, and I stress a lot because I hate my work, so that's why I mentioned time. I want to be the best, and I work hard. I feel like I'm incredibly slow.

As for radial, I mean how all the shapes are meant to kind of fan out in circular patterns. I'm guessing that's called edge flow?

As for my art, that's not the best example of it to be sure. I included it because I felt it was relevant to the subject. I'd be really appreciative if you could elaborate beyond 'awful' and 'poo poo.' Not that it isn't a valid assessment, is just like to know how to get better. I draw every day and do some freelance illustration, so I'm always interested in getting better.

Thanks for your advice. I really appreciate it.

I am lazy as hell at the moment so I'd rather not break down the specifics of your models, but if you post on some 3d forums (polycount.com for games and cgtalk.com for everything else I guess...I don't pay attention much to non-games things any more :() they'll give you a better idea.

I didn't mean to totally rip on the 2d art although it looks like it with the quote chopping - your 3d models all have terrible edge flow, wouldn't animate/deform well, and you haven't even bothered to texture anything yet so I'm sure you don't have UVs worth a drat. My point here wasn't to tell you they're lovely and you should fix it, though, it was to emphasize that what you're making now is all effectively learning bits rather than something you'd ever stick in a portfolio.

And that's fine!

You talk about needing to be at the top of your game and greased lightning, and while that is true, those take time. You can't rush to get there or shortcut it. So accept that you'll make a lot of slow awful, lovely models while learning how to not do things.

The most important thing you can probably learn right now is how to make better topology. For what it's worth, I find edge-extrusion modeling in 3ds Max to be the easiest way to go about this because it's very fast and lets you kind of "sketch" things out, figuring out topology for difficult areas, and then filling in the gaps (and along the way you'll realize you screwed something up and have to step back, and that's OK, that's a learning process).

I'd also avoid giving much attention to "low poly"-specific modeling at the moment, focusing on learning good practices for 3d modeling (note: I'm not talking about sculpting, and I'm not saying low poly modeling is going away - just that the fundamentals are easier to see with high poly modeling).

Here's a good place to start to learn about topology.

http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTopology?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryCharacter%5Cb%29#Category_Topology

Also read as many tutorials as you possibly can, and lurk 3d forums and check out everyone's WIPs so you can see their wireframes. Crib edge flow as needed - there are seldom multiple "correct" ways to merge two shapes together.

I used to be better at this whole teaching and giving advice thing, but I've realized that since I've been in the industry so long I've forgotten how to teach the fundamentals, and all of my old tutorials no longer exist/work/etc.

Anyhow, the most important thing is for you to relax and realize this is going to take a lot of time and stop worrying that you're making lovely models or aren't going fast enough. Literally everything you make now will be slower and shittier than anything you make a year from now. The important thing is to keep doing new models with new challenges every day.

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
Hi guys I'm trying to get Xoliul shader set up properly, has anyone used it or anything similar? I looked at the tutorial he has set up but it's for a car so it's hard to see if its totally applicable.

I'm getting some weird cut-off with it like it's not displaying all my dark colours correctly:

http://imgur.com/a/KJjaF#7g7VY

The top picture is with the shader on and the bottom is just a straight bitmap diffuse. As you can see both cutoff but the Xoliul one is really noticable.

edit: when I render it it displays all colours, it's just the viewport :confused:

concerned mom fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Nov 26, 2012

Monster w21 Faces
May 11, 2006

"What the fuck is that?"
"What the fuck is this?!"
Can anyone suggest how I want go about modelling a weapon hilt that's rather home made and rough?

Like someone made one out of electrical tape?

Jewel
May 2, 2009

Monster w21 Faces posted:

Can anyone suggest how I want go about modelling a weapon hilt that's rather home made and rough?

Like someone made one out of electrical tape?

I'd probably suggest doing it with the texture, maybe extrude an outside edge to give the appearance of the end of the tape hanging off a bit. Depends what you're doing though. Lowpoly or highpoly? Highpoly you could sculpt the detail in fairly roughly (assuming you have zbrush or whatnot, but if you're doing highpoly you probably do), and lowpoly just make a normal hilt, maybe shift a few vertexes about to give it a more rough look, and then just rely on the texture. Also try a scratched up normal map on the taped part to give it that bumpy, tape look.

Thin Privilege
Jul 8, 2009
IM A STUPID MORON WITH AN UGLY FACE AND A BIG BUTT AND MY BUTT SMELLS AND I LIKE TO KISS MY OWN BUTT
Gravy Boat 2k
Here is how my wheelchair is coming along. I just slapped on a file texture so that doesn't look so good but :effort: I'm nowhere near trying UVs and stuff on it yet. Unfortunately because of that you can't see the details I put on the handle. Oh well.

Seriously question, what's a good way to make the circles at the top (the twisty things on top of the back of the chair)? I was moving the verts of a poly cube into that shape, but that can't possibly be the best way to do it. I tried deformers but I couldn't get it to twist in that conch-y shape. I also tried curves too but it was even worse.



e: Here's the reference but I took ~creative liberties~ (mostly because I knew I couldn't reproduce it exactly). Also I didn't want the umbrella/writing desk in it because I don't like how they look, and I wanted it to have a more Silent-Hill-y look as opposed to just old timey.



e2: I completely forgot to add handles to the seat :doh:

Thin Privilege fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Nov 27, 2012

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Internet Friend
Jan 1, 2001

I'd be surprised if whatever software you're using didn't have a helix primitive or spline primitive to start from. In Max you'd make a helix spline and either make it renderable or add a Sweep modifier. In others you'd "Extrude Along Spline" or similar.

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