Topic: My new little fun Project ... in 3D!

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Alright, so I've been getting better and better at 3D Modeling, so I figured I'd put this up.

I started with a cool concept for laying out, in 3D, some cv3 stages.

[uzo]

Oh shit! That's awesome!

Are you planning to do the rest of the stage?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

But of course!
Can't wait for the massive clockwork upper section, or just the pendulum room.

I can't put chains up though... they're too simple (just a texture of a chain on two polygons).

[Rugal]

This is great, man. With some coding, and the Orange Box engine, you could make this into something spectacular.

[Profbeanburrito]

Wow! Thats is awesome!

The Clock Tower (of Untimely Death), is my favorite stage in CV3 so I absolutely love it. I hope to see more!

[Aridale]

Looks pretty good for a first bit of foray into 3d. What are you usin to make it? It looks pretty low poly is it some kinda game engine builder like Quark?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

In Reply To #6

I use a 3D Modeling/CAD program called Rhino3D to make it.  I just grabbed its default rendering/texturing plugin and skinned the polygons, so I did not put too much work into that.

It also allows me to make stuff like this, lolz:
PDF Fun Draft

The program can output to a number of popular 3D file formats, including 3D Studio Max and Maya and Lightwave.  When I learn how to use "Blender", I might do some better texturing, but right now it's just a 1:1 block layout.

And yes, it's very low-polygon count.  I made it very stylized so that it'd easily load.  You can just stick trevor in a 2x1 'tile' polygon and it'd play rather well.  Like "Super Paper CV", haha.

[Aridale]

In Reply To #7

oh man... blender blows ass. I mean its not a bad program end result wise but I dont see how anyone makes anything with it. Ive been usin Max for around 6-7 years and I tried to get into blender for a few specific things Max didnt support well for FO3 and Oblivion and I just couldnt do it. It made me wanna run to some really high building run all the way to the top and then jump off and try to hit the most shit I possibly could on the way down.

Luckily the Max support for those games saw some improvements and I can do everything I want/need to do with it now.

If you got a choice Id try to get Max or atleast GMax or Milkshape3D and avoid blender if you have any sort of grasp on "standard" 3d modeling already. Blender would be best to start with if youve never touched 3d before

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

In Reply To #8

Well I do 3D Design as my profession (that's what I do at work), so I am comfortable designing real-world objects as well as fake Videogame objects.

Where I am lacking in expertise is in texturing and skinning the models, which is why I downloaded Blender a few days ago (someone recommended it).  I've not touched it yet though.

GMax you say... that's like Maya's little brother isn't it?

[Aridale]

In Reply To #9

Dont quote me on this as I havent used GMax but as I understood it it was a simplified less compatible version of Max.

If skinning and texturing is the area you have the most inexperience I definitely dont recommend Blender. I was just readin an hour or so ago how its much harder to rig skeletons and uvm map stuff in it than say Max. If you arent gonna animate anything skeletal systems wont be that big a deal to ya. But I can attest to Maxs (specially the newer ones) ability to easily and quickly make and change uvm mapping.

If you dont know uvm mapping is applyin 2d texture to 3d meshes. Its unwrapping the 3d mesh and flatting it into a 2d image so it can be painted on. And it used to have to be done by hand... /shiver I dont miss those days.

Max however now has lots of ways to go about makin new and editing existing uvm maps. Including a modifier called UVM Edit which opens another window with the 2d uvm and gives you points of reference where it all is on the 3d model. You can select parts in either the 3d views or the uvm and see where those parts are on both. The uvm window lets you have full control over the layout of the uvm with move scale rotate etc controls so you can get it just how you want it and even export the uvm to like a png file so you can start makin the textures.

Thats for complicated 3d stuff like that needs lots of texture work. Its always had per face and per poly uvm features. Like you want the top half of a model to have a different texture go into polygon subselection and drag a selection around all those faces and then open the material window and drag the new texture over and its done.

I dunno if you plan to make actual game usable stuff or just stuff to render so I dont really know what kinda stuff to recommend. All I know is I HATE blender with a fiery passion lol

[A n t r a x x]

It's too dark.  I know you used the candles as light sources, but it just takes away the original's charm.

Not saying you should go neon or anything, just up the power of the candles maybe. Or you could make light come in through windows.

Anyway I guess it's a good way to learn a new program, but I wonder if it can do complex organic modeling, because shapes like this are pretty basic for a 3D modeling program.

Perhaps these could be used for a fan project somehow.  Or a web comic... idunno.

[A n t r a x x]

In Reply To #11

Oh and nice detail on the gears' faces.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

In Reply To #11

Ugh...
Look, I purposefully did basic shapes, no real texturing, and barebone lighting effects (and only on the later pictures).

It's supposed to be a more stylized, simple look, not a super-realistic one like DXC.

Did you not see the pics that did not have lighting?  Those were pretty bright.  In reality, there'd be an ambient light lighting the whole thing, so that it's not as dark.  You can see that the first shot without lights was bright, as were the 2nd and later pics.  I only added lights on the last ones.

Yeah it can do complex stuff, but that's not what I was doing.  And I already know how to use the modeling program, it's only the texturing/mapping that I don't really do.

_______________________________________ _______

Anyway, I made the 2nd area, and made this picture for fun:

[uzo]

Haha, NES Trevor. That's awesome.

[Clara E. Leet]

I think the lighting's fine.