33 replies to this topic

[cccdfern]

Ever since I started making a mod for ZH, and for that matter discovered modding, I have yearned for the ability to make some of my own models as most of the time I sit here in complete
awe of some of the amazing objects and unique creations that people can create, and are still creating. When I first got into modding I had to make do with either common models or download
ones that people had discovered or made public as free use models. I envied other modders of their abilities to cook up a good model in a very short time. That was until this year.

At the beginning of term 2 or perhaps even earlier I decided to start spending my frees in the PC Lab and learn to use 3DS Max, In doing so I have ended up gate-crashing the Computer Graphics
Class, though the teacher doesn't mind and thinks its a pity I didn't originally take the subject, he's even joked that I could probably take the exam and pass (probably would if I could ). So, to cut
to the actual things I've been doing; To start with I knew nothing whatsoever of the programs mechanics, so I set myself a goal and got a bit of help from one of my friends, and continued from there.
My first project was to create some sort of tower to replace the speaker tower (well not really replace as this is what I'm using currently as my lightning tower, just needed something better), so I started
with the basic aspects and as I discovered more features in the program I made it better. After completing my first attempt I checked the poly count, bit high at 7k, considering general limit is 1k in generals?
From there, my friend instructed me in how to reduce poly counts by being minimalistic with the smoothness of cylinders and how many edges are wasting space/polygons.

The brown model is my first one, sadly I attached everything together not knowing that later I would be unable to detach them :(
And, the multicoloured one is that of a reconstruction with about 700 polygons.
The other building is something that never really went anywhere and was later deleted.



This other image is my real first attempt (the blue tower) the other bits and pieces are what my friend made in a fairly short time.


After that I decided to create a vehicle as I seemed to show no obvious skill in the area of designing buildings, so I decided to look to making models of tanks and such that I have in a useful model-kit magazine
which I've had for ages. I made a good start by modelling a true Paladin tank (Self Propelled Howitzer), by using following tutorials on making tanks, these helped greatly to improve not only the look of the model, but also expanded my knowledge of the possibilities that I can achieve with this program. Here's what the end product was, I'm quite proud of it.


And the original off which I based my model


During that project I also did some smaller ones, a tutorial for animating tank tracks and how to make a quick tank in 3ds/gmax; the tracks were hard to pick up at the beginning but I got it in the end and worked from there; the tank was good as it enabled me another perspective and introduced me to a horde of other interesting tools and methods which I have now pput into use.
Tank



Tracks; need to actually add a screenshot, or perhaps the animation itself.

At the moment I have have started work on a high-poly model of a German NebelWerfer 41 from World War II, So, I have been searching through books and the web for plans, pictures and anything which may aid in a reconstruction of one, I am really enjoying this model and was even wondering if it could ever be used somewhere.
Some pictures of current progress.










The sole reason why I have only recently gotten into modelling is that I still only own a Mac, and if you know anything to do with the back/forth battle then you shall be aware that no official (good) modelling software has been released for this operating system, so I have been restricted to wishing and planning. I keep a notepad with me at most times and jot down some ideas of what to make next or sketch rough copies from books in the school library, I have decided to keep my focus contained within that of the military.

As I make/add more things I will upload them and add them here.

All "pictures" that I mention are actually renders, saved as Jpegs. I'd be happy to upload any of my .max files if someone wanted to use them.

Edited by cccdfern, 23 August 2010 - 10:05.

[JJ]

Hmm, NebelWerfer looks good, Paladin looks ok for a first vehicle model too. Keep it up!

[cccdfern]

Well, for an extreme blow, last week when 3ds crashed it corrupted my files on the nebelwerfer, thus I am unable to do anything else with it. *sigh*
now to start on something new, suggestions? please keep it possible according to my skill and have at least some sort of good pictures to go off.

[Sgt. Rho]

You could try to model a tank off a blueprint, a M1A2 Abrams or a Leopard 2A5/6 might be a good start.

[cccdfern]

Lol, come on mate, everyone wants an Abrams .

But yes a tank shall be commissioned. I'm sure I have some pics of a leopard 2 around here somewhere.


Also, I'm ecstatic atm, the computer that I was using last week auto-backed up
my project 3 times before the corruption, Two were corrupted but the third was fine!

[CJ]

Blueprint database. You might find it useful

[Sgt. Rho]

This should help.

[cccdfern]

Thanks for the blueprints/sites guys; I was wondering though, anyone good at making textures?
Also that Paladin that I made earlier will be incorporated into ZH at some point in time.

[cccdfern]

Working on a tank which started out as an artillery piece from a book, but that looked crud, so I converted it
to this and am changing small things here and there. I have printed off the leopard blueprints and shall try
to work on them and see what I can achieve. Heres the pics:









I have now applied myself to adding my animated tracks to this tank:


In other news, I have a quote for my new PC! So I shall now be able to work on my projects at both home
and school. Quote: Final Quote

Edited by cccdfern, 04 September 2010 - 12:25.

[cccdfern]

Heres those tracks:
Both sets of these tracks are animated; I was wondering if it were possible to make them react to an environment in 3DS max?


And Tried adding them to my tank above, poly count on just one of the Blue ^ tracks is about 50K polys, so I remade them completely and created much smaller
poly ones for the tank, still think it looks kinda long.

Edited by cccdfern, 12 September 2010 - 03:22.

[cccdfern]

Well, this week is proving profitable, I have been able to start making tracks in alternate designs for the tank i've been working on.
The animations are proving well and iI'm even delving into seeing if i can make it react to the terrain somehow or at least follow a
path. These are some of the things which I have been working on. I know things are overlapping, but for some reason i dont actually
have the most recent pics, hmm, oh well, ill upload em tomorrow;

Edited by cccdfern, 22 September 2010 - 08:24.

[cccdfern]

Lately, As with the arrival of my new computer, I have been able to work much more extensively on my current tank; For I have had the good fortune to be able to download and use 3DS Max 2011 (its so cool!), while at school I have to use version 8 :(.

So, I have been able to animate the tracks properly, allowing them to follow the guide line while maintaining fluid movement (no backtracking or glitches), after I finished that I began working on creating the road wheels and other bits which shall be around the track area. Next up is to make the back/engine area look albeit more interesting, then onto making the turret look like it fits, the Grey one is more of a dud then anything. So, with out further ado, my latest additions... Yea, sorry kinda forgot/didn't get to add the pics, here they are:

Edited by cccdfern, 06 October 2010 - 22:28.

[cccdfern]

I have recently discovered an entity that I would wish to have on my desk (buy one), problem is I have no idea as to what the name of it is, so I decided to use 3DS and model it ; thus I have been learning many many things about materials and the like, mainly glass and water. All this has been very informative and interesting, though it may not be game related, it still is a very cool thing, well that's what I think.

Anyway, in effect, It is a medium sized object that you have sitting on your desk, merely for the potential of its fiddling value; made of tough clear plastic, filled with two coloured oils (most commonly green or blue), when at rest the content shall be collected at the case of it, when tilted upside down the blue/green stuff flows down through some channels and sometimes spins a paddle wheel. This is the best description of it that I can think of/remember.

Thus I have tried to make it in 3DS, so far I have been able to create the shape through editing of polygons and suchlike, then I researched on how to create and add glass textures to materials, these added it looks good-ish, but not perfect due to my methods of creating it (stray lines creating refractions where they are unnecessary), I have then rendered it, put it in a compounded box (easy background), and saved some of the renders. My two next projects (within this project), are to add a substance to behave as water (a liquid, perhaps edit the viscosity to be more smooth like oil). The other is to redo the object but with less unnecessary edges.

The Torus knots were just for following tutorials, and thus for testing the textures and backgrounds upon.










I don't really mind if no-one posts anything in reply, I'm used to it, I just like the fact I can post things here and at least have them noticed.

Edited by cccdfern, 06 October 2010 - 22:44.

[BeefJeRKy]

I dare say those objects look more interesting than tanks (I've seen one too many). Keep up in any case.

[cccdfern]

Thanks mate, also trying some extra software n such suggested by some guys on TS, Its the water/liquid thats becoming the hardest to add atm

[Camille]

agreed with scope, these objects are way more interesting than some random tanks

[cccdfern]

Thanks for the positive and directional feedback guys; on a side not, anyone know how to have 3ds render a background or large area
so that it may be reflected by the glass object, yet be unobtrusive to the rest of the scene? As current attempts just make it look bad
or it fails to render set picture. Any ideas?

[pirate]

photoshop

I suggest doing this by making a separate render of the flipped object with the exact same camera, then add them up in photoshop (with fitting transparency and such.)

or...

if you want to get real fancy...

try fryrender, to let it do it for you, but I have no experience with that, so making those settings may be hard and rendering time will possibly not be worth the effort

[Pav:3d]

cccdfern, on 12 Oct 2010, 2:39, said:

Thanks for the positive and directional feedback guys; on a side not, anyone know how to have 3ds render a background or large area
so that it may be reflected by the glass object, yet be unobtrusive to the rest of the scene? As current attempts just make it look bad
or it fails to render set picture. Any ideas?

What you need is an HDRI environment map. I suggest reading up about what it is, as its key to making good renders and make it look like your object is actually in a room or an enviroment.

Many different renderer's use this.
You can use 3ds's Mental Ray renderer to do this Link. Personally I use Vray.

[cccdfern]

Latest stuff, thanks for the epic hint of that background thing. Tea pot was to test you idea.

Edited by cccdfern, 16 June 2011 - 14:38.

[Pav:3d]

Thing is with HDRI you dont use it as your background, its purely to reflect off of your object.
Also best way to test it is to make a very shiny metallic texture.

[cccdfern]

Any one got some good metal textures lying around? The internet is full of such things, just wondering, for I tried adding textured to my Nebelwerfer today, turns out the best I could find in the library were sand textures . This isn't a please give me free stuff plea as I know for sure that any reply will say *learn Photo shop*, sorry but I've tried and failed at that sector, best I've come up with is my current logo, and that was through deciphering a tutorial .
Looks alright, so long as you don't look too closely, I'll do this for all the ones I have already made and then move onto getting fluids working (still miffed at how I'm to go about using Real-Flow - opened it and just went *wow* then, *ah snap*). After that I'll try something else, suggestions? (possible things please [ Ie at my level {which seems to be quite low}]).

These are just some glasses that I made in a short amount of time, I was merely curious as to how they would work out with textures and such; This has also enabled me to get a perfect scene setup for future models.

Edited by cccdfern, 04 November 2010 - 06:04.

[Pav:3d]

Free Textures

[cccdfern]

I know I have said that I won't do much more in tanks/military, but I decided to get better at editing and adapting the textures, smoothing out those pesky
sharp corners and generally improving the animation. So far I have discovered some very useful tools, such as the "TurboSmooth" It's so dam cool! So here
are some of those Renders:

Spot the tanks that ain't mine , free models from some where or other.

[pirate]

Its nice to see artists grow , you are clearly getting better looking at your last few models