[Rinaldo]

Hmmmmmm.....well sorry for pissing off any "keep sijun 3D free" people.

This is my first 3d thing that started to look reasonable. Done in MAX3 with surface tools.
The ears are a mess, There's a fair amount of creasing and stuff, but anyway. It actually (loosely) resembled the sketch.


I was after some severe criticism here if possible. Can anyone tell me how to render out the splines on top so that it is actual possible to crit?
The areas like the corner of the mouth and where the ear connects to the head stuffed me up. Does anyone know where there's some good info on how to deal with these things?

I've also started to do some low poly stuff. I was wondering what was the best way to work out the mapping coordinates or whatever so I can get something into Photoshop that I can paint.

This is pretty boring stuff I'd imagine. I've looked around and most tutorials have prepainted textures. Or in that case of most low poly stuff are heavily geared towards a particular game etc.

Here's the model.


And for any who are interested here's a few more sketches.

[daz199]

WOW
i've been using max for almost 2 years and i still can't do stuff like that
maybe because i;ve never trie hehe
for mapping, theres some unwrapper plugins loook around try 3dcafe.com
and those sketches are pretty coo too

[extralobe]

I can't comment on 3d, but .. those sketches.. do I detect some Masamune Shirow influence in the shapes of those tech forms? And the woman on the upper far right as well..

[surferboi]

well its a great first head.. nice character looks like itll be fun to animate..
about texturing in max i cant tell u too much using max to map ur textures, i can give u a general overview that can be applied to max later on if you want. another thing that i think is a popular but yet expensive solution for many artists, these days is deep paint3d with texture weapons addon by right hemisphere. Ive seen it in action and it lives up to most of the hype, and since you are a good artist im sure ud have no problem using it effectivly, it exports nicely out to photoshop btw.
it isnt necessary but it does speed things up a bit.. sorry for the shameless plug but i think it is a great app for what it does.
url for it is www.righthemisphere.com i think theres demos available for ya to get a feel on.

[Icannon]

well, i didn't even get that far before i got totally fed up with surface tools, so congradulations www.3dluvr.com has 2 surface tools tutorials, but i'm not sure if they'll help. i havn't read them.
..anyway, since you've started low-poly modeling and since you have max3, you really should play around with simple low-poly modeling with the meshsmooth modifier placed over top (nurms). max4 will have some neato additions to meshsmooth, like hard edges and stuff, so yippee. not only will it be great for organic modeling but for all other things as well.

[Ben Barker]

There are two mapping techniques that work well. The first is texture mapping. I usually do a cylindrical map on the head, then use Texporter (available on 3dcafe) to make a wireframe bitmap to paint by hand.
If you do this you will get a mapping pole on the top of the head. Use UVW channels and a gradient to mix a planar map on top of the head.
The easier way is to use procedural mapping. Make a cool skin material with Cellular, dent, or other procedural maps. Use a texture map to blend between different materials (for around the eyes, lips etc.). When you have it all right, apply a UVW map (XYZ to UVW) and there you have it.
Nice model BTW. I've haven't used surface tools that much, but for creases use tri-patches. They crease well.

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Ben Barker

[Rinaldo]

Thanks people

daz199- I've always found 3D cafe hard to navigate. Lots of stuff but in theses long lists. Little apps for different packages, different versions of those packages. You need to basically click on every button to find what you want. Heh... I'll have a look tho

extralobe- My Shirow influences are probably subliminal I just recently dug my intron depot's out of the bookshelf and saw a few things that were similar. But yeah I'm a pretty big fan of his mecha stuff. Not so much for his figurative stuff tho.

surferboi-I've had a look at Deep paint3d, looks good but I doubt I can afford it atm. I'm waiting until I've got a nice model so I can get good use out of the 15 days
An overview would be most appreciated if you can be bothered.

Icannon- I had a shot at nurms, but it didn't work out for me This was probably because I didn't know how to use anything at the time tho. I plan to have another go at it soon because the stuff in ver4 sounds good.

Thax a bunch all

[Rinaldo]

Ben Barker- Thanks. I can't find Texporter on 3d cafe. But I was able to track it down I'd seen it before but only got a few dead links. I should have had a good look

[waylon]

I wrote this little tutorial up earlier this spring... it's a bit cryptic in parts, but hopefully it'll help.

-----------

The first part is applying UVW coordinates. Add either an "Edit Mesh" or "Mesh Select" modifier, then select a bunch of faces which *generally* lie in the same plane.

Once you have your faces selected, apply a "UVW Map" modifier. 90% of the time I set it to "Planar", since it usually results in less distorted mapping coordinates. You'll see a gizmo appear in the scene, representing how the texture map will be applied to the object. Make sure the gizmo is lined up with your selected faces. Click on <Sub-Object> to move, rotate, and scale it if you need
to. You can also use some of the extra options to make your work easier - I almost always use <View Align> to align the gizmo to the top, front, or left planes. One other thing you might want to do is type in the width and the height of the modifier manually - this will allow you to get a consistent aspect ratio for all the faces.

The next tool I usually use is "Unwrap UVW". This is both really useful and a pain in the ass. It brings up a window in which you can fine-tune the mapping coordinates. (it's pretty obvious when you see it.) Just keep in mind that whatever faces you have selected are the ones which show up in the UVW Map modifier (this can be annoying if you don't realize what's going on, but it's really useful when you realize how it works.) So basically, on this screen, you want to make sure none of your mapping coordinates overlap, and do whatever tweaking you find necessary.

Once one set of faces are mapped, go back to step one and do another section of your mesh. Depending on its complexity, you may want to collapse the modifier stack occasionally... things get a little slow when you've got 20 edit mesh modifiers stacked up.

Once every face has mapping coordinates, you'll probably want some way of getting this into Photoshop. Get Texporter, or some other such plugin, and save out the mapping coordinates in your favorite image format. Then you're all set to paint!

------------

So that's the basics. Let me know if any of this is unclear.

[Rinaldo]

Hey Waylon, sounds good. I'll give it a try and see where it starts to get too complicated for my frail little mind to handle

Thanks

[waylon]

Oh yeah, one other technique you might want to use... What I posted above is good if you only want one texture map on your object. But, especially in low-poly stuff, you'll often want to have multiple textures.

For this, you'll need to do two things. First, you'll need to set up your material to handle multiple texture maps. Go into the material editor, and click the button where it says "Standard". Change the material type to "Multi/Sub Object". This will change your material into a collection of 10 "standard" materials. (you can change this to any number you like.)

The second part is editing your mesh, and specifying which faces go with which material. Select all of the faces that correspond to a specific sub-material. Scroll to the bottom of the Edit Mesh modifier - there should be a box labeled "Material ID." Type in the number of the material.

When I have an object that'll have a lot of different texture maps, I'll usually start by making a multi-sub material with a whole bunch of different solid colors for each sub-material. Then, before I even start with mapping coordinates, I'll apply this to the object and figure out what faces need to be grouped together. Here's a screen shot showing what I'm talking about:
http://fear.incarnate.net/~vlad/sijun/multi-sub.jpg

Once again, if this is too cryptic, let me know.

[Jaymo]

Something concerning your nice model: The ears may look a lot better if you rotate them slightly in y so you can see a little into them from front; looks too flat right now. And when done with the raw modeling you should edit the copied half of the head a bit, so it ain't so unnaturally symmetric. As for the wireframe on top: either you can possibly render wire on shaded (not too familiar with max, working with softimage) or you could composite a wireframe render with a shaded one in photoshop.
Just my 2p...

[amnesia]

To render you splines on top. Duplicate the splines, take off any surface you have on them. Then click the renderable box, i think it's under Generalor line properties. Then render. Your surfaced object should still in the same place as the duplicated splines object so the splines will render in the right places... You can play around with the line thickness for fun.

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,.-="`AmnesiA`"=-.,

[Frost]

Great stuff Rinaldo! Especially love your sketches. The modeling looks good, but perhaps needs some tweeking to smoothen some parts around the mouth. In any case, very nice work!

[Jenn]

UBER! They all RULE!

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DarkChyld

[Vortx]

those are some pretty sweet sketches....got any more you can post up?

-feng

[Rinaldo]

Thanks everyone

Jaymo-points taken I really should have played with it after the copy flip attach.


amnesia-cheers I'll give it a go.

Frost-Thanks

Jenn-

Vortx-Glad you like em'.

only other ones I've not posted yet are these: an SD charachter that I was going to (try and) model, and a scratchy thing...some of the lights and darks ain't working but anyway.


other than that there's the other things I've posted, not sure if you've seen them all. here's a list if you're interested and have a spare minute.

http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Mysticsket.jpg http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Robosketch.jpg http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Sketches.jpg http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/FP1.jpg http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/chunks.jpg http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Girlwalk2.jpg http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Elf.jpg http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/mecharmskla.jpg (large)

top ones done earlier and thus more grubby

[Binke]

Damn I really like your sketches Rinaldo
nice girls hehe.
Cant give any comments to the 3D stuff ,since I dun know shit about that stuff

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Art Dimensional

[Darkmoon]

wow,

your sketches bare resemblance to the guy who draws steampunk, and thats a compliment for sure! awsome, make me drool....

your very good at womens faces, very good stuff! cant wait to see more!

-Lisa

[Chapel]

Ack.. don't compare Rin to Bachalo. I like Rinaldo's stuff better.

Hey man you need to finish some of those sketches. Clean up the line work on some of em so Is can color em.

[This message has been edited by Chapel (edited September 20, 2000).]

[Rinaldo]

Binke-Thanks

Darkmoon- Heh I'm a pretty big Bachello fan I guess it kinda rubs off. I take that as a complement. My fave CB comic is the Witching hour. Get it, or get outta here

Chapel-Thanks although I think you view me too highly. Maybe with non sequential stuff, but I just love his comics. Not so much Steampunk, It's way to busy, but at least it gives you somehting to look at for a while

I've got something you'll be interested in. I'm just finishing it. post soon

[edit- had too many "heh"s]

[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited September 20, 2000).]

[Chapel]

I can flip through Steampunk, but I can't read it. Too hard to tell what is going on. He makes some nice pinups. I just don't want you following his path Rinaldo. He isn't the greatest sequential artist.

[tanis]

Friggin' sketches Rinaldo! I love them!
Real great stuff. How long have you been drawing ?

[Rinaldo]

I agree. a lot of his stuff is confusing. Even in the Witching hour I was lost at times even though I liked it. He has a nice sense of design and pacing tho, which is often lacking from a lot of artist's work. When those complex panels do make sense they are good. maybe one day he'll get it down and make it all readable. I dunno, every time I look at his stuff I just can't put my finger on why I like it. I mean some of the drawings are pretty bad is a sense and there is the poor comunication. It just like if for no particular reason at all

[Rinaldo]

thanks tanis how long av' I been drawing? lets see now. I was never one of those draw on the walls people who just always did it. I wasn't a whizz at it from a young age. in fact I sucked pretty hard until I saw some manga stuff that a Japanese friend of mine was doing. I HAD to get good at that. HAD to be better than him. That was about 95/6 I drew manga stuuf for a while. It was only about 98 that I started to really get into it. And then only in 99 when I got out of high school that I was able to get into a course that allowed me to draw a lot. So I'dunno when I started to draw. I definitly didn't thing I was any good or considered it as a profesion until 98. Stiil got a way to go methinks