UV Unrappage

Finaly i have confirmed through blood sweat and a small physical assualt that single textures are bad and UVW Unwrap is our freind, the interface in Max is servicable but im assured it is limited. I have been reccomended UV Layer as a 3rd party application for this job, worth a look if you dislike this part of the Max toolset.

Here is a model from a game i am working on that i have been using learn the wrapping system.

Cities XL

Well :(...i just got this game after months of anticipation and havnt been able to bring myself to play it for more than 10 mins, it seems building a city in Max is far more satisfying at the moment.

If you are a Sim City fan, i would suggest you try the demo first.

Poly Flow and Pixar Eyes

Currently I'm learning strip modelling techniques and about facial poly flow for use in animation. I decided on this simple but appealing head shape design, it was largely inspired by a model named Dee available to use on the 11 second club website. I added ears to the basic head and i also decided to have an expressive brow much like the style used in Wallace and Grommet animations. The style called for a plain mouth and teeth are still in the thinking stage. Our 3d lecturer also suggested using Pixar style eyes and so i made some to test. These ayes are constructed as a real eye may be with the eyeball, retina, cornea, and lens modeled and textured as needed. The effect is quite nice, i still need to decide what colours i like though.

Hand In

The 2 mini tasks i was set have been handed in now. The castle hill model isn't great to be honest, it requires some technique i don't yet have and some more time. The result is fairly expressive i feel but the level of detail is more 1 generation behind what i would have liked to produce. Luckily i have learned a lot from the process.

The still life i had much more fun with. After reviewing some other 3d work there are a few changes i would like to have implemented, more dirt in general and some fingerprints on the glass vase, a less modern look to the velvet and better use of the tricky Subsurface Scatter modifier. All in all i consider it more a success than a fail and am fairly proud of my result.
Any comments and further detailing advice would be most welcome.

Low poly grass testing

Constructing a usable landscape is proving tricky, at the moment there is too much contrast between my base texture and the long grass transparency i am using. I found 1 or 2 tutorials online for low poly grass modelling but they either use quite a few poly's or look a bit unconvincing. Maybe particle grass would be an option.

How to make a wireframe texture (Mental Ray only)

Here is a quick tutorial on how to make a wire frame texture for displaying your builds. Daryl Marples taught me this method, cheers prof.

Step 1
Make or load a mesh, the layout of the lines in the mesh will be mirrored in the texture so make sure your build is neat. If your mesh isn't visible turn on edge faces in the view port controls.

Step 2
Open the material editor and choose a new slot, press the "standard" button and select composite material.

You can either keep or discard the existing gray colour, i discarded it.

Step 3
Choose base material in the composite material settings box and choose a base colour, I chose a grey.

Step 4
In the first material slot first choose "standard" material from the box.

Step 5
Choose a contrast with your base colour for your diffuse channel, i chose black.
Remember to check the wire option available here.

Step 6
Apply the texture to your mesh. The mesh will look like a wire frame view (you can see through it)

Step 7
Change the renderer to Mental Ray and render.

You should have a nice basic wire frame texture with a solid background.


The pictures are uploaded in reverse, start at the bottom.

More Stll Life

The other current build for Uni is a still life (see earlier post) Fortunately this one has been a lot of fun, no poly limits in effect and a nice detailed brief has made this a nice straightforward build with enough room for artistic interpretation. I decided on a Rembrandt based feel for mine. I also included a few of the textures i am using, and also the lighting mask i made. A useful source for these is www.dhalighting.co.uk who supply cutout gobos (masks for theatrical lighting.)