Introduction
This tutorial is to show, in a non program-specific manner, how to use creature elevation drawings or ‘blueprints’ to make a model. The tools used are in nearly every 3d application.
For quick blocking out of creatures using the cube method, Hexagon is hard to beat; Blender is also good, but harder to learn, though the additional features and control more than make up for that. There are many others, but Hexagon is very cheap and fast to learn, and blender is free and truly excellent, after you get used to the interface, so they’re what I’d recommend to beginning modelers.
For this tutorial, I will be using Blender, but the steps are almost exactly the same, whatever 3d program you use.
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Step 1 - load and align background images
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Load the images as the background of your ‘working space’. Make sure you have perspective turned off, and are looking at your workspace from the same angle as your picture is from. This is extremely important, since having perspective on will make the guide images considerably less useful.
If your program allows it, split the screen so you have one viewing-window for each view you have drawn, and one movable-view window to save you from having to constantly change views to check if things are correctly placed.
Make sure your drawings are properly aligned with each other-that if you click a spot in one view, you’re clicking the same place in the other(s).
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Step 2 - Getting ready for cube modeling
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Working in whatever view is the most ‘informative’ about the object’s shape (in most quadrupeds and birds, this is the side view.), add a cube. Give it some ‘real’ subdivision so you have some more points to play with, 1 or 2 levels is usually enough at this stage. In blender, this is done with the subdivision tool-hexagon calls this tool ‘tessellate’. There is more than one method of subdivision, so pick whichever is most suited to your model. I prefer to use the subdivide-smooth option in most cases.
To make the model look smoother while you work on it, you can also add some non-real subdivision. (In blender, this is in the buttons bar- add modifier, subsurf. In hexagon, this is done by clicking the ‘2’ button next to ‘smoothing’ in the bar to the right. ) Position the cube at the chest or the hip region of your creature- generally, whichever is larger.
If you can’t see the background image, change the display style so you can, or change the material of the object to something partially transparent.
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Step 3 - getting the first view right
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getting the first view right
Select the end face of the cube, and extrude it. Rotate the extruded face so it is perpendicular to the centerline of the object (ideally, you will have marked it in on your guide picture) and move and scale it so it matches the outline.
It is usually best to use straightforward scaling when you are working on your first view, rather than scaling along an axis-particularly if you are only working from the one view-though if you have three views mapped out, you can switch views at every new extrusion, and align things that way. If the other end of the cube isn’t lined up properly, do it to that, too.
Try to keep placement of these rings of vertices evenly spaced as possible, unless you plan to re-make the topography (polygon placement), in which case it doesn’t matter if your faces are unevenly sized at this stage-you could even use nurbs or meta-objects instead. You should aim to only have teeny little polygons in the spots you intend to have teeny little details, or where there will be a lot of movement, and you require smooth bending. All polygons should be as close to square-shaped as is practical, and excessive use of triangles should be avoided if you plan to use the model for animation.
Continue extruding and scaling- when you reach a place that requires a couple fewer polygons, merge two points of the leading edge together, to create a triangle. If you need more faces, scale and place the ring of vertices as usual, and subdivide the edge in the places where additional faces are needed. Tweak surrounding vertices positions to make the overall shape look smooth.
If you need substantially fewer polygons, change to a slightly different view until you can see the ends of your cube, and select the polygons in the right area, and extrude only that region. Smooth the area around it.
On the off chance your original polygon plan isn’t working, it’s perfectly fine to change it as you go along. Try not to let the polygons get too small at this point- it is easier to wait until you have the correct basic shape before you start going into too much fine detail.
Continue in this fashion until you have the central portions of the animal – the body, head, neck, and the tail- done. My model is going to use a head I modeled separately, so does not have one here.
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Step 4 - Getting the other views right
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Switch to the second view- chances are, the model doesn’t quite match up with the outline in this view. and it’s possible that some bits are quite bizarre-looking. Using a soft selection (Hexagon) or proportional editing (Blender), scale and rotate rings of vertices – but only along the axis that you see changes in, in that view- until the shape of the model matches the outline, and move vertices until it doesn’t have weird dents and bulges. You may want to turn on x-axis symmetry at this point, to speed up your work and keep things even. The smoothing tool is a great help at this point.
Keep an eye on the other view windows, in case you accidentally alter something that’s not visible in the view you’re working from. Continue adjusting the scaling of things in the different views until you are happy with the overall shape of the body section. |
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You may chose to model limbs separately, or make them in one piece with the object- I would recommend modeling the entire item as one piece (with the obvious exception of things that need to be detached), except if it is a complex item, that you have made before and kept in a ‘bits kit’- a file where you keep those ‘practice’ body parts, so you can use them if the need arises. You should work on one half of the model, and mirror that to the other side, rather than do all the work twice.
There are two basic ways to begin the leg region if you intend to model the animal all in one piece. One is to select a face and simply extrude it in the right direction, (the legs on the ‘cat’)
The ‘shoulder’ method is where the or faces in the haunch region are first extruded at a right angle to the direction of the leg, then the bottom faces of that is extruded . Picture 3 (dragon leg) is a more finished example.
Complete the legs in the same manner as the body. Animal heads are a complex enough subject that they have tutorials of their own- I suggest googling for ‘closed mouth modeling’ and information on the structure of eyes- but if you don’t want realistic eye structure or an articulate mouth, the head can be made in the same way as the rest.
If you have modeled the limb separately, position it where it needs to be, and make the two objects into one. Delete all faces that would fall inside the joint area, and bridge the gaps with faces- you will probably need to get a bit creative and move vertices around to make things match up.
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When you have got the body shape of the model correct, you should then apply some subdivision, for refining and detailing- and also to make poser or DAZ|Studio render it more nicely. The amount of subdivision depends on the amount of detail you want in the finished piece, and how detailed you model already is. Remember that if there isn’t an edge there, it can’t bend there- so places like tails and heads that will bend or morph need to have plenty of faces.
You can either add subdivision evenly (by selecting the whole object) or add different amounts in different areas- this stage is why trying to keep you mesh even before is so important, because you need to do a lot more fiddling around if, say, the tail requires 3 levels- but only length-ways, so you’d need to only select the length-ways edges, the head is fully detailed, and the body needs 2 levels. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference in the end; it’s just a hassle. I usually end up having to do this anyway :D
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Step 7 - Duplicated details
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In many cases, a detail will be repeated multiple times. In this case, your best bet would be to model the single ‘generic’ version of this item, then copy-paste it as needed, making needed changes to each copy, rather than to model each one separately.
There are two wide categories of duplicated details: the ones that are attached, and the ones that are not. Detached examples include items such as feathers, and spikes/claws that need to be retractable, attached ones are any that is actually integrated into the mesh.
In both cases, the detail is first modeled (and a ‘in case I mess up, or need one again’ copy is saved) then a copy is made, edited with the soft selection or proportional editing tools to fit into the needed space, then either that copy or the original (whichever is best suited) is duplicated, and adjusted for the next place.
If the item is detached, and just sits on or pokes through the ‘skin’ of the main model, your work is done when you have finished scaling and adjusting the detail.
All the feathers are based off the same ‘generic’ model, to save on modeling time.
If the item needs to be integrated into the model, you will need to first delete the underlying polygons on the ‘main’ model, then weld points until the detail is integrated with the main model- you may need to use the ‘smooth’ option on a few points around the junction of the detail and the main model, to get them into place.
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This is hardly a comprehensive guide, and it only lists the one method, but it is a good way to get started. The example critter was left deliberately simple, with time, fiddling, further refinement and a texture it can become beautiful :)
Something to note is that blender has a tool to automatically scale integrated or non-integrated details to be in the same location as faces or vertices are on a parent object, These are known as ‘dupliverts’ and ‘duplifaces’ and can be found in the button menu, in object mode, object, in the anim setting tab- you just need to make a duplicate object of the body, delete all but the faces you want details on, apply the duplifaces, then export and re-import the resulting object, finishing by deleting the extra object. It’s a bit of a fuss, but still easier than manually moving all the details around, if there’s a great deal of them.
For more information on this, see http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/DupliFaces
If you want really, really fine detail, you may wish to UV map a version that is still at a reasonable level, save a copy, then use a highly subdivided version of the model to sculpt/paint in a z-brush like fashion (yes, blender does this too…) and bake a normals map and ambient occlusion to images, to ‘fake’ the shape and shading of the higher-resolution mesh when you apply it to the low-res version - unfortunately, poser does not take normals maps, but if you are willing to pose a model in poser or DAZ|Studio, then export it to another application for rendering, you can save a lot of resources in this manner, as you do not need to keep and pose a model with hundreds of thousands of polygons. |
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