Decided to get back into blender modelling.
TheKD
Posts: 2,711
This attempt is looking a hell of a lot better than my last one lol. This is not anywhere near finished, or uv mapped yet, just checking up on the shape, threw a random wood shader on it so it was less boring. It's going to be an archer/guard tower when I am done. Kinda slow I guess, this is 3 days work, but getting back into the groove of things. I am trying to build it at least somewhat believable, but it's not up to code 100% lol.
render01.png
1500 x 927 - 2M
render02.png
1500 x 927 - 2M
render03.png
1500 x 927 - 1M
Post edited by TheKD on
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Comments
Good luck, I hope to see your assets in the store soon. :)
It isn't the modelling that puts me off, it is all the rest - UV mapping, rigging, normal maps, etc. Such a lot to learn.
Very nice :)
Laurie
Very nice! (though I'd strengthen the poles it stands on. If more than one person enters the tower, I fear it will crumble under the weight!)
Well done. Look forward to the updates - and to more projects.
Yeah, one of the things I was thinking about. They look too skinny to even support the tower, was wondering if anyone else would see it that way. Kinda boxed myself in on the corners though, the way everything is notched together, can only really widen them one way. Wouldn't be a huge issue if I used the bevel modifier, instead of baking in the bevel I guess. Should probably try to work more procedurally to make changing things a bit easier. Can't really change the shape without wrecking the bevels.
Whilst they do look thin, that isn't what stands out for me; if they are sufficiently robust material, thin is fine.
They are not built into the ground, there is no sign of 'structure' where they enter said ground.
Lookin good though.
Oh yeh, and UVs and rigging sucks.
Oh yeah, I am going to put concrete cylinders at the base of the poles, like I use when I build decks.
Some diagonal cross-bracing should fix that problem, without needing any/much changes to the existing geometry?
I'm interested in your background/ground image/HDRI - what are you using for it? TIA.
I agree. Concrete blocks would be overkill. They look more like phone oles which have plenty of stability. Cross braces at each corner 40 degrees and over as far as the next poles both ways if that makes sense. Also you might add guide wires going from said corners at right angles. Nothing would move that then.
Great work!!
Definitely too small/skinny, even with larger concrete bases. One option for a quick fix would be to shorten the beams to extend just under the base of the structure, and attach/place larger support beams under them (if you wanted to get super detailed you could even model attachment bracing to make it look like you designed it like this). I think dennisgray has a great idea as well, even with larger beams, cross bracing will help a lot.
At first i too thought UV mapping was a pain, but now i find it to be one of the lesser tediums in the 3d pipeline. But it likely depends a lot on what software you are using to do it. Rigging on the other hand, is the one area i have not put enough time into. Depending on the software, getting a basic rig easy. A proper rig is a different story though, and even with some fancy tools and scripts at your disposal, i found to be the most time consuming part of any 3d work i have done
Not sure what the HDRI was , I just picked a random outdoor one and never saved the daz scene at all. I was able to thicken the posts up some, and add two cross braces so far. This is where I am at now, added in a few g8m for scale reference. Will have to do cross braces differently on the other two sides, as all the posts are different thickness, so can't just slap one on across all the posts. I was trying to avoid the manufactured and perfect look, as the it is part of like an elvan military barracks in the woods type scene, I may have gone overboard on it lol. Man those UV's look bad, looks like the upper walls might be a tad too tall to shoot a bow over, and don't mind the wooden bell.
Setting up the UVs in Blender is easy if you don't have to create seams. I model in Hexagon, but import everything into Blender when it comes time for the UV.
Coming along nicely... congrats.
I want to start by saying I also started again with 3d modelling in Blender (I used to to 3ds MAX before) so I am in no way an expert on that side. I will try and give my opinion and critique like I would like to receive if I ever posted anything, to be able to improve my models/scene.
Here we go:
Looks pretty good except the UV mapping which is indeed not the best but, I think until you are finished with the modeling part, the texturing can wait. A rough one like you have for the feel is fine for now.
Suggestions I would make:
I look forward to see how you progress this.
Spent most of my time today on the trapdoor hardware and the bell, which should look a lot better with one subd level and a metal texture. I hope lol. I think my edits on the stilts look a lot more believable now. Agree about putting some stuff inside, a few tall stools I was thinking, maybe a cot or two. Weapon rack is a good idea too, maybe a arrow reservior of some sort on the walls. Still kinda slow at this, but beginning to relearn all the hotkeys slowly, pain in the ass jumping back into daz studio, keep trying to navigate the camera like I do in blender lol.
Decided to be less lazy about it this time, and import it in a bunch of pieces so I could at least give them better materials, different woods, metals etc lol. Nailing it together took quite a while, still not done UV mapping, so the material looks bad in a lot of places. UV mapping is gonna take forever, so may pieces lol. No clue why the random HDRI I chose looks like that, don't really ever use HDRI visible, only use it for lighting mostly.
It's looking a lot better texture wise.
I think you can do smart UV Unwrapn in Blender for a lot of the pieces, since they have simple geometry, it should do well enough.
I like the trapdoor both as an idea as the model. As an extra security measure you could make a system of removing the ladder (no ladder, harder to assault). Easiest system I can think of, although maybe not so easy to model would be to have a rope ladder. It could be something that they could pull fast into the tower in case of assailants and then noone would be able to come in.
Looking forward to see the progress from now on, you're insipiring me to model something myself although not sure what :).
Yeah, uv mapping this kinda thing is not complicated, just super tedious. Rope ladder was my first idea, but I could not think of a way to impliment it. Building one was easy, but figuring out a good way to make it raise was what gave me the trouble. Same reason I scrapped my rope bell ringer idea and went for a hinged one instead lol.
I you don't plan to do animations you don't have to make it raise.
Just have a model for it to the ground, optionally, one or two in between steps of it being raised up, and one final step with it being raised completely and on the floor of the tower.
Until I get some inspiration of my own, because I wanted to build something new in Blender I did this (1651 polys :D):
I didn a fast procedural texturing for now, couldn't bring myself to do more than that today.
I like the design of it. Looks more like a realistic one that could be in use today
Yes, I draw inspiration from the one posted by me above which is a WW2 old tower.
After I texture this one I think I will model the other one as well, to have 2 different tower models, like there are 2 sides of a war with different designs :).
Been having a lot of navigation issues today for some reson. My viewport simply refuses to zoom or pan properly until I press . every two seconds. It will start off zooming/panning OK, then all of a sudden I need to mave the mouse 50 times for the viewport ro move an inch. Or the scroll wheel clicks get stupid, like one click is either moving the a view a mile and zoom right past what I am trying to get to, or a mm when I need to move the view 20 feet lol. Kinda annoying right now lol, especially as I am doing the seams on the roof slabs wich are pretty big.
Both in Daz Studio and Blender I frequently use View Frame / Frame Selected to get the viewport targeted for what I m looking at, and then kind of initiated my navigation on that.
I didn't notice the issue as much when I was just modelling, but it's frustrating when trying to go alone a long beam or whatver marking the seams along a big object.
Also one more weird thing, not sure if it's just my eyeballs here, but I am seeing some weirdness, that's hard to explain. It's like anytime I select something, like say a seam on my object. The object looks like it jumps a milimeter, like it seems to move some barely percepible incriment lol.
Not a whole lot of progress I guess lol. The ones that have a texture are the ones I finished UV mapping with the color texture on it, the black rubber looking ones is what I have left to do. Also noticed after my trap door didn't export for some reason, but oh well, it's not done yet anyway. Think I need to tweak the UV's on some of the stilts, not sure why they look like that, they looked better in blender.
Checked my log, so far nice and light weight on the GPU
2020-01-06 21:15:43.977 Iray [VERBOSE] - IRAY:RENDER :: 1.4 IRAY rend stat : Geometry memory consumption: 1.784 MiB (device 0), 0.000 B (host)
2020-01-06 21:17:27.641 Iray [VERBOSE] - IRAY:RENDER :: 1.4 IRAY rend stat : Texture memory consumption: 119.000 MiB for 9 bitmaps (device 1)
2020-01-06 21:17:27.673 Iray [VERBOSE] - IRAY:RENDER :: 1.5 IRAY rend stat : Materials memory consumption: 30.668 KiB (GPU)
Looks good so far!
The black and brown combo also looks good. Maybe you could combine a darker shade of wood with the lighter one if you have for a nicer look.
Thanks. I was actually thinking of using one texture for the beams, then another for the roof slabs, wall and floor. Also planning on making a painted version as well as a wood version. Shooting for having this finished this week, unless I get a call for some work lol.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think the wood grain resolution is wrong. The roof panels look like they are a few inches wide rather than a few feet.