model 1 - part 1

HOW IT WAS CREATED 

I started off with the dome, it seemed that the dome had 8 sides so I set the  sides to 8 in the parameters alongside setting the cap segments to 2 as I needed it in order to make it look like a dome by dragging it up using a combination of both vertex mode and the soft selection.  The picture above is the evidence.

As I tried to mould it into a dome I realised I needed more polygons so I started agian with a higher cap segments.

I then selected the edge mode, selected a one And instead of having to select each and every one of them I clicked on loop.  The picture above is the outcome but it was not the desired outcome as i had to make the top part flat in order to put the statue.  I did this by selecting the vertex mode and then select the centre polygon and dragged the z up in order to get the top of the dome flat.  The picture below is the outcome.

In order to make it more curved I clicked on ‘Cut’ to add more polygons/edge at the top of the dome as the picture above shows.  I could have started again and added more cap segments like so:

Ultimately I decided to start again as the polygons I added were a mess.  As you can see from the picture above the polygons I added or ‘cut’ are not evenly spread out so that is the reason why I felt it would be better to start from scratch.

In the end I had to do it with 7 cap segments.  I used soft selection (falloff - 50) and moved the top vertex up. Once I was satisfied with it I deselected soft selection so I could get the flat area at the top of the dome. This is my result: 

 

Considering it was taking me a long time to get things done I figured I needed to get the foundation in place in order to get the details.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to weld two object together and for some reason it wouldn’t work.

MISTAKES

After taking a closer look at the building I realised I’d made a mistake with the tower at the end that was supposed to be next to the building as opposed to at the end. So I corrected that:   

I also realised that the building was facing the wrong way, I tried to correct that by selecting all objects and rotating them instead of selecting one object at a time and rotating (and some would require me to place them) but it wouldn’t work.  After, trying various other ways of trying to make it work I realised that I had select the objects via the click and drag instead of ctrl A or grouping them together.  But it still doesn’t look right as you can see in the picture below.  The only part facing the right way is the tower, named Campanile in my mood board.  This is a mystery that I cannot solve in time.

ALLTERNATIVE WAYS 

While I was researching how to make the dome curvier, I stumbled along a Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbx6IxfH_rc) video about NURBS.  I found this tutorial to be useful to an extent, I dismissed it, then it got me thinking midway through the model that, ‘what if I could draw it in 2d from a bird’s eye view and change it to the 3d’.  Turns out that was extrude (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfpRrui4Kc4) and I was a little bit annoyed as I could have saved a lot of time had I’ve done it like that.

PROBLEM:

My big mistake was that I was spending too much time on the little details when I should have realised that it’s more important to get the work done and I needed to lay the foundations first i.e. putting the ‘body’ of the building together.  I specifically spent a lot of time on trying to figure out how to make the ‘target weld’ work.  For unknown reasons I was unable to. 

Brunelleschi's Dome

The Brunelleschi's Domewill be my first model.  I will only be focusing on the outside.  The details will be a challenge. The construction of this building took place between the 12thC to 14thC.  The reason  why i'm choosing this as my model is because Filippo Brunelleschi was also ahead of his time just like da Vinci.  da Vinci also drew the contraptions that Brunelleschi used un order to construct the dome.

Moodboard:

fruit bowl

INTRODUCTION

In this tutorial we were asked to work with organic shapes such as an apple.   We were taught about how the soft selection works and how it will affect the whole of the shape depending on how big the falloff number is.  The greater the number, the greater the affect on the object.

PROBLEMS

Due to the fact that my right click is not working properly for some unknown reason, I had to find another way of converting the shapes to editable poly.  The picture below is an example on how the right click gives me trouble:  

The alternative way to turn to the polygon mode is by selecting ‘modify’ tab, followed by ‘edit poly’ from the modify list

HOW IT WAS CREATED

Apple 

This is my final design on the apple.  As you can see it does not really look like an apple as I’ve dented the areas too much.  It might have looked more like an apple had I smoothened it from the modifier list.

Banana

 

In the same tutorial we were asked to create a banana.  I started off with a cylinder with sides like so:

 

I then converted it to editable poly so that I could mould it into a banana and this is the best i could come up with:

As you can tell is not really looking like the banana, so i explored a quicker way to smooth out the edges and i came up with turbo smooth from the modifier list, the picture below is the outcome:

Bowl

I then turned my attention to creating a bowl.  I started off with a sphere which was turned to editable poly, and i used soft selection but I was not sure how how much to set the falloff, until i realised that i needed half of  the sphere to be influence by the one polygon/vertex that i’ll be dragging down.  So as you  can see it was set to 45:

I then dragged the one poly down and this is the outcome. 

It does not really look like a bowl.  The staged required me to be in edged faces, and the unchecked of the soft selection, to click on the line that was on the edge mode and click on loop as the picture below shows. 

I then had to drag these out in order to make it look like a bowl.  The picture below is the final product of the fruit bowl apart from not being aligned properly.  I used the import>merge from the application to bring them all together as they were all created in different files.

 Align

As you can see the both fruits are not aligned with the bowl.  I tried to align it with the align selection tool but that proved to be confusing and ultimately a failure.

 

I tried to align them by inputting numbers into the xyz at the bottom like so:

But that didn’t work either as i later realised i had to know the position of the polygon of the object I was trying to align it with, which in this case was the bottom of the bowl.  Ultimately the visual alignment was the best way to go for me although it is a fairly long process.

This is my final outcome of the fruit bowl.

mood board

GLIDER

HELICOPTER

BARREL GUN

Research Board

Chess Piece

We were told to draw a chess piece and then lathe it as part of the tutorial.

PROBLEMS

The first problem I had was that I couldn’t get the line tool to work – to do what I wanted it to do (both in Illustrator and 3DS max).  After many trial and errors I finally managed to get the hang of the line tool.  The other problem was that after I’d lathe it, the chess piece would like this:

I was convinced I’d made an error, until I realised that I’d zoomed in, due to the fact that I drew it too big, and that my solution was simple – either zoom out which I had to do for all four view port which would ultimately take me longer, so all I did was made the chess piece smaller.

HOW IT WAS CREATED

I first had to create half the chess piece using the line tool – I did this by having a picture of a chess piece half showing in another window like so:

After drawing it, I had to click on the ‘affect pivot only’ from the hierarchy tab, and then I had to place the point anywhere along the centre.  I zoomed in, in order to get it accurate.

Finally, I had to select lathe from the modifier list. And this is the result: