Hmm, This Isn't A Car!

So yes, I kind of changed my mind about my next project. I know having car modelling skills would be beneficial, but I don't want my portfolio to be a one hit wonder, if you know what I mean? Rather than having multiple pieces of various things but only one of each, I'd like to have more of one. So I decided to start another environment modelling project. This time, I was working from pictures; it's of my old house in Kenya!

As you can see from the picture, the house is not small! I intend on modelling the house to be near enough exact, both inside and out. However, I cannot find the pictures of the other side of the house nor the ones from the inside, so a lot of the modelling will be done from memory.

This is what I have got so far.

The inside walls have been done as well for all three floors; the basement, ground and first floors.

I have yet to include the doors (exterior and interior) and stairs. I plan on modelling my own stairs as the in-built tool for stairs does not give me the desired effect. All of the walls have the same thickness; 10 cm. I used a simple method to create them - extrusion. The windows have been the most annoying part of the project so far as I could not simply leave an open space like I did with my previous house project. As seen in the reference picture, the windows have a curve at the top. I modelled a separate object in that shape and used the boolean tool to subtract the window shape from the main house walls. This created an annoying result in the fact that I had many holes to close up.

For each window, there was a gap between the walls. These gaps had to be bridged up which took a fair amount of time. This led to me thinking that I hadn't progressed much as nothing visually changed for a day or two! The next step is to finish adding the windows - I still have the basement ones to do - and then add the doors and finish up the roof.

Ah, the roof. That was created using a plugin that generates roof tiles with adjustable parameters. The flat, slightly angles portions of the roof were easy to do, but the section with the inverted "V" above the centre of the house is posing difficult. I intend on modelling the whole compound and house I lived in, from the trees to the drive and the garden to the furniture. It will take a while, but it also allows me to hone my environment modelling skills as this project has everything. I will be modelling grass and trees and other various shrubbery and a lot of different furniture items and aesthetics. I thoroughly look forward to it!

Where Have I Been?

It's been over a month since I lasted posted an entry and the reason for that is I have been working incredibly hard on getting projects done. I really want a job in the modelling industry, be it in games or VFX. So I have worked on and completed two environment scenes in the last month.

Mountain House
This one is my favourite of the two. I love the lighting (I know, it sounds big-headed, but I am just really pleased with the way the lighting has turned out) and the trees. The trees aren't even modelled; they are images on a plane with an alpha map over the top to make the background of the image transparent. It is an incredibly efficient way of displaying trees in the background rather than modelling them. Of course, for up close trees, I would model them to capture the details.

A various array of techniques were used to model this scene, from box modelling for the main building to proxies for the grass. I used a free Max Script for the boulders; it's called Rock Generator and you can manipulate the different values within the window to change the shape and detail of the rocks/boulders.

I did do post processing in Photoshop; this included some colour correction to generally darken the image and I added the mountain range in the background. I also added some small lens flares to the lights in the scene to add some more realism.

This project was incredibly fun to do and I can't wait to do more like it!

For other images please visit the project page on my Behance.


Futuristic Corridor
This is another environment scene, where I was going for a futuristic feel. Again, box modelling was used to model most of the objects in the scene; some used smoothing and others didn't. There is a rather nifty tool within 3DS Max called "Swift Loop" which is used to add a loop of edges onto an object. So I can apply a turbosmooth modifier to an object, which rounds out the corners, essentially. This isn't ideal for something like a door frame, so I can use the swift loop tool with the turbosmooth showing and add a loop of edges to the corners to straighten them out again, but keeping the general smoothness of the whole object. This technique leads you away from chamfering complicated objects, which can result in weird and annoying outcomes.

To create the hose on the floor, the main pipe and the three smaller pipes, I used the Loft object. It's such a nice and quick way of creating long, cylindrical objects. I simply created a spline; in this case I used a line - and laid out the positions of the vertices (so if I wanted a bend in the pipe/hose) and then created a small circle spline off to the side. Using the loft object, with the line selected, I click the circle spline and a 3D mesh appears on top of the line with the same circumference and diameter of the circle. I can then adjust some settings to alter the appearance of the pipe as I see fit.

Again, a little bit of post processing was done in Photoshop to correct some colours and combine the beauty and alpha passes to create the final image above.

I had fun doing this project as I thoroughly enjoy interior and environmental modelling. To see better quality images, visit the project page on my Behance.


That's all for now! I'm currently working on a new project; a car. I'm not overly fond of car modelling but I feel that if I have it in my skill set, it will prove an advantage later on.

Fantasy Hammer: Second Phase

Blimey, it's been nearly a month since my last post and to be honest, it's been the same time since I've done any work on my hammer (or any work, for that matter). It's fair to say I've been very busy over the Christmas and New Year period, helping around the house with meals, decorations, etc, and with family coming up from Wales as well. Then at the end of the year I got a part time job as a Business Machines Associate at Staples; I've just been very busy. Late nights don't help either, mind, combined with being ill over the last few days.

Anyway, I finally got back into the modelling mood and cracked on with the hammer for an hour or so. The unit under the main hammer head has its form along with the main structure for the handle.

Clearly, it is still far from finished, but I will soon be taking it into ZBrush to add the finer details. The colours here are definitely not final, they are the ones chosen when I created the objects in 3DS Max.

So over the next few days I will be finishing this hammer so I can move onto other projects.