INTRODUCTION

This project was made to learn blueprint modeling and unwraping (I had never done this before). In this making of I’m going to show all parts of my work and also I’m going to point on mistakes that I have made. I hope that my making of will be useful for those who wants to start with this as well and will help them to avoid of making the same mistakes.

I used this software and plugins:
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*VIZ2008 – scene
*Brazil r/s V2 pro beta – rendering
*Texporter – VIZ doesn’t have feature to save unwraped wire image (I didn’t find it:) so this plugin was handy.
*Photoshop – texture painting and postproduction

Some info about the jet which I created:
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This aircraft is being developed for Indian army as LCA (Light combat aircraft) since 1983. Its main goal is to replace old MIG 21. In present is done prototype PV-3.
In some details is similar with Mirage 2000. Aircraft is very small and it belongs among the smallest and the lightest in the world.

SCENE SETUP

At first I had to find some good blueprint reference. There was a little problem with this aircraft as it isn’t very famous. I found only one version of blueprint on google, unfortunately not much detailed.

Here is an example of which I consider as a great reference if you want to make a quality aircraft model with all details

I loaded blueprints into photoshop and with rulers checked if the dimensions of top, side and front views coresponds. I dont’t have screenshot of this from HAL Tejas project but on image below there is example from another project which I’m making.

I inverted colours on whole image (there is also good to add some contrast). I like to have black background and white lines which helps me later with the opacity trick in scene. Then I cut each view into separate images: top, side and front with ~ coresponding image rosolutions and saved them. I created box in VIZ with matching proportions to the reference images, converted it into editable mesh and deleted 3 sides. I assigned its own Material ID (1,2,3) to each of resting sides. Then I applied multi/Sub-object material on this box. Sub-Material settings are showed on the image below (self ilumination set to full white, speculars off and previously prepared reference images in the opacity slot). This makes visible only the lines of drawed aircraft and they are independend on the scene lighting.


*/TIP: there is also a lot of tools and scripts for crating bluprint planes in the viewport e.g. imagePlaneMaker.ms — By Neil Blevins/*

This is a multi-part tutorial on creating a Demon-like ‘Lok Warrior’ with realistic muscle anatomy. In the first day of this tutorial we will create a base mesh for our character using poly modeling. In day two we will take this mesh into ZBrush and sculpt intricate muscle anatomy. On day three we will texture the creature and add the finishing touches to the artwork.

Let’s begin day 1 of this tutorial.

Step 1

I used two images from 3d.sk to model the base mesh more accurately. I drew 2 planes, one from the frontal view-point and one from the left view-point. With the exact same length and width as the original photos, I applied the photos as their textures, and then used the Move tool to view our image plane as seen below.

Step 2

Start with a cylinder with 5 height segments.

Step 3

From the front viewport delete the half side of your model so that you can add a symmetry modifier. Click on ‘Editable Poly Vertex Level’ and now we are ready to use some very handy tools: move-scale-rotate, and make the shape of the cylinder fit the image body. Press Ctrl+E and then you need to delete the four polygons. Your final result will be similar to image below.

Step 4

Now select and extrude that front edge using Shift + Move; as you can see on below image, in blue color, try to work in both the front and left viewport. When you are near to back part edge, use ‘Bridge’ to connect the edges when both are selected.

Step 5

Now for the leg. Extrude the selected edges by holding the Shift key down on your keyboard and use the move tool as show in the image below. To help them stand out, I colored them in blue. When you are done, try to form the leg from front and left viewports using the vertex sub-object level and like before, move-scale-rotate them.

Step 6

For the arms, use the same method as the leg in the above instruction.

WARNING! This Making of Contains Nudity.

Software Used :

ZBrush

The original idea for this image came out of the references I’d collected. Whenever I start a new artwork, I do a lot of research and then I start the modeling (Fig.01).

Fig.01

With these references, I blocked the model with a simple base and I did some primary tests with the composition of the model (Fig.02).

Fig.02

As the idea matured, I really needed some specific references for the towel on the head and how its drapery would work. So I took some pictures of a relative of mine doing the exact pose with a towel (Fig.03).

Fig.03

I used the same real-life reference for the towel in the model’s hand (Fig.04).

Fig.04

3D text effects are common elements in graphic design and advertising. The extra depth dimension allows images to visually pop from the page, and provide excellent building blocks for development of an image. A variety of tools can be used to create them, but creation of 3D text effects often requires significant time, patience, and knowledge.

In this tutorial, Joe Moore will teach you step by step how to render beautiful and visually sharp 3d text in 3D Studio Max, render it using Mental Ray, and then combine it with additional visual elements to create an atmospheric, nature inspired 3D text composition using Photoshop. If you don’t have 3D Studio Max, fear not, for a beautiful PNG render is included so you can still follow the Photoshop section.

This tutorial is jam-packed with techniques, tips and tricks to improve your workflow and design skills. Whether you’re a rookie designer looking to learn new techniques to use, or you’re a veteran designer just looking for tips on taking your images to the next level, you’ll find a ton of useful information here.

Software used:

• 3DS Max (Xara3D would also work.)
• Adobe Photoshop

Download the Render

Step 1: Creating 3D Text

Step 1-1: Setup and Materials

Start your 3D Studio Max up and press F10, this will bring up your rendering settings. This displays all the information about our render, size, algorithms, caustics, environments and much more.

Now, you want to scroll all the way to the bottom of the render settings; click the assign render tab and then click “Production”. This will bring up a dialog menu that displays all your available rendering engines or “productions”. For this we will choose “Mental Ray”. This allows us to use mental ray materials to their true potential.

Alright, so now that we have “Mental Ray” enabled we can close out the render preferences and press “M” on the keyboard. This will bring up our “Material editor”, we will use this to make the blue stripe and the white basic color. So start off by selecting the first sphere and then click the large button under the grid that says “Standard”. This will bring up a new window which will show us all the types of materials to choose from, we will select “Raytrace” and select ‘ok’.

Now that we have that done go ahead a select “Diffuse” and choose white. Your going to want to keep the setting pretty basic, aside from the white, but you can use the screenshot to reference with mine.

Before we go any further; go ahead and click the checkerboard on the far right hand side, 3rd icon down. This will show us the reflection our material has. Now, we want to click the gray box beside “Reflect”, which is right beneath the “Diffuse” section. This will open a new window that will allow us to edit the reflections for out material. We want to choose “Falloff”. A falloff map is a basic gradient that we can edit to cast reflections, where black is flat or no reflection at all and pure white is 100% reflective.

Now we want to scroll down on the falloff parameters to where it has a “MIX CURVE”, this is how we will create our gradient. Click the icon 3rd over that looks like a line exploding, that will be the ‘add point’ icon. Click in the middle to add the point, once the point is added right click and choose “Bezier-Smooth”. Click the first icon, that looks like a move tool and grab the points of the “Bezier-Smooth” and move them around until you have a similar curve, but make sure the points of your curve touch the top and the bottom of the mixer. Now under “Falloff Parameters” select a almost white and a almost black. With the checkboard selected we can now see the reflections of our material.

Now we want to click the button on the corner right, directly beneath the grid that looks like a arrow. This is the “return to parent” button and it will take us back to the beginning where we selected our diffuse color. Once at this screen click and hold your white sphere in the top left and drag it over the sphere to the right. This will duplicate our material. Go down to diffuse on the duplicated material and select a pastel blue, like I did in my screenshot. Once you have done that rename the material to “Blue”. The rename dialog box will be to the left of the large button that says “Raytrace”.

Software Used: Softimage XSI 6.5, ZBrush 3.1, Maya 8.5, Photoshop CS3, Unfold 3D

The making of the Elven Archer was quite an organic process. Unlike most of my modelling projects, I didn’t start this one off with a set goal in mind. In fact, the model just started off as a doodle in ZBrush. I had no idea when I started that I would take it so far!

I was developing my own ‘metamesh’ of sorts – a concept that I picked up from Alex Huguet – which is basically a mesh topology that is generic and serves as a good base for quickly starting sculpting in ZBrush. I made a couple of head meshes and was doing a couple of quick head sculpts to test how flexible they were and how well they worked (Fig.01).

Fig.01

Sculpting:

The elf started off just as a sculpt of an old man. I started off first gathering some quick references from the net on older men’s faces and just pretty much went to town on the ‘metamesh’ base. I used the Clay Tubes brush to build up the base shapes and quickly lay down the major facial anatomy. Then I did a quick smooth pass – then more clay tubes and standard brush to start defining details in the face such as major wrinkles and creases.

Once I was happy with the overall look of the face – using the Move brush to make adjustments to proportions at lower subdivisions – I started tightening up details using the Standard, Smooth and Pinch brushes. You have to be careful with the Pinch brush though, since it redistributes your polygons unevenly, so it’s best to use this last as a sort of final refine pass.

Also, a neat trick I discovered is to go back down about 2-3 levels from your highest subdivision where your polygons are more evenly distributed and hit the ‘Reproject Higher Subdiv’ button, which will more evenly distribute your polygons on the higher levels and project the details back onto the mesh. However, make sure to save a morph target or create a new layer when you do this – since sometimes it does mess up in some places.

At this point I looked at the model and a sort of story started emerging from the character; I saw him as being this veteran warrior – an archer maybe (Fig.02). He had seen his fair share of battles and had the scars and stories to match them. Although he had seen much hardship in his life, he still managed to remain positive and hopeful. I wanted to convey that through this project.

Fig.02

The next day I continued refining the sculpt, adding some asymmetry to the model – something which I think is very important to making believable CG characters – and adding some high frequency details, like pores, with some custom alphas I had.

Once I had the sculpt of the head pretty much done, I drew a quick concept sketch of what I had in mind for the character then imported it into XSI to build the base meshes for the rest of the character (Fig.03). It was here that I decided I wanted to put some life to him and animate him. I didn’t want to do anything really drastic – just enough to convey the personality and make him seem believable. Knowing that I only wanted to do a medium shot of him, I didn’t bother to model what would not be shown in the final animation, so I didn’t model hands or legs.

Fig.03

Once the rest of the meshes were modelled in XSI, I exported them back to ZBrush to start detailing and sculpting. I used ZBrush’s mesh extraction to produce some thickness to the cloth and using mainly the Standard and Smooth brushes I began to rough out the cloth folds and wrinkles. I painted some custom alphas in Photoshop for the design on the shirt and applied it via the UVs, and used Inflate to raise it a bit.

For the leather straps I did the fine engraving by using ZAppLink to project masks I painted in Photoshop onto the geometry then deforming in inward.

For the leaf shoulder armour (Fig.04):

• I started off with a plane and quickly sculpted some leaves onto it
• I then hid and deleted the excess polygons
• I retopologized the mesh and added thickness to it using Mesh Extract in the SubTools menu
• The holes were created by exporting the mesh to XSI and adding them in there; I then continued to refine and sculpt the leaves with the new topology

Fig.03

Here is the finished elf in ZBrush (Fig.05 – click to enlarge).

Fig.03

Texturing:

The UVs were quickly done in Unfold3D and refined in Maya. For me, I prefer to spend less time on making perfect UVs and focus more on painting good textures. For this project I wanted to try painting all the textures by hand – there was minimal photo texturing used. For the sake of time I’ll just walk through painting the face textures (Fig.06).

Fig.06