Morphine's Modeling Misadventures

So, my long journey towards becoming a modeller starts here. I'll dump all my images here.

After watching a few video tutorials, I decided to start on my first
simple model, a baseball bat. I figured it would be easy since
I'd only have to extrude and stretch.

I will try to figure out how to uvmap/physbox this thing tomorrow, but right now I really have to study.

Anyway, I'm excited! :dorky:



The bat is 336 triangles right now. That's reasonable isn't it?

Sounds fine for a curvy object like that mate. Looking fine so far, keep it up!

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Well, I just spent an hour and a half learning how to UVmap and I tried
my best to learn how to texture. I know I have some
scaling/tiling problems, but here's my first attempt:



It doesn't look disastrous but I know I have a long way to go. I
have ZERO Photoshop skill so skinning that was quite a challenge.
Luckily you don't have to "color within the lines" when you skin.

Next up: Compiling and some in game shots! :dorky:

ahh , i screw around with 3d . but i don't really make it for mods yet . just kinda mess with it , i've made some pretty stuff though.

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

Yeah -- I'm really excited about getting content into maps. I'm having a hard time with the compile though :\

Excellent work there morphine, i have a golden tip for skinning for you:

When the skin is finishd:

In PS:

Go to > filter > sharpen > sharpen
You can do this once or twice to your liking.

Then go to > Image > adjustment > Brightness contrast

Change the contrast slider first, if its to light or dark then you can change it with the lightning slider next to it. This makes your skin looks way more crispy and detailed.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

Thanks for that great tip pepper! I will definitely take your
advice when I skin my next model. I had already finished
compiling the bat and taken screenshots of it ingame by the time I read
your post.

Here are the ingame shots:



Shadows are weird, but the physbox is fine:



Reedit: <span style="color: limegreen;">Took the DL down because I didn't include everything I needed to.</span>

Nice bat there, AtM. :smile:

Modelling is quite fun for Source now that working with them in Hammer is so easy. I recently started modelling for mudanchee again - right now there's about 10 of the 20 models done. Prop models are easy and fast to do which makes it all the better. :wink:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Yeah I'm really excited by the idea of creating prop models to put up on SnarkPit for everyone to use.

I have a lot to learn first though.

Thanks for looking, Captain P.

Your doing just fine there morphine, as long as you remember that there always is something to improve or a new modeling technique to learn :smile: .

Really like your bat there, did you shade in shadows and lighting? Try using D&B for that(Dodge'n Burn). Great way of adding lightning.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

pepper said:
Your doing just fine there morphine, as long as you
remember that there always is something to improve or a new modeling
technique to learn :smile: .
Really like your bat there, did you shade in shadows and lighting?
Try using D&B for that(Dodge'n Burn). Great way of adding lightning.

I didn't do any lighting effects on the texture, in fact all I really
did was google image search some wood images and cloth images for the
handle and slap it on.

How should I use the dodge and burn tools? You should do a nice
tutorial on skinning a model. Seems like you know quite a bit,
and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there like me who are
dying for some good tutorials. I can't seem to find any for XSI.

I know quite the bit about skinning, this is my latest work for a HL mod:

http://hostagesituation.mypunbb.com/viewtopic.php?id=31

I also had quite a lot of trouble creating textures, down in the end i was abusing cloud and noise filter in PS. Now you might say, how the hell did he learned it? By tutorials, yes there out there and there plenty of them.

But, up to a while ago it was a certain thing about skinning that you need to understand, i still cant put my finger on it but i definately changed something in my mind that helped me understanding the texture.

Enough blattering from me, check this link out:

http://www.sourceblog.org/

Nowadays you need to sign up to see the tutorial database but its worth it. The forums arent to crowded but those people really know what there talking about.

Good luck, and if you need a hand feel free to contact me, helping doesnt hurt anyone.

Dodge and Burn are tools with wich you can (respectively) lighten or darken a area. Thus used to create a base skin, then small details painted in by changing the lighting.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

Thanks for all the info Pepper. I'll get started :smile:

I personaly think one needs the extra push to get started with skinning, it was quite hard for me when i started until i realized what i was doing wrong/wright. Then you know what you can improve on.

Besides that, its also a good practice for making textures :smile: .

And good luck!

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

i have two q's .. how many polies is cool for a hl2 prop and secondly how do i import a model from 3dsmax7.

danke ^__^

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

All depends on the type of prop, the amount of detail and how much it is going to be seen. Also note that moving polygons(PHys) are heavier to render for the engine.

Not quite sure about max7, there used to be a SMD exporter, you might want to run a google on this.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

About model detail, check out this
wiki
link.

It has information that you might find useful.

For polycounts I'd take a look at the existing props. Personally I don't see the need for too many poly's (but then again, I'm mostly creating some smaller props). :smile:

Dunno about 3DS Max, sorry.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog