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Low-Poly Dog
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Low-Poly Dog // Work in Progress
Post by Jack Edwards // Sep 29, 2006, 1:17pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Thanks Nephos :)
Had a bit of inspiration and came up with a new direction for this project.
Gonna turn it into a simple backyard scene:
Added some cubes to flesh out the composition a bit.
* brown and green cubes would be modelled into a tree to cast shadows and create interest in the empty area behind the dog house
* blue cube will become the food dish
* yellow cube will become the ducky
* the cubes next to dog house are a stand in for a weed/flower
* the white cubes in the back ground will become a picket fence.
http://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/dogbackyard.jpg
Any thoughts on the colors and composition are welcome. The plan with the ground plane is to deform it a bit and add grass and dirt texture plus model some tufts of grass and rocks. I tried to angle the fence to avoid it appearing in line with the dog house. I think when I put in the tree, it needs to be a little bit more left. I do want to keep a bit of cartoonish simplicity to the scene, but don't want it stale either.
Did notice that I need to lighten the dog texture which is too dark now that I've got it lit in a scene and looking a bit greenish :confused: It's an easy fix but I'm going to put that off for later and I'll also add some detail to the dog house texture to give more hints of wood planks when I fix that.
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 1, 2006, 6:50am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Doing some research on rubber duckies I came across this and thought I'd share:
http://www.spadepot.com/warehouse/ducks.htm
:p Gotta love the Mr. T duck....
Gotta do some more work around the house (painting and stuff), but did a quicky sub-D food dish just need to texture it.
Gonna try to knock out the rubber ducky today too. Will post a new render later tonight. |
Post by spacekdet // Oct 1, 2006, 7:16am
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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I can picture the rubber duckie floating in his water bowl.
I know it's supposed to be low poly, but the dog house could use a bit of beveling... it's just too rigid for my eye. Don't forget the name painted over the door! |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 1, 2006, 7:57am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Thanks Spacekdet,
Was thinking the same thing about the ducky floating in the bowl :D Maybe I'll have to add a rawhide chew bone where I was planning to put the ducky....
As far as the low poly thing as long as I have low poly versions of the models to group into a set, there's nothing that says I can't use higher poly or SDS versions for the render. :-) The dog is SDS'd in the render so I don't get facetting in Vray and so he'll cast nicer shadows.
I want to get the ducky, bowl, and fence modelled, then I'll go back and turn the dog house into an SDS object. Probably and some wood trim around the openning and sturdier posts at the corners too.
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 1, 2006, 1:42pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Okies here's the rubber ducky modelled. Not gonna bore you guys with the dog dish lol.
Gotta find some reference photos of a raw hide chew bone and get that one knocked out too.
http://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/rubberducky.jpghttp://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/rubberducky_subd.jpg
-Jack. |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Oct 1, 2006, 2:00pm
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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Fab! Rubber ducks are cool, I've got a bathroom full of them! They do tend to be a bit wider in the body though, stops them falling over. Looking great though |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 1, 2006, 2:20pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Yeah looks like the subD was taking a bit much off the sides. So made the poly cage wider. Should be noticable in the next render. :)
Meenwhile need to come up with a name for the guy to put on the food dish and the dog house like Spacekdet recommended. Was just gonna go with generic Fido since he's such a generic looking dog, but I'm certainly open to suggestions...
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 2, 2006, 7:08am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Well finished my dog chew research... did you guys know that those things come in beer flavor? Sheesh! :rolleyes:
Gonna try and "wrap" a dog chew. Think it'll be an SSS material by the looks of it when I get around to texturing this stuff.
-Jack. |
Post by W!ZARD // Oct 2, 2006, 11:48pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Chuckl! S'funny you've added a rubber duck - everytime I see the title to this thread ' Low-Poly Dog' I get a mental image of a dachshund with a parrot in it's mouth!!!
Good work here - thanks again for sharing so much of your workflow, most educational. |
Post by Subzero1233 // Oct 6, 2006, 3:16am
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Subzero1233
Total Posts: 8
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What type of modeling is that? |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 6, 2006, 8:26pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Hi Subzero1233,
The technique I use is called box modeling. Basically it comes down to extrusions, vertex welding, adding edges, deleting edges, and moving verts around. But then again you pretty much say that about any modelling technique. ;)
If I have some time next week I'll start work on a basic modeling tutorial. I need to think up something complex enough to be interesting but simple enough to be easy to follow. I've got some close up photos of a toad that was hanging out on my front porch so I might use that.
@everyone else,
Sorry about the lack of updates. Had some things come up. Hope to get back to this by Sun/Mon.
-Jack. |
Post by Subzero1233 // Oct 7, 2006, 7:33am
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Subzero1233
Total Posts: 8
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Thank you very much, a tutorial will be a big help. Thanks. |
Post by corbly_digital // Oct 8, 2006, 3:43pm
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corbly_digital
Total Posts: 34
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Cool dog, you did a great job of getting a realistic shape for the body, so it looks more real:) |
Post by Eagle // Oct 9, 2006, 5:37am
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Eagle
Total Posts: 221
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Hi J_edwards,
First I would like to say I love your work, second I have a question for you.
Did you pick up your low poly modeling techniques from the Pro-Team
courses you have been taking? I guess what I am asking is would it benefit
A low poly modeler to take the classes offered in the Pro-Team courses or
Are they more designed for High-poly modeling?
always~
Vickie ;) |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 9, 2006, 8:58am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Hi Vickie,
Thanks for the compliment. Personally I think you've done much better work than I have. I love those trees you made. :-)
Good question about proTeam. I've picked up a lot from all over the place... While my first reaction was to say no that I didn't learn it from the proTeam courses but rather from studying tutorials and works done by industry professionals, however ... looking back over the courses, I can say I've absorbed quite a bit of useful information from the proTeam courses over the years.
The Character Design Course in particular covers using the point edit tools to create character meshes. It focuses a lot of time on the head and it helped me a lot in overcoming my fear of getting in there and working the mesh one vertex at a time. As a new modeller I was always afraid of the point edit tools because I had an irrational fear that I would screw up my mesh and not be able to fix it. The Polygon and Organic course were also useful. I think I learned quite a bit from the weld and erase chapter in the Polygon course. I've matured quite a bit from there, but it did help me learn how to apply the tools when using tS.
If you're asking more along the lines of "is it worth getting proTeam?" That sorta depend on your needs and financial situation. For me it's nice to just have access to *ALL* the courses. You never know when one would have something useful, and I knew I wouldn't work myself up to actually buying any one particular course. The other nice thing is the free point and full version upgrades. Not to mention that the Character Animation course would certainly be valuable now that Motion Studio is freeware. The Character Animation course was very good by the way. I'd like to see a new course using more modern techniques with professional style rigs though, but that'll hopefully come with the release of 7.5. From what I've been told there are a lot of new courses in the works and would be released over the next few months.
proTeam also give special prices and sometimes free release on special softwares that Caligari produces related to tS. I don't remember but I think proTeam got a special price on VRay... dunno if that's still offered. Something to ask about when you go to purchase. ;-) Vray is a HUGE improvement over Lightworks for getting nice renders with less work. I haven't figured out GI in virtualLight yet so I can't comment on that.
The proTeam forums and community are what you make of it. Most people just participate in the regular forums. But if we got enough active people I think it'd be cool to do community sponsored proTeam specific events.
So the current payment plan offer for proTeam isn't a bad offer. Especially if you haven't already purchased all the courses, and with TS7 currently included in the price...
I can say that I think (my opinion) there is a good chance that with 7.5 and 8.0 we will see a quantum leap in capability for tS. So might not be a bad idea to get in now.
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 9, 2006, 9:14am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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One more thing I need to add is that while the tS courses definitely build foundation and teach you how to use the tools. I wouldn't stop there. Learn the techniques used by professionals in the 3D industry and then apply those to trueSpace. trueSpace has a lot of capability to help produce good work. Basically like Steinie said it all comes down to basic processes: Concept, Sketching, Modeling, UV layout, texturing, Rigging, Animation, Lighting, and Rendering. (Including in the Sketching, laying out your orthographic images for modeling templates.) :)
So more important than all the 3D courses is to take art classes or study art. It is really helpful to have a good grasp of color theory, composition, and good 2D drawing or painting skills.
I've found Ben Mathis's (http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm) technique of painting out silouettes and fleshing in the detail is much easier for me to wrap my mind around and produce good results than more traditional sketching methods. But both are useful. Also I used to dismiss the need for a graphics tablet, but they do make a huge difference. I'm looking to upgrade to an Intuos3 4x6 one of these days...
-Jack. |
Post by Zeipher // Oct 9, 2006, 2:14pm
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Zeipher
Total Posts: 224
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This has been really fun to watch grow. I hope it doesn't stop any time soon... I wanna see him with a bone! |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 9, 2006, 6:51pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Hey Zeipher,
It's not dead yet. :p
But I ended up wasting the whole day troubleshooting my network... :mad: So I am vowing to get some work done before I sleep!
-Jack <--- Looks down at the clock as 1:00AM approaches... :rolleyes: |
Post by Zeipher // Oct 10, 2006, 1:54am
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Zeipher
Total Posts: 224
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It's not dead yet. :p
After me writing that I was worried someone was gonna make a slightly different comment... ahem. Lol, anyway, hope to see more soon. I do love my low-poly's :D |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 11, 2006, 5:57am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Hey guys,
Know I've been promising some updates but I've been fighting with crappy internet service last several days. Tech guy is coming out tomorrow. :mad: :mad: If they don't get it fixed this time I'm switching to DSL.
Anyway, here's where it's currently at:
Haven't had any time to do any new modelling, so just threw in the bowl and ducky to get them positioned. Both need texures. The duck will get a normal map to to add the bump detail on the wings. Bowl will get some (painterly) grime and the dog's name. I've roughed out an idea for the ground texture.
The fence will be the next thing modelled. I'm still debating over white picket fense or a standard plank fence. Original plan is to do the white picket fence, thus the white boxes. ;) Planning to overlay the boards so the boards on the backside cover the gaps and hide the background. That way I don't need to do any special problem solving for what's behind the fence.
To do:
name sign for dog house.
fence
tree
chew bone
random grass planes, weed/flower, and rocks
texture for bowl and ducky (both need UV mapping)
dog, ground, doghouse, textures all need some work.
The back corner is looking a bit bare so may add a baseball and glove or something... maybe tire swing on the tree...
Sheesh sceenes are way more work than single models... :rolleyes:
http://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/dog_render02web.jpg
Gonna have to mess around with the Lizard somemore too...
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 12, 2006, 5:40am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Yay! New cable modem and the guy hooked up a splitter that diverts more of the signal to the modem. :banana:
Now that the internet is working again, I have no excuse to procrastinate on this... well except... WoW (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/)....LOL :D
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 16, 2006, 9:36pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Small update. Added the fence and water in the bowl. Gonna have to put up shrubs since I ended up doing a see through fence. Also took off the envirionment mapping. With more stuff in the envirionment, don't really need it. Fence is just a basic white material. Might get around to UVing it and doing textures... might just add a dirt layer and not bother lol.
http://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/dog_render03.jpg
Been spending a lot of time messing with the SSS shader to get decent plastic. So far no good. I think my lighting set up is just too harsh. Simple phong seems to give best results... *shrug* If anyone has a good settings for getting a good translucent plastic look (for the bowl and ducky, let me know.
think I'm gonna just finish up this project without putting out too much more effort and move on. It's not really that great a concept so I'm wanting to get back to the lizard and a couple new projects. Plus there's Holloween coming up and someone's gotta post a Holloween challange! ;-))))
-Jack. |
Post by spacekdet // Oct 17, 2006, 6:26am
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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You can get a ticket for having an unlicenced dog.
He'll need a collar to hang it from too. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 17, 2006, 7:52am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Doh another trip to google images.... each time I do that I spend a day and pick up another gig worth of references and textures....
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 20, 2006, 8:46pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Was a pleasant day out today. A bit blustery but nicely overcast for taking texture photos. I got some reference photos done for a car project I'm planning. Here's a leaf texture (w/ transparency mask) that I made today and you guys are welcome to put it to use in your own projects:
http://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/leaf256.png
I need to cartoonize it a bit before using it with the dog scene, but I may decide to go more in the direction of a beach or ficus tree...
-Jack. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Oct 21, 2006, 12:53pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Had some time to start on the tree last night. Here's the start of the trunk. Hopefully I'll be able to model out the rest of it tonight.
http://www.motbc.com/ForumStuff/treetrunk.png
BTW, big congrats for all the best in forum winners! :D
-Jack. |
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