Competition #13 - Godo

[Godo]

Oky - I finished fleshing out the shapes in max with the updated profile concept. It matches pretty closely. What do you think? I'm sure more interesting details will pop out as I do the "official" wireframe. I'm ready to do the low poly model of this shiz. Also... MAN, nobody told me how awesomely useful the "connect" tool is... I am such a newb.

[Atius]

i like the design of this baby, cant w8 to see it textured

[Coridium]

I like this design, reminds me of a mixture beween minority report and an insect.

Like above look forward to seeing more.

[Ironhawk]

looks good so far and the update profile is much better. One thing that is bugging me on the fighter design is the length of the wings. It makes for a sweet silhouette but looks to feeble for a fighter. More of a scout design.

Keep it up my fav so far.

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you just found connect???? omg.. Nooob! hahahahah

[Godo]

Ok.. I'm such a noob, I'm trying to set up the low poly, but I'm really frustrated by the results. How do you which objects to use, how many sides to give them, which objects to make from scratch, etc? For example I have a complex shape surrounding the canopy, but I'm not sure how to construct it. Would a sphere work best a base for the canopy or a cube? This is what I'm facing right now.

[doylle]

I'm not sure what part it is that you're strugeling with, but i'm guessing that part at the very left of your last concpet you drew. Personaly when i have to model a complex piece, i start with a single plane (working in side viewport), extrude edges untill i have the basic shape, with a good polyflow, then go to another orthogonal viewport, make sure everything is alright there, and finaly go to the perspective viewport to see if flows nice there to. It usually doesn't so you'll probably have to tweak alot there. Some people are a big fan of box modeling, but whenever i try that i can't get rid of the box's shape, or it's polyflow. I want to be able to say where i want vertices and edges, so plane modeling ftw!

[nistrum]

i agree... unless im making something that is.. inherantly. a box. i tend to plan out the shape either by A making a plane or using poly construct (is that what its called, i dunno its been on my shelf for so long) and just draw out the points. join the dots

[retardedmonkey]

I don't do any of that! I have a special bond with my 3D software, I just talk to it nicely and it creates it for me. Because I've taken the time to be its friend instead of just using it. I urge everyone to grow closer with their 3d application.



Which part are you talking about? If it is the part I'm thinking of, surronding the cockpit then the way doylle said would most likely be the easiest. There are however a couple ways to tackle that. Luckily you don't have to worry about it in highpoly, it's much easier to do for just an LP

1. You could start with a box, cylinder, plane or sphere, and just get the basic shape without the grooves. Then you would use the cut tool to get those grooves into the basic shape.

2. You could try to model it from the side, as doylle said, and then using a path deform modifier to curve it to the shape as it would be from the front view. Then you could slap a shell modifier onto it and you'd pretty much be done

However, I am not entirely sure what part you mean, so once you show us that we can give you more ideas from our brains to yours

[Godo]

Ok, here's what I originally did:

I took a box and tweaked all the vertices to follow the outline of the central pod (as seen a few posts up). I added vertices by using the connect tool. Then to make that little part that surround the canopy, I connected the top and bottom vertices and then added many other vertices to the edge with "insert vertices" tool. But when I tried to take that shape and make it pop out more and be more 3 dimensional, I couldn't get it to behave quite how I wanted with the tools I was using. Then I had the problem of trying to make the canopy rounder, since it was constructed from a box.

Should I just construct all the parts as separate pieces, or was I doing ok with it being all one thing at first?

So after I posted that I tried a couple other methods, mostly involving taking a sphere and chopping the ends off it then moving around its vertices. You want to have straight lines going throughout your shape right? I wish I could show some pictures of what I'm talking about, but I'm at work, so I'll edit when I get home.

[retardedmonkey]

Yea dude slap some pictures up once you get home so we can visualize it a little better and help you out

From your description and a quick reading it seems you had a nasty n-gon that was most likely extruding/beveling weird on you. It'll make more sense once I can see it tho