Assignment Part 2

Hello there!

:: S e l f C r i t i q u e ::
Before I start with the model progression, I would make it clear that I am DISPLEASED with what I had to submit as my assignment. Mainly due to the fact that I decided against modeling the details and not actually using actual textures similar to my gun model - the gun looks way too unrealistic and the details (like the horse) does not make it very motivating to model. As a result, I've came out with a black skin for my gun to make it look more intimidating and look more like a gun. In the above image, I have included the use of shaders and lighting.

I would say that I've finished 90% of the entire model, 10% consist of the additional details and textures. Parts such as the barrel could have been extruded inwards from the slide, but due to not planning ahead, I had to separate the pieces - which I deeply regretted because I feel that is really bad modeling.

In my previous post, I said that I would start from the slide and proceed on to the body, but after research, as shown below, I decided that it will be better to start from the grip and proceeding onto the grip. I wasn't really happy with the edgeflow of my slide, as I didn't really plan ahead - therefore, when wanting to add the barrel, it was really difficult without remodeling the entire slide.

Other than that, I think that the body was pretty well done, my wonderful lecturer helped me a little in the body, teaching about reversing normals and solved most of my problems with the body. Generally, the edge flow is good. However, for the slide, I kind of rushed a little and felt a little dejected because of the details etc and the inability to extrude the barrel from the slide.

Oh yeah, a little problem with the size of the slide as well, at the end, I had to add two cube fillers to fill in the sides so that people could not peer inside the model from the back. I'm pretty negative about my model, but then again, I did have my fun.


:: R e s e a r c h ::
For my research, I've gone around youtube to search for other people modeling other guns. Most of my research done is not to actually how to model a gun, rather more of how a gun topology and edgeflow should look like.

First:


In this video, it shows a person modeling an AK-47 in timelapse, I noted that he started with the grip (I also started modeling from the grip) and from then onwards, I paid attention to the edgeflow and how he manages his topology. However, in this video, I did not use a polygon cube to start modeling.

Second:


This video is slightly more related to how I did my model. The method of duplicating the model then doing one side using planes is how I did my model. I found out that using this way is easier but more time consuming to come up with a slightly more detailed model with lower polygon count.

:: P r o g r e s s i o n ::
Now, here I will start on how I derived my model. Due to me... being too engrossed in some areas, I'd admit that I may skip some important steps but I'll try to explain using text. Well, let's begin shall we?



This is after I imported my ref image. Note that I only used the side view only, that's probably why my model isn't very accurate. I started by creating a new plane and placing it facing as shown above.



Now, I moved the vertices to form the outline of the grip of the gun and to mimic the tilted shape of the grip handle.



In the picture above, I extruded the edges to form the bigger shape of the grip. From here, I will timeskip and show the outcome after I finished the grip using the aforementioned method above.




In "1" mode

In the "3" mode

Here is the almost complete form of the grip. I did not join the bottom because I will be adding the bulged part as a separate object. So how did I do the curved area? Simple. It is just the tilting the of the edges on the different axises in the perspective view and then switching back to side view to check the accuracy. Slowly, but I came up with this.




Continuing.. I extruded the trigger guard from the grip using the faces and then deleting the unwanted faces that are left inside the model.



Now, I extruded an edge from the chassis and to form the slide. From there, I extruded the face sideways to form a depth for the slide and not just a piece of "paper". Soon after, I extruded the faces from the top of the slide and curved it as shown above. The slide is nearly done.



When joined, this is how it roughly looks like. However, we are not done yet! We have not created the holes for the hammer to fit in.



Now, to create this hole, just deleting the faces is not just it. I had to create some thickness of the hole as well. Well, what I did was extruding the top edges and then merging the vertices with the bottom vertices.



I added the hammer into the model. I did not take the steps on how I modeled the hammer, but I started from a square and manipulated the vertices to form the shape. To get the hole, I used a cylinder and scaled down the subdivisions to about 5 and then Boolean>difference it. From there, I had to use edge loops to control the shape of the hole by joining it to the nearby vertices using the interactive split edge tool.



I finished the last part of the hammer. And as you can see, I've already added the textures to the model(metallic material x). To do this part of the hammer, I merely just followed the shape given to me in the reference images and extruded from a polygon cube.



Lastly, I added the grip frame by using the same method as I did doing the chassis. Also, I added in the small details such as screws, trigger etc - and with that, we are basically done!





All these were taken with lighting and shaders(including the first image of the post).

Assignment Pt 1

Story

Rat was racing down the track in his car when suddenly he spotted a large hand drawing closer to his car from behind! He noticed that the hand came for the toy car's owner, George, a five-year old boy. Rat did not want his ride to end here, luckily he spotted the track ahead of him was going down and he might have the chance of escaping the hand for a couple of seconds. However, to his dismay, the boy was much faster than he anticipated, with the large enigmatic hand approaching and soon overshadowing Rat, he could only look in terror.

BAM! An object almost as large as himself miraculously landed in his car. It was a toy gun! Apparently George accidentally kicked it and it coincidently landed into Rat's hands. Rat used all his might to turn and aim the toy gun at the legs of the running boy who was grinning, thinking what to do with Rat when he caught him.


BANG! Rat hit the spot down came George, losing his balance and crashing into a pile of plushies leaning against the wall.

"Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe!!!" Rat said to himself with glee.

Well, he is.. for now.

Shape

Well, what I'll be modeling for this assignment would be a semi-realistic looking pistol that fires plastic spherical projectile that Rat used against George.

The shapes used are generally not very basic as it requires plenty of modifications (explained later) to the primitive shapes in Maya. I will be breaking up my model into several parts to explain about what shapes I think I should use for these areas.





Slide
The basic shapes of the slide of the gun should be constructed with a cylinder - of course, with less subdivisions. I was thinking of using the polygon cube tool to construct this area and using the insert edge loops to create the barrel, I will post my results later on when I actually try both methods out.
as for the details (the words and the horse sign) I was thinking of using the draw polygon tool for the horse, for the text I can simply create 3D text and boolean difference it. The rest of the details could be done by simple beveling and extruding. I will start with the hammer and model towards the muzzle. The grip area can be extruded downwards from the barrel.

Chassis
The main chassis of the gun will be extruded downwards from the slide and extruded to form the body of the gun. Will be manipulating vertices to get the desired curved shapes and of course, inserting edge loops.

Grip
The grip area is quite straightforward, from the chassis, I will extrude it downwards to form the shape of the grip. Most likely I will only need to do extruding and the rest are minor details such as differences and vertices manipulation. The hard work will be to form a nice grip frame.

Trigger Guard/Trigger
The shape of the trigger guard will be extruded from either the grip or the slide, most likely I will do it from the grip and extrude it upwards to join with the main body of the gun. The trigger can either be extruded from the top OR creating a new shape, I will try both.

And that's it! The gun is only separated into 3 different parts and mostly everything here can be extruded from the slide. It is actually not very complicated. As you can see above, I mainly discussed plenty on the slide section; that section is where the whole gun will form from. That's why it is important and I dwell most of my views over at that section.

Design
Now... as for the design, I have mostly discussed what the design should be above. The only part detached from the body will most likely be details such as the slide stop, the hammer, the trigger and safety switches.

Sketches?! Bahh.... Later. I will be working on the model already.

Edit: Added


As for the parts, most of them are extruded, so I don't think that will be a problem :)

And yes, initially I did want to do a sketch that has all the dimensions right for all the views, but I ran out of space for the side(that's why it's slightly deformed), so next time if I decide to this, I will do this on a A3.......

Reference Images

In the above picture showing the parts I'm going to model, that will be my reference image. I was thinking whether do I need a front view reference, but since the breadth of the gun is not really important and the muzzle of the gun is simply just a hole, I think that a front view and a top view is not necessary at all. But I'll still ask my in-charge anyway.

Mammoth Tank

Comments
The track and turret can be animation ready.
Other than that, I'm still practicing edgeflow and topology.
The more we do, the better we get.
The Mammoth Tank, Inspired by c&c3.

It was fun!

Process
This is a slightly complicated model(O.K not really).

Techniques

Setting up a proper Ref

Of course, in the above image, I have already resized, cut and altered the image to make it reference-friendly to me when imported into Maya. This set is VERY important. I stress it again, if you even want to use reference images, the images MUST correspond with each other. As you can see above, I used photoshop to align the joints and important areas to take note of when modeling in Maya.

When we are done resizing and altering the image to our hearts content, we can move on to importing the image to Maya. And oh, don't forget that in Maya, you will also have to do your required settings for the alignment and distance for your ref image which was briefly taught in class.

Making use of the Ref

Above:Right View

Above:Front View

It is a good habit to periodically check and manage your vertices for both right and front view. Then switching to perspective to check your model. (Or at least that is what I do.)

After a bit of extruding and inserting edge loops after planning, (Inserting edge loops are not random, it is usually done at places where you want to manipulate the vertices. After playing with it for some time you will naturally get it.) this is the image we get.

Tank Threads

In the above image, the foreground shows a weird shape, this will be the baseline for our tank threads. There are two main ways to derive to this shape - the cv curve tool or manipulating a polygon cube. I used the latter. Inserting edge loops at certain points(and places where I want to extrude to form the depth of the tracks) and moving, scaling the vertices to form this model.

Next, I would want to ....

So how is this done? It is pretty simple actually. Before this step, as explained before, I extruded certain faces on the threads before duplicating them(thats why there is some depth on the threads).
Basically, to duplicate such a nice round, you will have to adjust the center pivot to a favorable position and change into the rotate tool. Change the values(rotate on the x-axis) in the duplicate special tool so that the threads will look nicely together like shown above. (In this step, if we include a deformer, we can animate the threads to go in a loop.)

After adding some shapes, extruding, managing vertices I got this shown above. Duplicating the first one to form a clone on the left front wheel. Special note is taken to make sure the topology and edge flow is smooth.

Now, after adding certain details to the side wheels to make it more armory, I duplicated it and scaled it to form the longer back tank threads. I admit I got a little lazy here, I was actually supposed to redo the tank threads steps again but I got lazy. So I ended up duplicating it.

Well, after this step is basically adding the turret and building details on it.
That's how I derived to my final model.


In this post, what I really want to bring forth to help teach is not how to model a tank.
But rather, how to set up proper reference images. Because, it is hard to teach people how to actually do edge loops at certain important locations or teaching them which face to actually extrude. Rather, the person must find that out on their own.

That's what I think.

Model that I based on

Reference
Setting up Reference Images

Thinking Outside the Box

3DMindset & Learning

Does multi-tasking give you a real or false sense of having accomplished something?
Well, if you'd ask me, I would reply "It depends on the individual & the situation". This is answering the question - however, if applied to myself, I'd say multi-tasking actually fails; not only the quality of the produced result might drop, but the efficiency and rate of producing work will indubitably falter.

HOWEVER! Excluding the people who actually multi-tasks perfectly, the people who casually does it - for instance, a regular Singaporean Teenager studying for their O' Levels and someone texts him on his phone and he replies with glee then goes back to work. No matter how you see here, he actually wasted time checking his phone and replying. On the other hand, if you look at it this way - the person who texted him was his teacher, and he is asking various questions on the subject at hand - does this consider to be wasting time? Is multi-tasking really that bad?

In a nutshell, I think that for me, as a person, I'd say multi-tasking does not work for me but will give me a sense of satisfaction when I'd finish multiple jobs while doing that. But I do believe that multi-tasking really satisfies many people out there in the world and have made it big by doing it.

Is learning 3D and design different from learning programming, or is all learning the same?Why?
If learning was all the same, then why do people develop multiple ways to teach the same thing? Obviously learning language will not be the same as learning mathematics although they have few things in common - perserverance, attitude, willingness to learn and many more factors that all boil down to family upbringing and developing traits from various sources.

And therefore my answer to this question is: YES. Designing and programming requires planning, but in design, you will need a different set of skills that are different from programming and these skills will have different learning schemes laid out for them.


The article states that “Learning is actually a very complex operation for an individual”. Do you agree with this? Do you feel that you approach your learning in the best way – if yes, how, and if no, how can you change your work style?
Learning IS complicated. If learning isn't complicated, we'd be able to do most things in the world. Ask a professional pianist to attempt a masters mathemathics or vice versa, the result will most likely be the same excluding some rare cases. Learning differs from person to person, that is why learning is complicated - or should I say, TEACHING these individuals and making them learn is difficult.

I feel that learning is all in the mind. If you think you can, and actually put your heart to it - it is possible to learn. Therefore, optimistic attitude towards learning is very important. If you don't want to, would you give your 100%?

For myself, I often ponder over "What is my learning style?" strangely though, I don't think I've ever approached my learning style in the best way because it hasn't been discovered yet. I just do work with what I got - but I'd prefer to work where nobody can see me.

What are your thoughts about the last paragraph in the extract?
Strongly agreed. The main point here is communication. And communication is what made humans human. Our speech evolutionized from mere animals who could only probably say "Food" "Danger". The quote "No man can be an island of his own" comes into play everywhere.

HOWEVER, communication may also your worst enemy. Things may go awry due to miscommunication, angst, backstabbing, gossiping etc. Wars in this world are started by the tongue.
But still, despite the adverse effects, communication is still vital to our society in every aspect of civilization.

Should your lecturers also focus on your work attitude, or just leave you to sink or swim on your own? Why?
This question is one of the few questions that have been repeated for ages over and over again but in the end will never be resolved. Why?

Let's say that in a class of 40 students, half likes self study, half of that half actually studies during self study. The other half of the class relies on teachers to keep up with their grades and as a result in the future, falter to the vicious society that will milk them for all their worth.

What I'm trying to say here is that it depends from class to class. Lecturers need to pinpoint who needs guidance and who doesn't. Oh yes, it sounds easy, but only the most dedicated and patient educators will be able to do that.

This question is very ambiguous. But I'd say for 3D, I would like to work on my own stuff and get feedback from the educator for areas of improvement. But that again will differ from other subjects e.g. Databases.

Cardboard Box

Week 2 E-Learning
This box, is a wonderful and old cardboard box!




Process
Here we go!


First we create a rectangle using the polygon cube tool and bevel it. In the picture above, the vertices selected are going to be pull up on the y-axis. (Oops, in the picture it's supposed to be the top vertices, not the bottom.)

After forming the box, select the top faces and extrude down to form the depth of the box.

Select the faces around the edges of the box and turn off the "keep faces together" and extrude...

In the image above, I played around with the faces and finalized with this posture before going into vertices.

I got this after manipulating some vertices.

Using the twist, lattice deformers, I derived this poor smashed up box.

Reflection

In this exercise, I found out that using deformers are of most important in many other models as well and in animation.

Using deformers like that make life easier by not having to indicate vertices at every-other spot.

Also, I admit that in this exercise I've used too little polys and made my model a little low quality and slightly deformed(the deformation inside the box is intentional).

Lastly, it is good to plan out how your model will actually look like in the end - this is because we don't want to randomly put deformers, edge loops on areas that we do not really need(++poly count as well). Well, not planning may give you impressive results as well, but that's not always the case- not to mention it is time consuming as well.

Washboard

Week 3 Lab 2
I will just refer to the washboard image as a reference.
Here we go

Process

I created the base using polygon cube tool.

I've marked out the places where I want to extrude with the insert edge loop tool.

After some adding divisions to the center portion, I used the bevel feature to get a difference of length between the jagged edges, then I selected these shorter lengthed faces and extruded them to form the above image. Some vertices were edited to change the length of the board.

After extruding out the borders of the image, I beveled them to make them look smooth. And there we have it.

Reflection

In this exercise, I challenged myself to finish it using just one base polygon. I found it slightly more time consuming than creating other primitive shapes and aligning them to the image. But well, the outcome is still acceptable.

I didn't really refer to the tutorial for this exercise, so I might miss out some crucial learning point in it, but other than that, I think that using beveling in this situation really saves plenty of time.

Bucket

This is Week 3 Lab 1

I actually did this one starting with a polygon cylinder and reached the same outcome by mostly extruding. Anyway, I still did the lab way to use the cv curve tool. (Though the polygon way is really faster...)

Here goes:
Process

Created a bucket using the cv curve tool and rotating it. (Surface->Rotate) After which, I manipulated some vertices to form a more decent shape of a bucket.

Extruded the bottom and changed some vertices to make it have a sharpen-ed edge.


This is what I got after creating a new polygon cylinder and developing(extruding faces) it from there to form the knob. In the picture above I used a circle as the head and scaling down the tip vertices a little to give a not-so-rounded effect.


Used a the 3 point tool to create a curve and from there, I edited the curve to make it realistic.

I extruded the plane onto the curve to create the handle. After some scaling and minor edits, the above picture was what I got.

Reflection
In this exercise, I think that we should learn how important to extrude an object easily on a curve(which actually can be done for the track practice). However, for the creation of the bucket, I think its much easier(and faster) to use a cylinder tool and modify from there.

And oh, I did not use the soft-selection tool, but I did try it on other models before.