Beginning Attempts at Modelling

[FYROM]

Recently I've been trying to learn Maya, with varying success. This is my first real attempt, a medical cabinet for a map I'm planning on making. It's still a work in progress, so I'd appreciate any tips to lower the polygon count, etc.

A question on the polygon count: It lists 104 faces, however I seem to remember that static meshes are computed by triangular polys, ie the Tris: 308 value. So is it correct that the *real* poly count is 308?

HUNGARIAN MEDICAL CABINET (Note - its roughly based on the photo, however the measurements are taken from a nearly identical 1930's hutch in my kitchen )

 

[DeV]

Youre correct saying that its tris value is the one you should be looking at
Looks really good for a first

 

[[TW]DrGuppy]

To get the smesh ingame it has to be triangulated, so I usually do that fairly early on. You can then go inside the mesh and select certain traingulated faces and check to see if they are visible on the outside. The legs in the picture actually look fairly square where you have modelled them as tapering off at the ends, you could probably lose some polys there without any real difference. Also the drawers could be textured on instead of modelled. A wireframe view would be nice as well.

Very nice effort for a first real attempt. Keep us posted!

 

[FYROM]

Continuing onwards...

Made some minor modifications, managed to lower the tris a bit more. More importantly, my first attempt at skinning. Decided the white painted metal of the original, while easy to texture, would just make a big bland white box, and would be pretty boring to look at, so I used a wood texture instead. I wish I could add detail to the drawer doors, but I'm absolutely horrible at using Photoshop beyond the most basic of tasks, so its pretty beyond me

EDIT - I'll probably try to make a real skin this weekend, complete with drawers and all. Don't know how it'll turn out, but wish me luck.

 

[PUTZ]

What are you looking for in a drawer skin? I've always wanted to give making skins a shot, as I like tooling around in Photoshop.

 

[FYROM]

This came out a LOT better than I was expecting:





I created the skin from photos of my hutch, so it looks a bit more kitcheny than medical, but that just makes it dual purpose The main problem was getting enough lighting, I eventually had to use the upper hutch doors rather than the lower ones that I had originally modelled, because I just couldn't get good pics of them.

Cut down almost 50 tris by texturing the doors, which lets me leave in some elsewhere so I can position the cabinet in different ways (doors open, top knocked off, part of a barricade, etc). I haven't yet triangulated the smesh yet, would that affect how the skin displays?

Next up I'm going to try and make a hospital bed, at least I don't have to worry about the skin :

 

[dasKaRmA]

looks very nice!

 

[WickedPenguin]

Wow. Fyrom - nice first model (and welcome back!)

Triangulating the model should not do anything wacky to the skin... most of the time. There are occasions (for instance, if you've used a boolean to knock a window through a wall) that strange things can happen.

Also - even though the ActorX export plug-in has a triangulate function, you should triangulate in Maya. Doing it in the plug-in can sometimes cause unpredictable results.

 

[Zell]

If I want to keep mapping (which I will when RO:O comes out, hold your horses PUTZ ), then it looks like I will have to learn modelling.

 

[Athena]

it's your first model ? wow, looks really great!

 

[FYROM]

Well, not exactly my first model . I've been using CATIA, Autocad and Solidedge for three years now, so I do know the basics for 3-D design. Here's my real first attempt, my freshman year aerospace design project.

 

[Wolfsglen]

Way better than anything i ever managed when i had a brief flirtation with 3DS Max, great work FYROM, especially for first attempts

 

[Mormegil]

For an excellent Photoshop tutorial, pick up "Realworld Photoshop"

Good stuff in there. You should be able to find it in your school library or do an interlibrary loan if you school library does that. You don't need the newest edition, most things carry through OK.

 

[UncleDrax]

Decided the white painted metal of the original, while easy to texture, would just make a big bland white box, and would be pretty boring to look at, so I used a wood texture instead.

See.. there is not such thing in the real world as 'just plain white'..

So what I suggest you do is make a white metal skin, but add in discolorations, scratches, some minor rust marks, wear on the corners (paint rubbed off), etc.. ;]
(and actually make both a metal skin and a wood skin.. 2x the variation :] .. especially since you already got the wood skin anyhow)

 

[Slashbot_427]

Looks real nice!

This might be a bit off topic but how do you import the textures into maya and apply them to the cabinet? Are they the same ones you import into ROed? I know you can generate materials in maya and apply them to various faces ( I havent done this myself as I cant see any way to then get them out of maya into ROed )

 

[DeV]

Why oh why do you dig up a one year old topic (since the last reply).
For the answer to your question, I'm sure the Unreal VTMs about Maya over at 3dbuzz.com should answer that question.
About the first part, yes the material in maya and ued are the same ones.