Armor

Armor!!!

From the reference images in the research, which was conducted in the first couple of weeks. The idea is to give our hero a more traditional armor that is having clothing and a sleeveless armor. This will also gives us the opportunity to use another auto desk program called Mudbox.  Mudbox is a program from auto desk which allows the user to sculpt there models which is very interesting because it allows for further detail to be added to models and as long as the 3ds max files are exported out as an OBJ file format with a UVW unwrap added to it. The model can be imported into Mudbox for further editing.

Before Mudbox is used the actual armor needs to be created. The main breastplate or metal part of the shield was created using the body shape created from previous weeks. Basically the body was copied and polygons where deleted so that a simple chest plate was achieved. Once this was complete the now new chest plate had to be resized to fit onto the actual body of our hero.

One the breastplate had been resized and shaped to fit it now had to be modeled like traditional armor. This basically meant the armor had to be given a chest and abs to make our hero look more athletic and mean.

To create the chest the breastplate had to have more swift loops added to it so that closer editing could take place and have more of a smooth outcome to it. Basically the chest had to be stretched out so go across the breastplate because the reference body used to create the main hero’s body has the chest at a point.

This part of the modeling required more initiative and 3ds max experience, it was a time consuming task but the chest was modeled correctly, which gave a better base for painting in mud box. The next step was to model the base of the abs for the breastplate so that they too could be painted and sculpted within Mudbox later on.

After the armor was complete it was time to make the clothing that would go underneath it to give the armor more of an effect. This would also allow us to add more designs to the clothes and give it a more roman feel.

The clothing was created with the same concept of copying the body previously created and simply deleting polygons and simple push and pulls and extrusions. More loops where added again to give the clothing a smoother look compared to the body.

The villain would where full armor from the shoulder down to his toes because of time issues, this was basically done by taking a copy of the body and modeling it more slightly again for the chest and abs so that it would look more like armor and since they will be fighting and running the armor needs to be more fitting and less bulky.

Legs !!!!

Legs!!!

The legs are the final step of our character before the animation process begins.

The legs for the hero where created using a cylinder. This is because the rest of the character has armor on him so why not give him armored shoes to match the rest of the mesh.

To create the legs a standard cylinder was taken into Photoshop and was converted to an editable poly. Once this was done the legs and cylinder had to both be resized and the legs slightly reshaped so that the cylinder would fit onto the mesh with no distortion or overlap issues.

Once this was achieved it was time to begin shaping the armored shoes. Most armored shoes have a knee support which would prove relevance to our hero since he will be fighting enemies, also the armored shoes will save time in creating feet with toes and other detail within a foot.

Once the knee support has been shaped it was time to shape the bottom of the armored show so that it actually looked as if there was a foot in the bottom of it. Simply pushing and pulling the appropriate vert’s in vertex mode within editable poly completed this.

This will give the base of the armored shoes, this then will be the choice of the modeler if the would like to add detail to the shoes or leave them plain for possible colouring.

For the purpose of this project and hero further detail will be added to the shoes but only simple extrusions to give the shoes more depth to them and have a design without the need of further sculpting or specific colouring, the simplicity has been talked about a lot for this hero and villain project and this is because creating a character is very time consuming and because this is being created to meet a deadline, not much time is given for major detailed.

For the villains feet very simple boots where created from just pulling his leg further down and shaping his feet so that they looked more like boots attached to his legs to save further time for animation.

The legs were stretched further down to give the character the right height and give the boots more of an effect. Shaping of the foot again was simply from pushing and pulling vertices to form the feet of the villain.

Ears

Ears!!!

What’s a character with no ears, they wont be able to hear their enemies!!!

For the characters to be complete they need to have ears that will require further modeling in 3ds max. The ear is a detailed part of the head but with a few simple steps it can be created and made to look rather complicated with time.

The first step when creating the ear is to start with a standard box object in 3ds max. Once the box has been created the first step is to make the box an editable poly. Once this has been done you can then edit the box to look like a sort of bean shape, this can be done by simply adjusting the vert’s of the box in each corner.

After this has been completed its time to get out the cut tool and begin to draw the shape of the ear onto the box. This can be achieved by using reference images and doing some research on typology. The reason why the ear is created from a box is it makes it easier to draw or cut out shapes and after the ear is complete it gives a very good base or starting point for when the ear needs to be attached to the rest of the mesh.

Once the ear has been drawn it’s now time to extrude and bevel so that the ear can begin to take shape. The first part of the ear that should be extruded would be the outer rim part of the ear that gives the ear its identity. So by selecting the poly’s that needs to be extruded first and extruding them to a realistic size so the ear doesn’t look to deep. Since its in a slight bean shape some of the shape wont will be left out towards the final edge.

Once this step has been completed before any further steps are take the user should first fix up there ear and add more vert’s and or poly’s so that the ear can look a little more rounded without adding any smoothing groups or smooth’s to the ear. This will make the ear loom even more detailed when adding the smooth’s to it.

The last big step would be to bevel the inside of the ear, which gives the ear more detail. Once this is beveled its then the choice of the user if they require any further editing or if they will leave the ear as it is and add a turbo smooth.  For this project a little more editing was done to the ear to give it a more detailed look but this was manly through extrusions and the push and pull method.

The Arena !!

The Arena !!!

The landscape is as important as the models because the landscape helps tell the story.  Since this part of the story is in a mountainous sandy area this would need to be created in 3ds max. The first step would be to create a plane around 500 width and 500 length. This would mean there is a lot of space to create hills and mountains.  

After the plane has been created a material needs to be added to it using the material editor using the noise attribute with a fall off, this would create the hills at different peaks and locations within the plane. Once this has been done a displace element can be added to the plane from the drop down list. This will allow you to add the material in which was created to the element and apply it to the plane. 

This will give the user a bumpy terrain to work with and from this colour can be added and to give it an extra detail to meet specific needs. In this case plants where added to give the area a more desert feel with a couple of palm trees and in certain areas.

This plane now transformed into a terrain will allow for good camera angels when animating.

Hands !!!

Hands !!

The hands for our hero and villains where also created using the push and pull method in 3ds max.  1 hand was created and the symmetry tool was applied to get the opposite object required. This method could also be used for the feet of the models.

First the base of the hand had to be created from a simple box object. The box had poly’s and vert’s added to it so that it cold be extended and pulled to form a very basic shape of the hand. After this was achieved turbo smooth was added to make sure that the final outcome was still as intended.

Once the very basic part of the hand was created it was time to add detail. The hand is obviously not box shaped and even with the turbo smooth on the hand still looks very boxy, so turbo smooth was turned of using the light on the left hand side of the word “TurboSmooth”. This would allow for further editing to the original hand, the aim now was to make sure the hand is more rounded so again the push and pull method was used along with swift loops so the shape of the hand could be altered and made more rounded.  Further more mass was also added to the hand using the push and pull method so that hand had a more natural look to it for example adding the mass around the thumb area of the palm.

Following the completion of the main part of the hand it was then time to create the fingers of the hand which required using a cylinder. The cylinder was stretched to match the reference image and the length of the index finger that would be the starting point when adding fingers to and hand. The cylinder was resized to match the reference image and the hand that had been created so far. Once this was complete again more vert’s and poly’s were added in the required places so that detail can then be added to the finger to add the real factor to it.

For the fingers the resize tool was mainly used to add mass in the knuckle and bone areas of the finger. Once this was complete a series of extrusions were carried out to form the fingernail. After the index finger was complete it was time to merge or attach the fingers to the rest of the hand which meant that some target welding and to be done, but first the fingers and to be adjusted and resized to match the template and the bases of the fingers had to be removed so that target welding could be made possible. After the hand was complete turbo smooth was then re added and the hand looked as intended.

The hand was then attached to the rest of the body and the symmetry tool was applied to the hand to get the hand required for the other arm.  And to attach the arms and the hands together target welding proved to be the best technique to complete this task.