SinKing
Martin joined
I've been going around as a writer, but started getting drawn into Concept Art and 3D modeling. I'm currently finishing my studies as a 3D artist and will then be let loose on the world. Beware!
NY_style_old_skyscraper
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Description
I made this today, using a very simple mesh as the base (maybe 20 minutes modeling and unwrapping) and then I did everythin else in Ndo2 and Pornoshop, err Photoshop.
I think it looks nice and the hard (corner) edges are no reason for me to make a highpoly. This would have taken me much, much longer a few months ago.
oh - I forgot to write (apart from it being obvious ^^): this is the ground floor. I'll add more modules soon. These are 3x the same module with 512x512 dimension.
I used to have lots of problems with lightmaps and the seams would show.
I mean - I used to have problems before with these kind of models and UDK, but now everything is working as it's supposed to. Tss, correcting myself.
Cool model. I'm guessing its modular too?
Could you miter the the corners to give the appearance of highpoly modeling?
Well, like I wrote in the description, this is the fastest method I have ever made these modular pieces (modeling, uv, texturing all in a few hours). And it is 90% Ndo and PS. It's meant for prototyping, so it doesn't need to be more than this.
I have been thinking about planning buildings differently with this method, so I could have a cornerpiece to connect the Ndo parts and the cornerpiece would be sculpted and require a High Poly. This way I can keep the fast (and highpoly free) method for the main surfaces and still get rounded corners with more detail on them. I'll try doing that with the next model.
Those are great ideas! I thought of that at one point too.
Create simple box-like buildings and then have additional architectural elements with more detail to snap on the corners or foot of the building. That way most of the building is simple faces but not really noticeable and can be constructed quickly.
By the way, click "reply to comment" next time and I'll get a notification.
Right, good call!
Yeah, I think modularity is key to successful environment building. Any modeler can make a nice model and slap some textures on it, but thinking bigger and optimizing an entire scene takes some thought.
I'm recently looking at some of this guys stuff:
Johnvalentiart.com
He's also on Polycount and I followed some of the threads he made and found he had a lot of the same problems I had with UDK (lightmaps, tiling, etc).
Might be interesting for you, too!
Cool tutorials.
I really like the overgrown city... man it has to be hard to get the vines to look natural on a modular building.
I've followed Chris Albeluhn
Chrisalbeluhn.com
He's got some really detailed tutorials for modeling.
Yeah, I have seen his stuff, but most of it is very old and not exactly working with UDK (like all his shortcuts for UDK ^^) However, the modeling etc. tips are all still pretty good.
It has just been a pain learning all about the lightmaps and modularity for buildings. UDK did some pretty ****** stuff during lightmapping. What I know now is that it is best to have as few pieces of possbile when building something modular. It also makes sense to plan and build the whole thing first and then start with UVs and making materials.