Project 3: Modeling the Environment

Using a picture of a chemical plant, I started modeling my environment.

I started blocking out my scene.

I added some weird boxes,

added some depth to the scene by putting the platforms on different levels,

built part of the railing for the surrounding fences,

built a weird post thing,

added more outdoor platforms,

and started to work on making part of the chemical plant building.

Here's a screenshot of where I was planning on putting the objects of the scene.  (I'm not done yet!)

Next I added some broken steel beams,

finished the fence,

made a chemical holding tank,

modeled chunks of debris,

chipped away from some of the platforms geometry,

added a stray wire,

and gave the SR some armor.

I am almost done modeling.  I need some trees in the back of the scene next.

(Hello again everyone!  It has been awhile and now I am finally updating my blog with everything!  Sorry about that Jeff)  I did all my UV mapping and then I started getting pictures off the internet to texture them.  Thank you cgtextures.com and spiralgraphics.biz for lending us all those textures!  After making the photographs seamless I started texturing everything.

I textured my chemical tank,

a ladder,

a few platforms,

broken steel beams,

the wall of the building,

a pipe,

a rusted pole (might be electrical),

a chain-link fence,

an another pole,

textured a plane with a picture of trees,

rubble,

a couple electrical posts,

a spider alien robot,

his spaceship,

supporting cinderblocks,

not sure what this was to be quite honest, but it was in the reference pictures I looked at,

and finally and extra electrical pole.

A screenshot and render I took after I finished texturing everything.

I ended up adding a spotlight to my scene and scanning blue light plane.

I had to mess around with the lights quite a bit, but I finally got something I was mostly satisfied with.  This was the render before I added in the spotlight and I also didn't like what the reflection in the spaceship's window was doing.

I changed both problems and came out with this.  It looks a lot better on my screen when this picture is huge.  This is my final render.

This project required much time and frustration, but it was nice to see the fruits of my labor.  I learned a lot from this project.  Hopefully I will have another project to upload onto the blog in the near future, but for now SEE YOU ALL LATER!  =]

(I messed around with lighting a bit more and had some fun with the scene this is what I got)

I was told that I should either put more robots in or increase the lighting; so I tried both.

Project 3: Modeling the Spaceship

(I will upload the sketch when I get the chance.)  Here it is.  I created a sketch of a random spaceship and got it approved by my teacher; granted I will probably tweak things along the way.  ;)

I started out by creating a series of curves.

I lofted them.

I closed the ship's main body by lofting curves together.  I also used the lattice to thin out the back end.

I wasn't completely satisfied with the front and back ends of the ship so I experimented and created something I liked better.  I also added wings by creating curves and using the extrude tool.

Because the ship's wings were a bit off, I tried to fix them to look more like each other.  My friend Chris told me that I could cut the object in half and mirror it, so I did.

When I mirrored the main body of the ship it caused the tail and head pieces to not fit anymore.  Because of this, I had to cut those pieces in half as well and sew up the vertices using the merge tool.  This part took a long time.

The front was easier than back though.

I then copied the main hull of the spaceship twice and shrunk the copies to make mini engines.  I cut holes on the sides of the ships, extruded the hole's edges toward the smaller copies hull's, and then used the merge tool to connect all the vertices together.

Next I thought that the ship needed some extra detail to look interesting.  So I added a window and some grooves going up and down the ship (I was thinking of adding tons of mini lights inside the grooves, might look more like circuitry).

 
Finally I added a couple more circuitry grooves on the side of the spaceship.  (I will add the textures last of all).

I ended up not UV mapping the spaceship for time reasons, but it still looks good for what it is.