Does anyone know if i'd be able to import models from autoCAD into other programs like 3Ds max or blender?
[QUOTE=medal-12;38017654]Does anyone know if i'd be able to import models from autoCAD into other programs like 3Ds max or blender?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but they'll have shit loads of triangles.
To 3ds Max most likely, seeing how both AutoCAD and 3ds Max are made by the same developer (Autodesk).
edit:
Derp didn't see last page.
Pretty sure Max imports Cad files.
[QUOTE=Logithx;38017763]To 3ds Max most likely, seeing how both AutoCAD and 3ds Max are made by the same developer (Autodesk).
edit:
Derp didn't see last page.[/QUOTE]
Thanks, i've made some little things in autoCAD and i've been wanting to use a program that can save in the type of file that would make me be able to import it into a game for testing
[QUOTE=medal-12;38023510]i've made some little things in autoCAD...import it into a game[/QUOTE]
this is a terrible idea
I'm working on improving my hand painting skills and here is what I went from to take for next step further.
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30693265/LowPoly/presentation1.jpg[/img]
to
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30693265/LowPoly/presentation2.jpg[/img]
I'm still not done with it yet, I have details left as last step and some colours too.
The gradient on the side of the hammer seems to go the opposite direction.
it doesnt
^gradients expert
[editline]14th October 2012[/editline]
M.D.
if you mean the gradient at the hitting side of the hammer, I'm faking the hollow effect slightly to catch light down on the edge otherwise if I had highlights above it would look flat or bumpy.
[QUOTE=Appolox;38024381]I'm working on improving my hand painting skills and here is what I went from to take for next step further.
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30693265/LowPoly/presentation1.jpg[/img]
to
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30693265/LowPoly/presentation2.jpg[/img]
I'm still not done with it yet, I have details left as last step and some colours too.[/QUOTE]
Why not just make the size of the end cap a little bigger to keep the same texture density and use it for both the top and bottom, not like anyone will notice (don't you already use the grip twice anyway?)
[QUOTE=Legend286;38026270]Why not just make the size of the end cap a little bigger to keep the same texture density and use it for both the top and bottom, not like anyone will notice (don't you already use the grip twice anyway?)[/QUOTE]
They all have the same texture density...otherwise uv space would be wasted it's still little wasted but the texture will be 256x256 in the end.
Ah... You know, I used to do this kind of stuff... But I lost my drive for it a while back, and I just haven't been able to get into it since... Somehow decided I was terrible at art, so I gave up. Anyone ever been there, and, more importantly, anyone know how to fix it?
I'm trying to get better at subdivision modeling/normal baking, as I've never managed to bake a normal I've been happy with. This model is based off of this concept art of an airship I found ([URL="http://puu.sh/1eDIu"]http://puu.sh/1eDIu[/URL]), just working on the front tower right now. Does anything stand out as a potential problem later on down the line?
[b][/b] ([url=http://p3d.in/C7kij/wireonsmooth]View in 3D[/url])
[url=http://p3d.in/C7kij/wireonsmooth][img]http://p3d.in/model_data/snapshot/C7kij[/img][/url]
I got zbrush
[img]http://i46.tinypic.com/28l6ng9.png[/img]
I think I'm doing okay
So I was looking around to see if there was an educational version of ZBrush so I could get a little headstart on it for next semester, but sadly there is not. I found out about Sculpris though. Is that worth trying out or are they different enough that any skills I pick up won't be useful?
[QUOTE=guest91;38027830]I'm trying to get better at subdivision modeling/normal baking, as I've never managed to bake a normal I've been happy with. This model is based off of this concept art of an airship I found ([URL="http://puu.sh/1eDIu"]http://puu.sh/1eDIu[/URL]), just working on the front tower right now. Does anything stand out as a potential problem later on down the line?
[b][/b] ([url=http://p3d.in/C7kij/wireonsmooth]View in 3D[/url])
[url=http://p3d.in/C7kij/wireonsmooth][img]http://p3d.in/model_data/snapshot/C7kij[/img][/url][/QUOTE]
everything is far too sharp to bake well, you also haven't read the form of the concept correctly. look at how the place where you have bumps in the top is actually an opening for the propellers. you want to have consistent creasing.
Oh wow, now that you point out the propeller, I have no idea how I thought it was just a small hole. But in general, if I understood you correctly, I should spread out the guide edge loops so its less sharp and more consistent? The problem I found was that if I moved them farther away, the edges seemed to be too smooth. Maybe if I bevel them they'll hold their shape better and still bake well?
Don't just put bevels on them, reduce the support loops to be oversmoothed like in what juniez posted. Fatter corners pick up highlights far better.
e: woops accidentally wrote undersmoothed originally my b
Another wallpaper
[t]http://i.imgur.com/ezEEH.jpg[/t]
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;38024362]this is a terrible idea[/QUOTE]
Ohh, so would it just be better to make the models in 3Ds max in the first place?
[QUOTE=Sheogorath;38029913]Another wallpaper
[t]http://i.imgur.com/ezEEH.jpg[/t][/QUOTE]
awesome!! could you do a breakdown of that scene?
Sure! I started with the tree and made the basic trunk using lofting and poly modeling. Then I made a smaller branch, again with lofting, copied a portion of the trunk where I wanted the branches to be namely the top faces of the large branches and then using scatter, spread some amount of branches there. Then I scaled the small branch down even more and again with the scatter spread a massive amount of them using the previously placed branches as the distribution object. Then I made 2 different leaves and scattered the first one over the larger branches and the second one over the smaller ones using about 13000 duplicates each. When it came to uv-mapping I simply relaxed the uvs since loft had created for the branches and applied a photo of bark I got from cg textures. A smart thing to do would've been to uv map them before scattering in order to prevent computer meltdown afterwards, but it worked either way. The trunk was mapped using pelt. The trunk material has a 4096^2 diffuse and normal as well as a displacement map. The leaves use the vray 2-sided material
As for the grass, I made a ground plane and a small clump of grass consisting of 3-5 different grass blades in different positions pictured below. I then scattered that over the ground plane over the area which the camera can see. Then I scattered it again, but this time scaled bigger and in fewer numbers to break up the surface a little. Then I made a quick flower also pictured below and scattered that too.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/nhmU4.jpg[/img][img]http://i.imgur.com/1h6ir.jpg[/img]
the scene itself was simple enough. It had the camera, geometry and a vray sun. Before rendering I added some Ivy to the trunk using the guruware ivy generator.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/lzSoF.jpg[/t]
The DoF had to be created with the renderer since the regular zdepth-method didn't work when the blurring was supposed to happen up close.
The post production was simple enough, your basic colour correction, noise, bloom, vignette and chromatic aberration. Also I replaced the default vray sky.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/hLc5m.jpg[/t]
[QUOTE=medal-12;38031149]Ohh, so would it just be better to make the models in 3Ds max in the first place?[/QUOTE]
yes, polygonal modeling is the only way to go for games.
[QUOTE=medal-12;38031149]Ohh, so would it just be better to make the models in 3Ds max in the first place?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;38036973]gonna be honest evilcop almost nothing you said is good advice.
you're not necessarily sculpting, you don't always want to create a low first (in fact it's more standard to make a high then a low), you don't always want to use your sculpting basemesh as your final low (in fact you shouldn't do this much at all as basemeshes are supposed to be [I]modeled for clean sculpting, not for efficiency in games[/I]), you can't put in all the detail you want (it has to be smooth enough to bake), but your worst offender is that you can't just bake normals onto uv coords and not give 2 fucks.
you should be splitting smoothing groups at uv island breaks and you should place uv island breaks at natural model seams where you know you will have the issue of creating large gradients in the normal map (a certain amount of gradients are fine but you want it p minimal because they don't compress well). NEVER bake a normal map in something that isn't synced to anything (synced tangents), otherwise your normal map is useless and you should shift+delete that abomination. use something like xNormal because it's actually synced.
you also didn't mention anything about needing to know whether or not your normal map needs to be Y+ or Y-, nor anything about smoothing at all which (considering you modeled the high and low properly) is the number one factor in getting a good bake. you never mentioned anything about using an averaged cage for baking and the fact that ray distance bakes are pretty much worthless for anything other than a flat plane.
your image doesn't really explain anything, it's 3 renders that were made to explain normal mapping technology (from this guy [url]http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/~cignoni/[/url], not an artist). It's clearly not an image he'll learn anything from. from just that image, we also don't know if it's an offline render or not. if it is, it is flat out not applicable because of tangent syncing (if it even uses a tangent based map).
Here's some useful links all from PC.
Normal map baking--[I]Read this whole thread[/I]:
[url]http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154[/url]
Understanding high poly modeling very technically--Read the detailed posts, skim the thread because it's so long but make sure to visually grasp why people model the way they do:
[url]http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56014[/url]
Read this to understand why racer445's old tutorial (link's to his video is on this page) on normal mapping is incorrect (It's just as important to learn why to not do something):
[url]http://wiki.polycount.com/racer445%20Normal%20Map%20Issues[/url]
Read polycount's wiki on normal mapping:
[url]http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap[/url]
Read about vertex normals:
[url]http://wiki.polycount.com/VertexNormal[/url]
And understand right off the bat that you'll nearly always be using tangent based normal maps in games, which modify the existing vertex normals of the underlying geometry on a per pixel level. Finally, never paint on a normal map unless you're adding in fine details i.e. nDo/crazybump stuff (or if doing a normal map without baking as with a heightmap to normals operation) and then you have to learn how to properly add different normal maps together without destroying data.[/QUOTE]
Here's an example of what normal maps do from Raising the Bar:
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22565769/bump-maps.png[/img]
All three photos have the same mesh, but the top left does not have normal mapping. The bottom left shows what the texture looks like. The photo to the right shows how it actually effects lighting in-game.
[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;38034101]Here's how most people do it: Make a sketch/find an image from at least two view points (usually the front and side), then make the low poly model and unwrap the UVs in 3DS Max/Blender/Maya. Then, import that low poly model into a sculpting program capable of baking normals (e.g. Mudbox/Blender/One I'm forgetting the name of), make a high poly model from it with every detail you could possibly want, and then bake the normals onto the original UV coordinates. The result is this:
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Normal_map_example.png/800px-Normal_map_example.png[/img][/QUOTE]
This is quite a unique example as generally the low poly will be easily recognisable as its high poly counter part and with a texture applied with AO it will look far better.
[QUOTE=~ZOMG;38035705]This is quite a unique example as generally the low poly will be easily recognisable as its high poly counter part and with a texture applied with AO it will look far better.[/QUOTE]
True, but the point remains. I'll replace it with a more fitting example.
gonna be honest evilcop almost nothing you said is good advice.
you're not necessarily sculpting, you don't always want to create a low first (in fact it's more standard to make a high then a low), you don't always want to use your sculpting basemesh as your final low (in fact you shouldn't do this much at all as basemeshes are supposed to be [I]modeled for clean sculpting, not for efficiency in games[/I]), you can't put in all the detail you want (it has to be smooth enough to bake), but your worst offender is that you can't just bake normals onto uv coords and not give 2 fucks.
you should be splitting smoothing groups at uv island breaks and you should place uv island breaks at natural model seams where you know you will have the issue of creating large gradients in the normal map (a certain amount of gradients are fine but you want it p minimal because they don't compress well). NEVER bake a normal map in something that isn't synced to anything (synced tangents), otherwise your normal map is useless and you should shift+delete that abomination. use something like xNormal because it's actually synced.
you also didn't mention anything about needing to know whether or not your normal map needs to be Y+ or Y-, nor anything about smoothing at all which (considering you modeled the high and low properly) is the number one factor in getting a good bake. you never mentioned anything about using an averaged cage for baking and the fact that ray distance bakes are pretty much worthless for anything other than a flat plane.
your image doesn't really explain anything, it's 3 renders that were made to explain normal mapping technology (from this guy [url]http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/~cignoni/[/url], not an artist). It's clearly not an image he'll learn anything from. from just that image, we also don't know if it's an offline render or not. if it is, it is flat out not applicable because of tangent syncing (if it even uses a tangent based map).
Here's some useful links all from PC.
Normal map baking--[I]Read this whole thread[/I]:
[url]http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154[/url]
Understanding high poly modeling very technically--Read the detailed posts, skim the thread because it's so long but make sure to visually grasp why people model the way they do:
[url]http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56014[/url]
Read this to understand why racer445's old tutorial (link's to his video is on this page) on normal mapping is incorrect (It's just as important to learn why to not do something):
[url]http://wiki.polycount.com/racer445%20Normal%20Map%20Issues[/url]
Read polycount's wiki on normal mapping:
[url]http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap[/url]
Read about vertex normals:
[url]http://wiki.polycount.com/VertexNormal[/url]
And understand right off the bat that you'll nearly always be using tangent based normal maps in games, which modify the existing vertex normals of the underlying geometry on a per pixel level. Finally, never paint on a normal map unless you're adding in fine details i.e. nDo/crazybump stuff (or if doing a normal map without baking as with a heightmap to normals operation) and then you have to learn how to properly add different normal maps together without destroying data.
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