Castle with a Tower

My third model I am doing for the project is a castle that I am using as environment to set the scene as 15th century Italy. I am modelling it after Vincigliata Castle, which is a medieval castle located in the region of Tuscany. The images I am using as reference are:

I started the model with the tower in one of the corners of the castle, and it didn't go too badly considering it was my first proper attempt at modelling a building. For the shape I just used a box and extruded polygons and edges where needed. I also used the bridge tool to create the slants on the top of the tower. To create the windows I cut out polygons (using the cut tool while in editable poly) where needed so that I could get that arched shape, and extruded them inwards and I did the same for the frame of the window. I used a darker brick texture for the main building and a slightly lighter brick texture for the window frame and accents.

Once I had the tower done, I made 4 more boxes for the rest of the castle and did mostly the same thing with extruding and cutting polygons. The thing I dislike most about it is the lack of detail; it's just a building with no real atmosphere. I also don't like that the windows are just black but I couldn't figure out how to make a hole all the way through the building and cap off the inside so you couldn't see inside the wall. Before I start animating, I want to edit this model more so that it has more life, and so you can see inside the windows and for there to be an actual doorway. I would also like to tweak the vertices so that lines aren't completely straight, so there are some bumps and tears in the castle walls, to add to the realism.

The Crossbow

The second of my models for the project is the giant crossbow itself, and this model is the one that definately took the longest and most work out of all of them. There was alot of trial and error involved as I was still learning the basics of the program and it had alot of awkward angles and curves to deal with. My main reference images were these two pictures, and the first one in particular helped me alot:

 The first thing I did was get the body of the crossbow the right shape and proportions, so that when I started working on the rest of the crossbow, none of the other details were the wrong size. The main shaft was made of three boxes, one long one on the bottom, and two on the top. Once I had this, and got the shape correct on the curves at the back of the crossbow, it was time to work on the wheels. Making the wheel itself wasn't too difficult, I used a cylinder for the shape of the wheel and some boxes in the middle as well as another cylinder right in the center. Once I had one wheel done I could just clone it 5 more times and line them up in the right position.

The hardest bit to create was the top end of the crossbow, where all the action will be happening. Using the first picture as reference, I made the first part of it using a box and the bend tool, converting it to editable poly and moving the verteces around to get the desired shape. After I had this, I needed to create the top and bottom parts that connect to this, and I used a similar method of pulling the vertices to get the correct curve, and bending it to the same degree as the first bit plank.

Once I had this done, I started on the rope that is attatched from the rings at the end of the bow to the center, where it is pulled back in order to provide enough tension and power to force out the ammunition. To create the rope I used the hose and attatched one end to the ring, and the other to the pulling device in the middle of the bow. I did the same to the other side, and connected them both up using the select and link tool. Now, when I pull back the pulling bit, the rope stretches with it. I tried to make it so the wood at the end of the crossbow bends slightly when pulled back, but I couldn't manage to do figure out how that was done. There is still work to be done on the model when starting the animation, such as to get the wheels to move and the whole crossbow to have a weight and connect everything together, and have it so that it can fire objects out of the crossbow.

Do a Barrel Roll

One of my main models for my project is a barrel, which is going to be used as a background item in the scene and also as a target for the crossbow to shoot at. The design for the barrel itself wasn't too hard, although I did use lots of shapes to create it, and I made sure that it was hollow on the inside. This was also the first time using reactor and learning how it works, as my animation will depend on the use of physics and gravity. To create the barrel shape I first put a box on the scene in the shape of a plank and used the bend tool to warp it slightly. I then cloned this shape and flipped it so that it connected to the first one. I then cloned the two shapes together repeatedly and rotated them to get a circular shape. Looking back on it, it would have made more sense to put an actual circle in the scene to build around.

After all the middle bits of wood were in place, I used a cylinder to create the top and bottom of the barrel and another cylinder to act as a plug in the top of the barrel. I then used some tubes to wrap around the barrel, to hold it together. Once the barrel was complete, I added the texture using the compact material editor, and used the UVW Map modifier to scale it down and wrap it it around the barrel more realistically.

Now we have the finished barrel, it was time to learn about reactor and MassFX. I watched a few videos on youtube that explained the dynamics and basics of reactor, but it was difficult to translate to how I should use it on my barrel. I used the MassFX Rigid Body modifier to make it a dynamic object, however when I previewed simulation, the barrel just explodes everywhere. I suspect this is because I used so many shapes and haven't properly connected them into one shape, but I'm not sure how that is done or if that will produce an undesired result when I actually come to my animation. Either way, this is a problem that I need to figure out how to fix before that time comes. For now, I've got it set as a static object so that it stays still and still has the MassFX Rigid Body modifier.

I cloned the barrel a few times and added some lighting to present the scene better. Even though it didn't work out as intend, I enjoyed the learning experience and once I understand it better, it will prove very useful in future 3d modelling projects.

A Treaure Chest of Sorts

Today I had a go at creating a chest, with the intention of playing around with objects and modifiers, learning how to produce higher quality models and textures. First of all I created a room using 5 planes (one for each wall and a floor) and mapped them with a dirt texture. I used additional bump to give it more depth and added some standard omni lights with shadows enabled to set the scene some more. My first attempt at creating the chest was a failure; I started with a box shape and used the cut tool to add edges and then deleted the inside of the box, to make it look like an empty box. I duplicated this box and flipped it around and manipulated it to create the shape of the top of a chest, rotating it so it looked like the chest was slightly open and you could see inside. When I rendered this, you could see through to the plane underneath the chest and also through the top of of the chest, and I assume that this was because I deleted the polygons inside the box. So I started again, this time using planes to create a box shape, which gave me the same outcome visually except it uses more shapes in total. I connected all of them together using the connect tool and cloned it again to create the top of the chest. After getting a good result I decided to try and hinge the two parts of the box together, so that it moved on an axis at the back of the chest, so that it actually opened and closed, however this proved too difficult to achieve so I decided to leave it out and keep the images as two static boxes.

Playing around with the material editor enabled me to create a silver material to use on my chest, and also a glass texture to allow people to see into the chest. The creation of the glass texture was accidental, however it's a useful thing to know and it will help me in future projects. I used the UVW Map modifier to scale down the maps on all objects, making them look more realistic and giving them more depth.

After getting a result that I was happy with, I decided to create some coins on the inside of the chest so that it wasn't just an empty chest. The coins were made using the cylinder tool, and extruding one of the edges slightly to give it more depth. I then added a texture to it, used the UVW Map modifer to scale it down and cloned it many times so the bottom of the chest was littered with coins.

I think that I could use this chest design in my final project, if I adapt it to the scene and edit it so that it fits in. I think I could use it to hold the crossbow bolts for my crossbow, or just use it as an object in the background.

The Da Vinci Project

For our project we have to create an animation about one of Da Vinci's machines using Autodesk 3DS Max. The machine that we use is our own choice and there is no set time length on the animation. We have to pick a machine, model it, animate it, and present it in a 15th century Italian environment.


Research

Da Vinci was an interesting person; he is described as a true renaissance man and he specialised in many professions such as painter, inventer, architect, sculptor, mathematician, engineer and writer. There were more fields that he delved in, however he was most known for his paintings and inventions. His most famous painting is the Mona Lisa, and perhaps his most famous invention is the flying machine. His inventions are so amazing because they are well ahead of the time that they were made in; many of his plans and inventions were the basis of some creations in todays world, and some are still being studied.

 Among his inventions are the giant crossbow, the machine gun and the flying machine. For my project I want to use one of these devices as I find them the most interesting, and can think of the most ideas for. Although I will only be using one for my animation, it would be good practice and experience to have a go at modelling all three.


Decision

I have decided to choose the crossbow as my final design, as I think it will be a good challenge to model and animate, and I have a good idea for the basis of my animation. That idea is basically to show the crossbow firing different objects at different targets, showing the effect it has with the physics and density of the models. I believe this will be a difficult animation as I have never animated in 3DS Max before and it will require me to learn how to use reactor or MassFX, which gives objects a mass and allows them to adhere to gravity and the likes. The environment it will be set in is a 15th century Italian countryside, perhaps in the courtyard of a castle, surrounded by trees and castle walls. Whether or not I have human models in my animation is yet undecided, as I'm not sure how plausable it will be to model people and have them move around loading the crossbow and learning how to use MassFX in my animation.

Planes and Materials

During todays tutorial we learnt the importance of planes and how to use the material editor to apply an image to any given shape and give it some texture. Planes can be used as a flat surface to plant an image on, which is useful for creating a floor or a far away landscape. We used the compact material editor to choose an image from our library using the diffuse option to map it to our object. After clicking 'show material in viewport' we could instantly see the impact it had on the plane. Cloning the plane and rotating it so that it intersected with the first plane shows us how to create a simple background using images with the material editor.

After doing this we were taught how to use photoshop to edit an image that we then applied to the plane, giving it transparency. The image we used was a leaf, and since we wanted it to look like an actual leaf, we had to manipulate the plane so that it wasn't perfectly flat. Converting the plane to editable poly enabled us to move the vertexes around, and using soft selection we could get a more smooth result. I enjoyed learning about materials as this is a very important aspect of 3d modelling - adding textures to objects allows for much more depth and allows you to create much more appealing designs.