It was fun & productive week! I made a nice collection of random minis ready for 3D printing based off the amazing works of the @KoboldPress as well as Patreon requests.
Tonight's free 3D printable minis will be from the Tome of Beasts by the amazing @KoboldPress! Lets see what I can make before I get eepy :D #3Dart#3Dmodeling#3Dprinting
Starting my 3rd iteration of our elephant mascot. The proportions and design of him will be mostly the same, but I want to simplify the polygons greatly and use textures for the details this time.
Thinking about texturing this super blocky state (maybe a few more cuts) just to UV unwrap something really simple and make a cute blocky version of Ivory. Will be good practice and probably look super cool too!
First UV map is a success! The artwork isn’t pretty, but I’m happy with how my UV map came out. Definitely learned a lot starting with an extremely low poly count. #3dArt
Green: v2 model
White: v3 model as basic blocks
Red: v3 model starting to shape the basic blocks
I'll probably keep refining at this current detail level until I'm sure it looks as good as possible and then subdivide 1 more time to get the tusks and tail in (as well as continue to shape the model with a bit more detail).
Getting there. I think I want to make his legs a bit chunkier and the little lump on the top of his head bugs me (can see it most on the side profile view). #3dArt
Topology isn't the greatest, but so much better than in v2. I had three 6-poles (complex poles which are bad) when I created geometry for his tusks and was able to convert them in to 5-poles. And of course everything is a quad.
I'm still not sure if I can create a UV texture map at the lower poly level and use the same map on a subdivided version of the model. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.
Oh, and I ended up shortening his torso instead of making his legs thicker.
My first attempt at UV unwrapping this model. There are some seams at obvious places, but they won't matter as the color/texture will be exactly the same in those spots (at least I think it won't matter 😅).
Next step is to draw all the details on this map and then see if I can generate a proper bump or displacement map as well.
Not bad! I'm realizing the limitations of a bump map, but I think it will work well enough for realtime 3D. It's not horrible when rendered, but very flat looking details. What I've learned so far is that I'd need to model all the details into the geometry and then generate a normal map from a detailed mesh. Applying the normal map to this simplified geometry would get the detailed look I want without adding more polygons.
Textures still need a bit of work, but I'm learning a ton.
Apple’s Reality Converter only has a spot for normal maps (no bump or displacement) so I guess I need to create the extra geometry anyways. Getting closer!
Spent almost 2 days fine-tuning the animation rig and it's pretty good, but I still need to spend more time refining a lot of the mesh-to-joint bindings so that the skin deforms more naturally. Definitely need a break from all this. I'll refine it on Monday.