Volker's next Groboto-Model

Started by Volker Harun, February 17, 2011, 12:57:05 PM

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Volker Harun

#15
Thanks Frank ... very much appreciated ,-) It is good to know, that there are that you did not critique ... these are the same I am going to improve :)

@Piet and anybody interested:
A simple workflow - images form top-left to bottom-right - in every image the Z-axis is showing to you, X to the right, Y to the left (with a little rotation) - world center is almost in the middle of any image:

01. Placing a Hyperrod Barrel at the world's center
02. Placing a Cylinder at world's center and scaling it a bit
03. Adjusting the Cap depth and Neck radius of the Hyperrod
04. Moving both along the X-axis off center
05. Duplicate and mirror objects
06. Adding a Hyperrod Barrel at the world's center
07. Turning this Hyperrod, scaling it, adjusting Neck radius and Cap depth
08. Rotated all 90° around the Z-axis, adjusted length of the cylinders, moved the red armatures along the X-axis off center and did a Duplicate and mirror of the red objects
09. Duplicated the middle Hyperrod and rotated it, adjusting size
10. Rotated everything 90° around Y-axis, moved the objects along the X-axis off center. Duplicated and mirrored those red ducts
11. Selected the two, small Hyperrods, which are facing each other. Used 'Selection Center' to add a cylinder. Rotated and scaled it.
12. Added a few gimmicks and rendered within Groboto.

I hope that this helps a bit ,-) Else, I can only advice you to watch the videos about modeling. The Snap-functions are really handy. And it is good to know, how to rotate objects around each other ...

Regards,
Volker

Edit: The bug mentioned a few posts before has just been fixed with a new release ... ,-)

FrankB

I knew you would catch this meaning somehow  ;)
I really like this image, but I cannot critique on the object. It's cool somehow, but also yet without an obvious purpose, plus I am as experienced in CG modeling as an average cow might be in sudoku, so what the heck do I know about it ;)

Cheers,
Frank

pfrancke

Thank you very much for sharing that work flow.  I believe you have saved my a month of struggle!

pfrancke

arggg..  minor frustrations.  Went to help to see the splash screen to find version number and the program froze.  (Running windows 2.9.9).  Did most of the above with success.  I was having a question and then spotted the snap ability (so that I could force rotation to 90 degrees).  The only problem that I am having is that I wish that you could select a bunch of primitives (which you can), but the control which of the primitives has the hot spot, so that when you center the group, the hot spot item goes to the world center (so that you could then easily add on at that point).  I wonder if the Apple version is more advanced (I use send object home, but don't see a "selection center" - but I'm thinking send object home was what you meant).    I'm thinking I need to play with "build single match" - maybe that is how to do it.    I'm close!!

Volker Harun

Hi Piet,

go to the 'Window' menu (maybe Beta-menu) and open the modeling panel - flex and snap.
Enable snap, center.
Place a small sphere at the world's center, I colour it red.
Now select your model, keep the sphere deselected (CTRL-A then A on the sphere)
Press i.e. X on the move panel.
Move your mouse on the object of your model, that is supposed to be at the world's center, click and drag the mouse to the sphere. As soon as you touch the sphere, your model is snapped to its center ... based on the object you touched with the mouse when starting the drag ,-)

I am off for business the next 24h .... have fun! ,-)

Volker

pfrancke

Voker, if you have a sec, I am slowly getting better at this.  (I think the key word is slowly, but never the less).

How did you get the tombstone like flat arm things?  I couldn't figure out how you got the primitives to do that!!

Piet

Volker Harun

Hey Piet,

good start ... before answering your question ... I see that you use the bevelled cylinders, which look nicer than the standard ones. You ought to know that they will be exported as standard cylinders, though. You can choose the amount of bevel, rounded edge loops while exporting.
I doubt that it matters due to the size of the current model. But on a complex scene, the bevelled prims can draw your system's performance down.

For the plates I use boolean clusters ,-) ... See attached image.

Volker ... :D

Volker Harun

Nothing special,

just playing with some boolean techniques - and different shading in TG2. I am disgusted by the structural bones' surface shader ... but for a WIP it is fair enough.

Regards,
Volker

Hetzen

Loving all this Volker. I really like the texturing you put on your models...

...which leads me to asking, can you get PFs to work on your textures in TG?

Volker Harun

Quote from: Hetzen on March 03, 2011, 03:48:23 PM
Loving all this Volker. I really like the texturing you put on your models...

...which leads me to asking, can you get PFs to work on your textures in TG?

Hello Jon,

thanks for your kind words :)

I import the models into Blender, select the Polygroups which were imported from Groboto and add a simple coloured map to this selection.
Importing this mod into TG2 and recolouring the models PFs is the final step. I do not use UVed texture maps.

There is somewhere a PF-tutorial I made in late 2007 or early 2008. The wings' PFs are based on this method. Maybe I have even posted the clip file there (Large shaders) or in another of those old threads (I can remember to have called it the 'One for All'-Shader ,-) )
This PF is set to the wings' Colour-, Translucency- and Displacement-functions.

Volker

P.S.: There seems to an example hanging around here: (Hotfile) http://hotfile.com/dl/105772249/a2fd6e7/Botty_1-01e_posedBlend.tgo.zip.html

Hetzen

Thing is Volker, we had a thread trying to get PFs to work in the materials networks, and I've never been able to get them to work on a PC. You're working on a Mac. So I wonder if there's a bug somewhere.

Volker Harun

Quote from: Hetzen on March 03, 2011, 04:08:45 PM
Thing is Volker, we had a thread trying to get PFs to work in the materials networks, and I've never been able to get them to work on a PC. You're working on a Mac. So I wonder if there's a bug somewhere.
Download the file, I'll start the render within the next minutes and we can compare :)

Hetzen


Volker Harun

My wife is sick ... here is a scene file that you could insert the object in, but for now I have family business

Hetzen

Sorry to hear that Volker.

Here are my renders from the TGO. I'll try your scene file.