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Plan for Jay Barnson
Plan for Jay Barnson
| Name: | Jay Barnson |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Oct 26, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  Not Rated | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Jay Barnson |
Blog post
Will I ever NOT SUCK at 3D Modeling?
I used to fence - you know, the sport with the swords (well, foils and epees and sabers). It's a great sport, and EXHAUSTING. It's ridiculously fun, too. The only problem is that I suck at it. Oh, against other beginners I do okay... but man, the sport is so fast that even when I'm called upon to judge a bout I have a tough time seeing the order of the actions. Who attacked first and had the "right of way". That's an important distinction in foil fencing - he who established the attack, or correctly countered his opponent's attack and then attacked, gets the "right of way" and gets the point in the event of simultaneous touches. Which happens a LOT.
So I acknowledged that I suck at fencing. But that was okay. My goal, I told everyone, was to someday "suck less." I didn't harbor any illusions about being some great championship fencer. I'm not a teenager anymore, and I am not about to make fencing my life. But I could still improve to the point of being competent. I kept going to the club in an effort to suck less. Unfortunately, the club closed down and I haven't hunted down a new one yet, so I still haven't achieved that state of less suckage. But towards the end, I could see a very definite improvement in my abilities.
So now I'm learning 3D modeling. I'm using Blender. I've done some small amounts of modeling in the past - mainly very simple objects in Milkshape (I was very proud of my floating wrench pick-up in Void War. ) I managed to get a BOX modeled, textured, surrounded by a collision volume, and (with great pain and gnashing of teeth) exported from Blender into Torque. THAT experience nearly made me throw my game away and start over with another 2D game. At least in 2D, a picture is a picture. You don't have to worry about polygons with skewed textures, or the collision volume being inside-out, or all the crap you have to go through to export. It's a lot of work. But once I did it, I found that while it was a pain in the butt, it wasn't difficult. But all I had was a box. And not a particularly brilliant-looking box, either. I still suck.
But after that experience, I suck less. I think. So now I want to tackle something trickier. I have a TON of content requirements (SCARY!), most of which I'm going to have to out-source to friends, associates, and hired help. But I thought I could try something kind of simple and start learning the ropes of adding animation. I don't dare start with a human-looking character. But I do have need of having a giant mosquito. So I figure I can do that... insects are simple, right?
So I spend a few hours trying to model a mosquito. I'm still having to battle blender getting textures to "stick" - I think I'm doing something wrong there. But I get the model together, and I throw together a colorful texture as a stand-in, and I arrange the model with my newfound technical knowledge of how to export an object from Blender to Torque.
With great joy and excitement, I put the mosquito in my game. Stand-in texture, no animation, just to see how it looks and works.
And he resembles nothing so much as a giant Cootie. You know, that preschool game where you have to build a bug? If I was doing "Cooties: The Computer Game," I'd be golden. But my giant mosquito was supposed to be all menacing and stuff. Maybe it was the colorful stand-in texture, and maybe all it needs is some tweaking. I sure hope so. But I was turning up my nose at some content packs earlier because they look "amaturish." Compared to my cootie - I mean, mosquito - they look awesome.
*Sigh*
It's a good thing I earn a living with my programming skills. 'Cuz I still suck at 3D modeling. But I'm going to keep at it in hopes to someday suck less. And in the meantime, I'm going to continue to be insanely jealous of you guys and gals who can whip out a beautiful, complete human character model in a couple of days.
So I acknowledged that I suck at fencing. But that was okay. My goal, I told everyone, was to someday "suck less." I didn't harbor any illusions about being some great championship fencer. I'm not a teenager anymore, and I am not about to make fencing my life. But I could still improve to the point of being competent. I kept going to the club in an effort to suck less. Unfortunately, the club closed down and I haven't hunted down a new one yet, so I still haven't achieved that state of less suckage. But towards the end, I could see a very definite improvement in my abilities.
So now I'm learning 3D modeling. I'm using Blender. I've done some small amounts of modeling in the past - mainly very simple objects in Milkshape (I was very proud of my floating wrench pick-up in Void War. ) I managed to get a BOX modeled, textured, surrounded by a collision volume, and (with great pain and gnashing of teeth) exported from Blender into Torque. THAT experience nearly made me throw my game away and start over with another 2D game. At least in 2D, a picture is a picture. You don't have to worry about polygons with skewed textures, or the collision volume being inside-out, or all the crap you have to go through to export. It's a lot of work. But once I did it, I found that while it was a pain in the butt, it wasn't difficult. But all I had was a box. And not a particularly brilliant-looking box, either. I still suck.
But after that experience, I suck less. I think. So now I want to tackle something trickier. I have a TON of content requirements (SCARY!), most of which I'm going to have to out-source to friends, associates, and hired help. But I thought I could try something kind of simple and start learning the ropes of adding animation. I don't dare start with a human-looking character. But I do have need of having a giant mosquito. So I figure I can do that... insects are simple, right?
So I spend a few hours trying to model a mosquito. I'm still having to battle blender getting textures to "stick" - I think I'm doing something wrong there. But I get the model together, and I throw together a colorful texture as a stand-in, and I arrange the model with my newfound technical knowledge of how to export an object from Blender to Torque.
With great joy and excitement, I put the mosquito in my game. Stand-in texture, no animation, just to see how it looks and works.
And he resembles nothing so much as a giant Cootie. You know, that preschool game where you have to build a bug? If I was doing "Cooties: The Computer Game," I'd be golden. But my giant mosquito was supposed to be all menacing and stuff. Maybe it was the colorful stand-in texture, and maybe all it needs is some tweaking. I sure hope so. But I was turning up my nose at some content packs earlier because they look "amaturish." Compared to my cootie - I mean, mosquito - they look awesome.
*Sigh*
It's a good thing I earn a living with my programming skills. 'Cuz I still suck at 3D modeling. But I'm going to keep at it in hopes to someday suck less. And in the meantime, I'm going to continue to be insanely jealous of you guys and gals who can whip out a beautiful, complete human character model in a couple of days.
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Submit your own resources!| Craig Fortune (Oct 26, 2005 at 16:56 GMT) |
Never be afraid to admit you dont know something and ask for help, but never be afraid of google either ;)
Good luck!
| Chris (Oct 26, 2005 at 17:07 GMT) |
Nigel Symes did some great stuff in them, easy to follow. Videos too :)
Edited on Oct 26, 2005 17:09 GMT
| David Stewart (Oct 26, 2005 at 17:18 GMT) |
Chris, you'll need to take out the space at the end of the url for it to work.
The site Chris linked.
EDIT: Doh! Chris updated before I finished my post.
Yes, Nigel's tutorials are great.
Edited on Oct 26, 2005 17:19 GMT
| Scott Burns (Oct 26, 2005 at 18:14 GMT) |
I too am also trying to suck less in the 3D modeling dept. I don't know why but for some reason me and modeling programs just don't get along.
| Jay Barnson (Oct 26, 2005 at 18:50 GMT) |
Hey - thanks for the tutorial link! I didn't know about them. I've been going through tutorial after tutorial - many of them incomplete or just REALLY focused on ray-traced renderings rather than real-time models for games. These look very helpful (and I don't know if I could have figured out how to export to Torque without Nigel's videos - they rocked!)
@Scott - I only did a little bit of epee, and I REALLY enjoyed it. I didn't think I would, but someone talked me into it. Cheaper equipment, too (though I have the full electric gear for foil already).
Edited on Oct 26, 2005 18:51 GMT
| Clint S. Brewer (Oct 26, 2005 at 19:18 GMT) |
Quote:
If I was doing "Cooties: The Computer Game," I'd be golden. But my giant mosquito was supposed to be all menacing and stuff.
heh, I understand this all too well. You can do it Jay, itterate, make the cute parts pointier..pointy is menacing, pointy... pointy and hooked, and spiked, with blood. Textures make all the difference in the world.
I feel your pain. I'm going to have a lot of artwork to do soon, and I'm still no where near as fast as I'd like to be with the interiors and modelling
edit: you put a picture up, hey that's near menacing!
Edited on Oct 26, 2005 19:20 GMT
| Ajari Wilson (Oct 26, 2005 at 19:28 GMT) |
-Ajari-
Yeah, the legs look terrifying. The way that one leg is bent inward makes it look so much more natural.
Edited on Oct 26, 2005 19:34 GMT
| David Stewart (Oct 26, 2005 at 20:44 GMT) |
Here are some links:
One mosquito pic
More mosquito pics
Even better
Edited on Oct 26, 2005 21:16 GMT
| Chris (Oct 26, 2005 at 21:56 GMT) |
| Jay Barnson (Oct 26, 2005 at 23:24 GMT) |
There's not enough hours in the day.
Thanks for the mosquito links.
Anybody have a really good link on texturing in Blender? I've been having problems with the texture not "taking" all the time in Blender - like some faces are still attached to a NULL material or something, and the material only sometimes believing it's got an attached texture. I'm probably just doing something backwards, but help would be appreciated!
| Jeremy Alessi (Oct 26, 2005 at 23:36 GMT) |
| Eric Petersen (Oct 26, 2005 at 23:59 GMT) |
| Vashner (Oct 27, 2005 at 01:53 GMT) |
| Jay Barnson (Oct 27, 2005 at 17:14 GMT) |
My texturing work is crap, but I'm beginning to see what kinds of things I'm doing wrong. I get the feeling that you need to be skilled at art as well as putting together jigsaw puzzles to do good texture-work.
Edited on Oct 27, 2005 17:22 GMT
| Thomas Natale (Oct 27, 2005 at 21:28 GMT) |
The head looks good. However the antenae need to be more separated in a V shape, rather than straight forward.
The legs are good.. however if you want it to _really_ look like a mosquito, try rotating the legs in a fashion that resembles the first link David Stewart gave you.
What I mean is the forward legs need to be angled foward, the middle ones angled back a bit, and the final back set of legs angled even farther back.
Nice work otherwise! Better than my modelling skills! (I'm a programmer at heart as well) But I can learn new tricks.
So far I have music, concept art, programming, and writing down. I need modelling next. :)
great work.
| Jay Barnson (Oct 27, 2005 at 22:00 GMT) |
I can turn a word or two, but I'm still struggling with all other things art-related.
Thanks for the suggestions on Mr. Skeeter - those should be easy to implement.
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