Stylised Trees Project - Modelling
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| Tree 1 progress |
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| Tree 2 progress |
This week I moved
onto modelling. For that I used a previously learned technique of applying my
concept (as a texture) to a flat plane and modelling in front of it (in
Orthographic view mode). This way it was like a form of a guide, to help me get
my proportions as closely to the concept as possible.
The shape of the tree
was created mainly by creating a loft from shape, along a spline. At this
point, I applied my tiled bark texture, so it wraps around the loft shape,
along the spline. Then by extruding different faces, along newly added splines
to create the branches. Textures were applied using Spline Mapping, along the
same splines as the branches were modelled from. The additional branches with
leaves were simply alphas applied to a flat, squared plane which I multiplied
and moved around the main branches, to give the tree more volume.
The process of
lofting the tree trunks for both models, strongly relied on a good tiled
texture. This was a problem I encountered with my first tree and I struggled to
overcome it at the start of my first tree. The way I drew the texture, caused
it to look way too stretched in areas where the bark bent. The only way around
it was to either adjust my unwrap; what seemed very difficult since the
geometry of my tree seemed too complex, or to redraw the texture in a way that
would help it keep most of its proportions when stretched.
Extruding some of the
tree polygon faces, along splines caused me a lot of problems too, like the
branch not having the same shape as the spline I made and also some branches
seeming quite flat (instead of being round). Most of these issues I have fixed
by moving around some of the vertices in each branch, but some of those I could
have fixed by doing more experiments with spline modelling. Something I found
out later as well, was that some of these deformations were simply caused by
the vertices on my splines, being too close to each other. I simply needed to
create less complex splines to avoid these deformations.
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| Tree 1 wireframe |
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| Tree 2 wireframe |
Lastly I have failed
to manage my time for the project correctly, like giving myself the right
amount of time for each stage of the process. I underestimated how much time I
would have needed to arrange my textured branches; each tree required at least
a few hours, because each tree required roughly 100 branches/planes to get to
the right shape and I’ve only left myself around 2 hours to do this task. I
needed to arrange all of these and rotate them to fit in on the main branches. This
has resulted in me partly rushing through my work, just in order to complete it
on time.
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| Tree 1 close-up |
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| Tree 2 close-up |
I will try to manage
my time in such projects more carefully now. I kept on spending too much time
on drawing my silhouettes/concepts, or I didn’t focus well enough and came up
with terrible designs which I needed to go back, and redo. This caused me to
lose precious time that I could have saved up for modelling in 3DS Max.
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| Tree 1 textures |
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| Tree 2 textures |
Life Drawing
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| First 2 sets of smaller studies/sketches |
For the last week the
life drawing session was slightly different, as we drew our model clothed this
time. We warmed up by drawing some basic sketches. The 4 initial ones were just
continuous line drawings. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with these, as the body
appeared too short on the first 2. The other next 2 drawings aren’t defined
enough, it’s hard to tell the pose of the model in those.
Eventually the model
moved onto longer, roughly 2 minute long poses. In these drawings I started to
mark down more definition of her body. My timing was quite bad here and I
didn’t manage to finish drawing the whole body on most of these. I think my
accuracy was much better at least and the model appeared more defined since I
could see in which direction she leaned, and how her torso and legs weren’t
floating anymore. She actually seemed to have some mass and depth now too. I
could now tell that the model was in a resting position from looking at my
drawings.
During this session I
had slightly more time and I managed to complete an additional page of studies
(5 minute long poses) before moving onto the final drawing. I timed myself
better on these, as I managed to mark down majority of the poses. My marking of
proportions was quite bad on the third drawing though, as I marked down the
head correctly and the upper body; then I forgot to compare my proportions more
as I moved further on what resulted in her legs looking too large, and the arms
being too long. My following drawing was the strongest; the foreshortening of
the legs facing me looked very accurate. This foreshortening was also the
reason for which I sacrificed extra time, just to plan out that part, as front
poses tend to be fairly tricky and difficult to draw.
In my final drawing I
managed to keep the proportions the most accurate, compared to the previous
studies this one had the most resemblance to the model and I have even managed
to get some rendering in place on this one. I think I described some of the
fabric folds/creases well. I can partly tell how some of them fold and how the
shirt slightly hangs down from the body around at the back. It is also fairly
easy to tell from my drawing, that the model was wearing jeans what I am also
really happy about. Although I went so far with this study, I still went ahead
to drawing too early, as I have yet again not managed to draw the whole body.
