Trying my hand at another sci-fi scenario, although this time I'm not doing it for shits and giggles- school's doing a senior project, basically a research paper and physical project on any topic of our choice. I chose 3D modeling, and as part of my physical project I chose a simple concept that I can model, texture, and then import to (probably) UDK or Unity.

Since we're supposed to be learning something new by doing the project, I'm looking for ways to speed up my modeling, especially since I've got a deadline now (April 13th), so any advice you guys can dish out on ways of modeling in stuff, etc. would be greatly appreciated. I can't spend nearly a year dicking around on the lighting and composition, I've got to get it done.

Anyway, this is the concept I'm working off of, nothing too elaborate since, again, I'm working on a time table here, which I haven't done before.




Current Progress:




P.S. keep in mind this is a high school senior project, not a senior project for a game art school or anything like that

A deadline? Give or take a month? Get that deadline settled. ASAP. and then create a project plan, and try to stick to it as much as you can. List out every asset you need to do, and estimate how long each item will take to model, unwrap, texture, etc.

Doing this will help to keep you on track, and will also help you to get better at realizing just how god damn long certain things take, and where you can really focus on what it is that is holding you up the most.

I would suggest doing this in udk. If you are going to take that route, block your scene out with bsp first to get a sense of scale, and make sure that things will look right when you import them in.

Looking forward to see this man, especially with all the progress you made in your other sci-fi scene.

Well it's at the end of the semester, I can't remember exactly when that is, I'm pretty sure it's in June. I'll check on that tomorrow.

You mentioned "bsp," what is that?

Oh, and before anyone asks, NO, I don't have a thing for sci-fi hallways with circular portals at the end, that's just a coincidence.

Well, this is as far as I've come tonight, figure I might as well put it up so there's a least some progress to show rather than just making up some thread with nothing but a concept:



'Night people

Ahhh a concept by Eric Spray... Nice... Eric is a super talented concept guy I worked with at Raven... Do it justice.

it very much resembles the sci fi hallway concept you did....good luck though

Originally Posted by Jesse Moody

Ahhh a concept by Eric Spray... Nice... Eric is a super talented concept guy I worked with at Raven... Do it justice.

Shit.... pressure.... (kidding, hopefully I will)

This is a highschool project? Boy are you ahead of the curve.

That looks very familiar indeed. I worked with Eric on this level actually. Rock this out! I'm going to follow this one.

You're in highschool? keep kicking ass dude. By the time you get out of college you'll be an allstar if you're already working this hard.

When he said blocking it out with bsp, bsp is the simple geometry brushes you can use in UDK - they're mostly useful for blockouts, as most level construction is actually handled with static meshes.

The one concern I would raise right now is that you haven't blocked things out. I would stop building out shapes this complex and first lay out the shapes of the room fully with simple geometry. A blockout may seem like duplicated work, but it will let you nail the proper proportions and scale of everything and keep you from needing to rework assets later. A blockout is basically a 3d scale-concept.

Originally Posted by squidpickle

That looks very familiar indeed. I worked with Eric on this level actually. Rock this out! I'm going to follow this one.

Wait what? Who is this? Secret polycounter!

Thanks guys.
I've mainly just been teaching myself everything, with a lot of help from PC. My digital imaging teacher is really great since he lets me work at my own- faster- pace than everyone else, whose working on Photoshop basics and whatnot (although we are doing some html, which I don't have a whole lot of experience with, so I sort of shuffle between my 3D and their coding stuff)

Also, back to the project, you mentioned UDK has blockout tools? Does that mean I should be starting up in UDK? And then model in Max...? Or what? I'm new as hell to actual engines, I've looked at one only about twice, and even then only to say "Well. This looks confusing. *close*"

layout the basic shapes in udk it's called a whitebox or a blueblock, it helps you get scales right and angles right, then when you've done that you can just export the basic shapes out of udk into your 3d package and model to the scale of that, that way when imported into udk you're just swapping whitbox's for meshes and BAM job done , it's much easier this way i promise

Ah, ok, that makes sense. I'll need to figure out how to do that, but at least the concept makes sense :P

You don't know how lucky you are to have started this stuff while in highschool. You have a huge advantage, I wish everyday I would of even known about this stuff in highschool. Keep it up dude!

Originally Posted by Jesse Moody

Wait what? Who is this? Secret polycounter!

HAHAHA, yep a secret polycounter indeed. What up Jesse, its Dan LaDuca! How you doing buddy!?

Alright working on getting the blockout scaled right, let me know if there's anything off about it.

What might be helpful is a character scale. Right now there is no scale reference in your scene so its hard to tell what size everything is suppose to be in relation to a real world reference. This could answer things such as, are the railings to large? Is the door a decent size?

Right, I did do that with a scene I started a while ago. It was just an elongated dome with a sphere head and cylinder legs, but it worked. I'll add one to this scene when I get home.

Ok, Bob's here helping with the scale and I think it's pretty spot-on now. I tried to base him on the height of the shadowy figure in the concept whose standing in front of the doorstep

wait a minute- haven't you made something like this before :P

I think your scale ref will do- but I think it might be good to get something a tad more accurate in order. The head alone on that thing kinda throws me off and might lead you down a stylized, possibly cartoony, path.

Trust me- pure coincidence.

Anyway, what did you have in mind? I haven't done any character before, unless Max has some sort of built-in scale reference guy?

Also, on a side note I'd like to add my own twist to the theme, with a sort of desert lab, Red Fraction-y kind of look

Today's update, starting detail

Oh, also since this is my first model I'm going to try to export to Unreal, what's an acceptable polycount limit for something of this size? And are there any things I should avoid using because they'll cause unnecessary issues or anything with the game engine (ie ProBoolean or something)?