Author Topic: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P  (Read 26813 times)

Scrat

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #25 on: 2014-06-17 11:06:28 »
Coming Along nicely now, I'll finish off the wheels and then start texturing and stuff. Is it worth using blender to texture or the other programs out there?






Kaldarasha

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #26 on: 2014-06-17 11:30:49 »
For me is blender fine. It has gotten recently many changes to it's texture system which makes it for beginners hard to understand at the first place. But if you understand the way how it works, is it very handy.
It's a bit old but it was the first tuto I had seen to understand the texture management system of blender:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQcD5N8QYKc

Maybe someone knew a better tutorial.
« Last Edit: 2014-06-20 10:24:22 by Kaldarasha »

Mayo Master

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #27 on: 2014-06-17 15:33:22 »
Good job, Scrat, it's really coming along nicely.

I think Blender is fine for texturing - to be sincere I am not sure anyone using Blender is using something else to texture. Everything you've seen on this forum from me and anaho was textured in Blender.
Before you start on texturing, if you wish to learn about it, there are 2 things I must stress:
- Learn about texturing using Cycles render (it's still within Blender). The method is different from the "Blender Internal" rendering engine. A convenient windows setup (in my opinion is to split into 3 windows a/3d viewport  b/UV-image editor  c/Node Editor. a/ shows your model, b/displays the unwraps and can show how your textures overlay on the unwrapped mesh c/the node system in creating materials is very handy. Blenderguru's introduction tutorials on Cycles and Creating materials with Cycles are highly recommended.
- Practice UV-unwrapping for basic stuff first (cube and cylinder unwrap), I think UV-unwrapping gets easier with practice (and then more practice).

If you need image sources, most of what we have comes from cgtextures.com (one of the few places that offers a large bank of textures for free). A good place to get supplied.

halkun

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #28 on: 2014-06-20 08:50:34 »
Do an Ambient occlusion bake into your model!!! It's a little tricky but you with thank me later!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfLWrPmcXHo


Mayo Master

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #29 on: 2014-06-20 15:23:56 »
Do an Ambient occlusion bake into your model!!! It's a little tricky but you with thank me later!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfLWrPmcXHo
If you wish to use Ambient Occlusion bakes for creating dirt maps, I have explained the process in this post, too.
My personal recommendation (but you can have other work flows): first, try to texture the truck as if it were brand new and shiny. That will give you the basic shaders to work with. Then later you'll gradually add in all sorts of modifications for rust, scratches, dirt and all "weathering" processes (that's where the Ambient Occlusion bake will come into play). Pretty much in the "first start simple, then progressively add in complexity" logic.

halkun

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #30 on: 2014-06-21 07:47:43 »
I personally go for the "bake" first and then shade under it using multiply in gimp. I get a better real time look of what I'm doing. That's just me

paul

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #31 on: 2014-07-10 22:09:38 »
Looking good, here is my first WIP blend.



Mayo Master

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #32 on: 2014-07-11 02:10:11 »
Well... I'm happy you got started on this scene! It seems it was ages ago when you asked me to help you out with it. It's a very promising beginning - If I remember correctly it's probably the most complicated scene I initially suggested to you. If you feel like you can work on it on a regular basis, why don't you open your own forum thread?

LeonhartGR

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #33 on: 2014-07-11 12:55:53 »
Wow! Awesome!

Sapphire

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #34 on: 2014-07-25 05:07:57 »
Wow we've got a lot of people adding their resources lately!

Just remember to take your time, everyone else :P

Mayo Master

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #35 on: 2014-07-25 14:45:00 »
Most of the new people haven't been here for a while... I hope they're still around!

Scrat

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #36 on: 2015-05-16 20:05:10 »
Still around, just got a job lol, dont have so much time as I did when I was at uni, but I am hoping to get going on it again soon.

the texturing is quite intimidating

Mayo Master

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #37 on: 2015-05-17 16:20:09 »
Glad to hear you'll have a bit of time to resume your scene :)
Texturing will be quite a big chunk to learn - I'll be happy to help along the way.

Scrat

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #38 on: 2015-06-02 06:04:52 »
I have stopped texturing for a bit to remodel some aspects of the truck that the lighting highlighted to my atention.

As a side I am also looking at options to use solidworks models in blender. Probably not the best way forward, but with blender I am doing a certain amount of fudging; I know I could knock up the exterior of a truck like this in a few hours on solidworks and it would be about a thousand times more realistic :P

Just want to give it a go and see how it turns out

Mayo Master

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #39 on: 2015-06-02 15:55:15 »
I guess it just depends on what kind of software you're used to! It's often about knowing the tools you need to use in order to get to your result. Often you can model something with 4 different ways, but one way will take you 4 hours and another 5 mins.
If you can import solidworks models into Blender without a problem, go for it. However they might be a bit difficult to UV unwrap (if you end up with fine triangulated mesh, it might be a pain to select the UV seams one by one).
What aspects of meshing you're not too comfortable with in Blender? I might know a couple of tricks which could make your life easier.

Scrat

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #40 on: 2015-06-02 17:58:46 »
Well it is mainly the features like the windows and wheel arches, At the moment to create these I am Makig my Shape as a solid and then creating other shapes to subtract from that solid.

The problem with this is it isn't very accurate, for example until I have nearly finished the whole thing I cant really tell how the windscreen columns or the curvature of the bonnet will look. As in I think it looks fine until I leave it a little while and then come back to it.

I'll grab a copy of Solidworks from work (if I can) this week and have a play, but by all means I am willing to take advice!

Mayo Master

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #41 on: 2015-06-02 18:39:43 »
From my experience, modelling in Blender using boolean operations on objects (addition or substraction of meshes) isn't the best way to go (while I'd believe solidworks handles that better), although I think Blender has improved in that area recently. I'd recommend other modelling approaches - I guess it's just for you to have in mind alternate ways of constructing your mesh. For example, in the mds5_w scene (weapon shop in a bus), you'll find some "grids" which are like some big plates with many circular holes in them to frame the baggage rack. I didn't model that by object subtraction. Instead, I modeled a 8 point circle within a subdivided square, where I'd leave the inside of the circle empty and make faces between the edges of the square and the "circle". Then use 2 array modifiers to replicate the pattern in both direction, use a solidify modifier to model the thickness and then a subsurf modifier to smoothen the circular holes.

Now, about giving you a better impression of how your model would look like and visually appreciate the curvatures, I recommend 2 simple options:
- You can switch to "real time render preview" on your 3d viewport (in the same tab where you can alternate between "solid view" and "wireframe view"), and if you have a good lighting setup, it gives you a good idea. However, if you don't have a good graphic card, it may be pretty slow.
- You can use a matcap. A matcap is essentially a basic shading preview with a boost in gloss, which often give a better appreciation of curvatures. It's extensively used in sculpting (for instance when you'd like to make wrinkles on a face or folds on a cloth).
Hope that helps :) 

Scrat

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #42 on: 2015-06-02 19:36:27 »
That definitely helps! I rememebr that subdivision of a square method from one of my first tutorials lol, i just didn't think of applying it to complex shapes like windows or parts that cross edge boundaries lol I'll play some more, maybe not tonight though I'm knackered. Lot's of overtime at real work at the moment :P First day I have got home in time for a week!

SpooX

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Re: ZTRUCK Cloud and Zack Truck Excape - My first blend :P
« Reply #43 on: 2015-06-15 21:31:10 »
Use whatever you feel the most comfortable in, if you can achieve faster results in modeling in some other tool.
Solidworks can be exported into a multitude of formats, so that should not be an issue.

 8)