Bacteriophage Geometry Finished

Between school projects I've finished the base model for the Bacteriophage.  So far it's been an interesting project, but not as challenging as I had imagined.  Soon I'll be augmenting it with a proper rig to animate how it delivers its DNA to a host cell, but for now it's largely static.  Although it is mostly complete at this stage, some tweaking and reworking may go into it as the project progresses further.

The one part of the model that really had me sit and think about how to go about making it was the main body connecting the base and head.  All of the references I found showed the body with spherical structures arrayed in a spiraling pattern leading from the top to the bottom.  I did several tests with a cylinder as a base before I had a flash of memory to a school project where we learned one way to model a car tire; In that project we essentially made a small section of the tire, duplicated that section into a strip, and then used a bend modifier to bring it around into a ring.

I used the same method for the Bacteriophage body, but started with two strips offset by half the width of one single face in order to produce the spiraling pattern as opposed to straight up and down rows, which you can see below.

I then used the bend modifier to bring the ends of this strip around and duplicated the resulting shape downwards to assemble the body.  After that was done, I set about shaping the head - A very quick task since it was simple, a closed hexagonal shape.

The next step was assembling the baseplate, and in doing so I kept in mind that organisms this small tend to have bodies shaped following strict geometric rules, and so used the head as a lead and began modeling a base.  The only issue I found was that some references showed it as a solid cylinder, but others showed it as a complex knot of shapes, so I made a compromise between the two and created a spoked design.  I also noticed on some of the more detailed references that there was an outer and inner ring to the structure, and just like the structures of the body I had the connecting arms of the two rings offset to be halfway between one another.

Here you can see the un-smoothed baseplate, not too complex but it did take a bit of figuring to work properly.    The overall model had a mesh smooth modifier applied to provide a more organic shape to the model.

New project - Bacteriophage

The next project I'm going to be working on is modeling a viral bacteriophage cell.  It gives me a chance to get more practice modeling organic, non-humanoid models that are far less familiar in structure.
Here are some reference images I'll be using to create the model:

Living Area

One thing that I've not had much practice with is lighting a scene in a way that is more than just functional, but actually adds greatly to the scene.  I decided to keep with a very simple living area as a start, with very simple, low-poly models populating the scene.  I wanted to give the impression that the viewer had just gotten home or woken up, and so no lights are turned on inside.  This worked in my favor, as adding extra lights inside the room took away from the image.

Link to full sized render, 1440x960:
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/627/livingarea.jpg

As stated above, the main purpose of the project was to demonstrate lighting more than modeling, and so I used very simple models of the room and furniture:

The next step was to add some simple textures, mostly from the Arch&Design templates within 3DS Max.  These added a bit more realism to the scene, and although originally I had intended to have only grayscale shades to show pure lighting, I found that the image was much clearer and more appealing with the wood texture adding some color to an otherwise bland, gray scene.  The wood floor turned out especially well in the final render.

Here you can see the light source - it doesn't quite light up the scene yet, but it is starting to provide some indirect illmunation and shadows.

The next step was to simulate how bright the light coming from outside was, so I used a camera glow modifier and a pair of mrSky Portals to simulate the effect.

Next, I used volume lighting to have the light source really fill the room.  Here you can see the scene rendered with only a neutral gray texture:

Overall, the project turned out well.  Many of the techniques I learned going through this project I will use on almost everything from here on out.

'Hydra' Turret

This project is based on the 'Hydra' design of a model from Games Workshop.  I hadn't modeled any mechanical objects with the intention of animating in a while and it also gave me a chance to practice cleaner modeling.  The quad-gun style turret is a design I've always wanted to model out.

This is the reference model I used for the turret mounts, though with some tweaks and a different center turret design.

Here you can see how I built the turret - It is broken down into 4 basic parts that can be moved independently of one another.  The second image shows that after creating the larger pieces of the model, I made a group of detail models from some references of tank hulls I had looked at - I noticed that on military vehicles, there are rarely featureless, flat surfaces, but usually covered in external bolts and equipment mounts.  Much like the corridor project, these were designed to be duplicated multiple times to add detail to the model.

The detail pieces - With a gun mount before and after adding them on:











Here is a wireframe shaded view:

Sci-Fi Corridor do-over

This project is a re-do of an older scene when I was just getting started modeling in 3D.  Although it was a good exercise when I finished it during my first year, I've always had an itch to go back and re-model the scene.

Breathtaking, I know.  At the time I was learning the basics of how to model a scene with more than just primitive shapes.  It was also one of my first attempts at introducing lighting elements to an environment.

Full size render here:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/3833/corridor.jpg

 The first thing I wanted to change was the shape of the corridor from a rectangle into a more fitting hexagonal form.  Although a very simple change, it immediately conveyed more clearly that the corridor came from a  science fiction setting.  I wanted the corridor to feel more utilitarian, and so modeled out several pieces such as pipes and light fixtures to fill the flat spaces of the corridor walls.  Additionally, while I wanted the corridor to look somewhat rundown and suffering the effects of time and use, it was by no means abandoned or dilapidated.  The pipes and wires running down the space are in good repair, but in order to get the 'used' feel, the textures for the floor and walls of the scene use a dirtied steel plate texture.  A fog colored to match the scene was added in for extra atmosphere, and also added some depth to the final render.

Here you can see the pieces arrayed out before being 'fitted' to the walls.

I made them with the intention of being able to duplicate them as opposed to having single large, cumbersome pieces, and so kept things like pipe mountings and the central vent conduits as separate parts.  I then placed them within the corridor to set up the layout.

Here you can see the pieces set up within a single section of corridor - Like the individual pieces the corridor itself was designed to be duplicate-friendly in order to have precise control over the length of the final scene.

This is an example of the assets being duplicated to almost any length.  This render was used to make sure the yellow and red wires, as well as the central vent and upper pipe connected properly end to end.