Scott Vigus - Solar Ice Drilling Machine

[Kiwicanta7]

This is my first challenge and just started modeling a week or two ago. Just started a concept drawing of an orbital/stratospheric station of sorts running off of solar power. Please critique anything you see as I post it:)

EDIT: WIPS up, please crit! 1 hour in and don't wanna continue without some crits:)

EDIT: Any crits please? WIPS below. 1 hour spent.

EDIT: 2.5 hours in, WIPS at bottom. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CRIT!

[hammering3D]

welcome to the forum

We will help U with critics and advices to improve the modeling, is nice seeing here somebody so fresh at modeling, just two weeks :D nice.

[paulius-st]

welcome. just post wip's and all of us will coment, crit and give advices. good luck.

[ClassicGamer-3DT]

A warm welcome to the forums, looking forward to seeing what you bring into the challenges.

CG.

[Kiwicanta7]

So I've got an hour of work in, how do I go about posting a WIP? I'm using Maya 8 if that changes anything, thanks!

[Kiwicanta7]

Also, how do I go about creating a signature on the forums? I haven't had much luck finding where to do so, thanks for the help!

[hammering3D]

the most upper part of the forum there are some menus, in USER CP click it and u'll have user control panel and there u have Edit Signature and avatar :P

[Kiwicanta7]

Ok so hopefully this works:)

I'm not done with any of the parts, but I just quickly duplicated the magnifying tower to show my general idea. Granted I'm also still learning about hypershading and such, but I figured an hour in should be a good time to get some feedback so I have time to make corrections as well as input things I still want.

At the bottom of those towers will be drills that are lowered down to begin drilling after the surface has been sufficiently heated by the magnifying rays.
I'm hopefully doing to be showing one of these being partially lowered to show the entirety of the drilling aparatus.

Critiques please, granted it is only an hour in, but any and all are welcome. Thanks!

[Kiwicanta7]

Different angles, still an hour of work. Resisting the urge to do more until I get some crits:)

[rocneasta]

a warm welcome!

try to include with your wip's time that you spend, c&c are more precise when the time is given, and for reference

[Kiwicanta7]

Ok thanks, did you have any crits on the model?

[rocneasta]

well not knowing the time frame it's looking good. would love to see all those upper parts of the none glowing structure to become joints for the other elements.

[Kiwicanta7]

Update 2.5 hours.
Please crit as I haven't gotten any yet!

[ClassicGamer-3DT]

So far so good, the modelling seems pretty good. You need to work on compositing a little more at the moment it seems like you are screengrabbing the model and placeing it over the top of the space images.....but don't worry this challenge is all about modelling not about texturing.

What you really need is to show off your model a little better with a nice clay render these are the best ways to show off all your hard work and really do bring out the details...clay renders are also compulsory for your final entry.

Dependant on your software a clay render is made by utilising your Global Illumination and sometimes Ambient Occlusion in your render settings, you can also add lights or a skylight to help aswell. Clay renders never have any materials on the models either.

Don't worry about not having many crits or comments it's a monthly challenge and there's plenty of other entries to view.....it doesn't mean your entries isn't any good or valid you all have the same chance in the challenge. Even the more experienced modellers might have a really detailed model but no originality, whilst beginner modellers can have a medium detailed model with lots and lots of creativity.

So my advice so far is to make a few clay renders and show us all different angles and views of your model then we can all crit or comments more for you.

Kind Regards

CG.

[Kiwicanta7]

Ok I'll try to figure out how to do that:) Still learning some of the basics of the program, especially trying to see animations as they always seems to come out as a .tmp.avi.tmp file that doesn't work:)

Ohh and the space scene I created for this contest, I think the model is just so un-detailed that it looks that way. I exported it into the space scene... not sure if that's how I'm supposed to do it, but that's what is going on at the moment.

[paulius-st]

looks nice and clean. images are a little bit dark but as cg said - clay render. good work so far. as for a noob - realy good work "молодец" (translate it from russian).

[ClassicGamer-3DT]

If you tell us which software you are using i'm sure one of us can help with the clay rendering setup :)

[Kiwicanta7]

It's Maya version 8. I was trying to find stuff on youtube, but couldn't quite find what I was looking for. Any help would be great, thanks!

Paulius-st: Really good work "fellow" huh?:) Well thanks:)

[Kiwicanta7]

I know these aren't clay renders (especially the last one) but I'm hoping this might be closer to what you're looking for to give better crits. Once I get info on creating a clay render I will certainly do so. Thanks for the help!
WIP #1 - One of 4 drilling apparatus' placed at the bottom of a machine that is lowered onto the ice moon, landing where the magnification has already punched a hole into the ice
WIP #2 - A view from the main body of the station looking out towards one of the 4 arms
WIP #3 - A view from the base of the main body showing sections for energy cells as well as the 4 arms (and mistakenly a bit of glow from one of the towers)

[paulius-st]

nice. can i make a suggestion to you to improve the quality of your model. select all the edges of your models main body and chamfer them. then aply a turbo smooth modifyer. and bam!!! - realy nice looking mesh in renders. as for clay render i'll post you how to do it.

first. make some sort ofsimple studio. something round that the light had to bounce of something. scale it to be lots bigger than your model. then aply a light color to it like white or light blue and ext... .
second. insert a sci light in your scene and a simple 3 point lighting . make the lights intencity in to like 0.3 . and in spotlight parameters make a hotspot beam value about 150.
third. in render menu chose mental ray as renderer. and in indirect ilumination select final gather.
fourth. render.
thats how i do my clay renders. i sawed the studio and when i need to render i import my model in to studio and render.
but i work with max 8, so i dont know if it will work for you, but this is just basic comand and options so it should work. i'll post some links on clay render later

[ClassicGamer-3DT]

Yeah agreed with what paulius-st says about the chamfered edges it will help alot. I'm not familiar with Maya so try his clay technique too :) Looking good so far though.

[paulius-st]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmAVUPHmn0
a tutorial for mya how to do a nice clay render. good luck

[TNTxGRAVE]

i would like to see the geometry on your drill bits.

[Kiwicanta7]

I will work on that, for the meantime I've pulled away one of the drill wheels to show some of the geometry.

EDIT: Turns out I'm having trouble finding how to chamfer edges. I see chamfer vertex and I know a little about that, but am not sure where the tool is to chamfer edges.
- Also if there are any things that you see could use work that don't necessarily even fall within "modeling" I'm very happy to take those as well since I'm trying to learn about more than just modeling and won't take criticism harshly:)

[Kiwicanta7]

I believe I have managed clay renders... hopefully:)

I'm not sure if I should remove the cones at the base of the magnifying posts as well as the cylinders at the base of the last one as they were put in place to represent the magnification of the light. For a clay should I hide them?

[paulius-st]

yeh, i think you tamed the clay render :) . interesting model. as i suggested - try chamfering the edges and aplying turbosmooth modifyer or something like that. this will give you cleaner geometry and smoother look in renders. try to model some smaller parts like bolts, pipes, some random geometry and multiply them. than place them in logicaly right places . these little details will give your model the feel of its scale as i think its realy gigantic that you have to place it in outer space to drill. about these laser cylinders - in clay render they just dont look like laser beams - they look like pipes. maybe you should take them and add somewhere they would make sence as pipes. (it would be a waste of time and effort to delete them , though theyre creation time i think is aded in the whole modeling time. ). try to paint these lasers in some aplication lke photoshop. this will save you valuable time.
hope i've been usefull. good luck

[Kiwicanta7]

Thank you SOOOO much for the crits!!! Just one question, how do I chamfer "edges"? I have a bit of experience with chamfering vertexes and have been able to find that, but not much luck with chamfer edges. Any help would be most appreciated, thanks!

[paulius-st]

well chamfering edges is prety the same as chamfering vertexes. select edges and chamfer them. you have this selection drop down menu of the object and near the vertex selection you have edge selection. so select edge mode and than select all the edges that are on the edges of your model, useful butons would be loop and ring. and than select chamfer. set it about 0.3 and here you are. nice chamfered edges. try to set up some keyboard shortcuts for such comands as loop, ring, chamfer, cut, extrude, beviel, weld. colapse and ect...... it will save you lots of valuable time and will be more comfortable to just push a button or two than searching the comand in the drop down menu. unfortunately i don't know how to set them up in maya but i think theres enough info on the net. just try the all mighty google. :) .
and as for practice for starters try to do some practice . about an hour a day on hard surfce modeling and organic modeling. start a wip thread on inorganic setion. chose something to model that you like. if your a fan of some game or movie try to model something from that game or movie. in time you will gain more experiance and encounter more specific problems witch will give you questions. people of the comunity will help you search for answers. or you will find these answers your self. thats how i practice. if you dont know what to model , maybe you are a fan of warhammer , than you just could join my thread on a warhammer character modeling. i will start it soon in a day or two. i'll post some reference. so much for suggestions for now.
good luck and ceep modeling :)

[Kiwicanta7]

You rock man! After I eat dinner and finish watching Family Guy I'm gonna try out all of that:)

[ClassicGamer-3DT]

I LOVE family guy! Just watched two episodes back to back, the Dial Meg for Murder was really good. I wish that they'd sort out the f'ing airdates though it's never on everyweek :( They are the same with the Simpsons.....off to watch the season finale of Heroes season 04 now! God i'm a geek lol

[hammering3D]

for a beginner is pretty detailed model, impressive work, even the edges are not chamfered they look good, and the render from obit is sweet, nice thing to have for u'r start portfolio.
Maybe ask Stewie for help to finish it ? :D