Hello, I am trying to model a space ship, largely inspired by Serenity (WOO THAT MOVIE OWNS) and I planned out roughly the interrior, but I have come across a huge problem with many realistic space ship tutorials… they are all either low poly, which I don’t want, or they are not free… There is one tutorial I found that actually did Serenity, but it cost like 10 bucks, which isn’t really worth it for me because I’m assuming it goes to what would be considered Hi-Def, but I want “Medium-Def”…
Like I said, I have the general floorplan of the ship laid out, and I kind of skinned it REALLY low poly, but I don’t know what to do next. It seems like everything just goes “Alright you have your basic shape you want, now after you’ve made it all high poly this is how u add detail” without explaining how. This is a problem with a bunch of my models, and I was wondering if there’s any tuts or tips or anything on the stages of modeling for novices such as myself…
You’ll probably think my way is overly time consuming, but here it is:
I model what I want without regard to poly count.
Then I take each shape to a layer i’m not using, and model another copy of it, lower poly of course. Then delete the old high poly version and get the next shape I want to remake. Takes time yes, because you’re modelling the thing twice, but it seems to work very well.
Anyway, theres my input. Anyone else got another way?
I usually work my way up. There’s no need to give something more polys than necessary.
First (and this ability comes to you after a while) you have to guestimate about how complex the object is.
Make a simple or basic model which has the overall feel for the shape you want. Model it placing edges and vertices where important things will happen. For example, if you want a ridge or bump running across a mostly-flat area, make sure there’s an edge running through the area where the ridge will go.
Start subdividing and tweaking. I don’t find it unusual to delete faces, rearrange/subdivide some lines, and replace faces in a new order.
This may or may not help. Over on the LightWave forum, a person is gradually posting a LightWave tutorial on how to create the Serenity. I think you will have to register before you can see the tutorial. http://www.lwg3d.org/forums/showthread.php?t=27346
Yes, it is for Lightwave, not Blender, but at least it is free.
And if you wanted to study a mesh to get ideas, the LightWave mesh of Serenity is a free download. (you have to be registered first) http://www.lwg3d.org/v3/meshes.php?item=537
Anyone else got another way?