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Local TutorialThe Last Hope!

tobiasrichtertobiasrichter333 Posts: 0Member
edited September 2007 in Tutorials #1
The last hope
An illustration by Tobias Richter
(HTML coding by Aceman)
lasthope_med.jpg

Tutorial
"Two battlewagons loaded with survivors enter the battered city of Argoth. There - at the end of what was the former industrial complex - is the last intact and manned escape tower. Will they make they way to the last hope for freedom and peace?"
I've read about the contest just 3 weeks before contest deadline. After thinking about it for a while, an idea that I had a while back came to my mind: A giant tower in the middle of nowhere. So this was turned into another scenario, where on top of that last standing tower is an escape vessel, probably long forgotten and in almost perfect condition - a way out of this mess.
What I'll try to describe in the following is a walkthrough how I did the picture. I'll try to be not specific to any software, although this whole thing was done in maya. Some of the terms I use may be different in other packages, but should be clear nonetheless. I didn't use anything very special, so it should work in any software.

The tower
I love to do symmetrical objects, and this was a good opportunity to use it (and the only way to meet that deadline). The basic shape of that tower should consist of a large and stable base that can support the weight, some tubes and supporting structures that go some hundred meters up, and a platform at the top end of the tower.
One of the main elements that I'm using is the basic polygon cube. That will be squeezed, extruded and beveled. This is what I used for the base as well. Take a cube, extrude it several times to get some nice shapes that form a basic pyramid with a flat roof. Then subtract some other cubes from that, e.g. to get the area where the main tube will fit in.
TN_tower01.JPG
What helps speeding up the process is preparing some elements to be reused, e.g. some kind of shields. I did 2 versions of that shielding. Then I applied them to the base to give it more structure. The base extension in the front are just beveled cubes put together. If you scale beveled cubes, better not scale the whole thing but move the points of one side. This way, your bevel edges won't be distorted.
TN_tower02.JPG
After the base is finished, place a rotational object (or a cylinder) in the base area. I added some more cubes around the tube, plus some additional detail on the side - e.g. some supporting cables, tubes,...
TN_tower03.JPG
Since the tube alone wouldn't be very impressive, I added another shielding object, maybe to absorb the heat or whatever (it just have to look like it has something to do there). This was made by using a polygonal shape, splitting it in the middle to get the Y-form, and then add more cube-detail.
TN_tower04.JPG
I placed another cube where the shielding object should mount and just sticked it on the tube. Then I added 2 more of the same object on the side, grouped those three with the main tube, duplicated it again and flipped it on top of the first tube - and voila, we have the whole tower tube.
TN_tower05.JPG
Now for the platform. Since this should have a look of a four-leaf clover, the shape of the platform has to match this. Again, we can use symmetry to just build one half of the platform. Once the basic shape is done, subtract a few cubes to get some interesting holes for the exhaust gas to go through.
TN_tower06.JPG
We take the shields that were prepared for the base and reuse them for the sides of the platform. Furthermore, since the platform needs some support from below, I added a cube in the middle for some supporting tubes to go to the base tube.
TN_tower07.JPG
Another element that is very useful is a wire structure. This is build out of beveled cubes and will be reused very much for the objects in this pic.
TN_tower08.JPG
As you can see, the bottom of the platform is made almost entirely using that wire structure, just by placing and copying that simple element.
TN_tower09.JPG
Now we have one side of the platform completed, we group everything together and copy it to the other side. Now is also a good time to add the supporting tubes at the bottom. I enhanced these tubes with more wire structures, to make it look rather fragile.
TN_tower10.JPG
Since we will have four of those tubes/platforms, we need a connecting structure. This is done again by re-using the wire structure and some beveled cubes put together. In order to test the placement, you may have to copy and rotate the whole structure. Make sure the pivot point is located in the center of that four-leaf clover and rotate the copy 90 degrees.
TN_tower11.JPG
Once the connecting structure is done, you can group all what you did so far, copy and rotate it three times. The result is the almost finished tower.
TN_tower12.JPG
To add some finishing touches and break up the symmetry, add some more antennas, tubes and pipes to the underside of the platform. Since we won't see the upside, we don't have to detail that.
TN_tower13.JPG
This model is already pretty detailed, so there's no need for advanced texturing. I just placed a rusty metal texture as a triplanar projection over the whole object. On the bottom side, I added a few small point lights, as if somebody left the light on. This will add to the size of the thing.
TN_tower14.JPG
I wanted to have some destroyed tower in the back, so I took the elements of the first tower and moved/rotated them so they look broke and destroyed. It helps a lot just to rotate the whole group about 20 degrees to that they look as if they fall over any moment.
TN_tower15.JPG

The ship
On top of the intact tower should be a shiny nice spaceship, ready for takeoff. I wanted it to be rather round in appearance, nothing military-looking. Since this ship will be visible only in the very distance, it need not to have much detail.
The start was a basic nurbs sphere that got squeezed to make it a bit more edgy at the side. I also tightened the upper area, to give it a more cone-shaped look. Then I reused that basic sphere for all the other basic elements, rings and wings.
The line you're seeing is the shape of another distorted sphere projected onto it to trim out some sort of cockpit area.
TN_ship01.JPG
Some more detail was added, especially in the cockpit area and around the wings.
TN_ship02.JPG
This is the detail stage. I added a cockpit window and some nice antennas at the side wings. To give it a more interesting look, additional thrusterwings were added at one side, again just using a sphere over and over again to get the desired shapes and details by moving the cv points. This way, you can very quickly get those results. The thruster at the bottom are also made that way.
TN_ship03.JPG
And finally, you just have to copy and flip the thrusterwings three times to get the finished model.
TN_ship04.JPG
The material for this one is not rusted metal, but some metal plating and concrete wall structures. Since I wanted to make clear that this is not part of the tower, I added a simple texture with some stripes and some markings on it - the only texture specifically made for this pic (and barely visible in the final pic ? )
TN_shipmarkings.JPG

The city
The basic idea of the city was that this will be the foreground framework for the tower, with some sort of street and building at the left and right side, some destroyed, some just rusted.
So the first thing was to place some sort of street. This was made just with a lofted curve. From that on, the building on the right side was build out of simple 3d structures like cubes and cylinders. Since this was supposed to some industrial complex somewhere in the galaxy, but still human-like, the elements were pretty similar to what one might find today in an industrial complex
TN_city01.JPG
Once the basic shape of the building was done, the detailing started. We have some pipes going in and out of the building, maybe a walkway for people to work, stuff like that.
TN_city02.JPG
There also needs to be objects in the middle and on the left side. The left side could be more of a storage area. In the middle I thought about pipelines going over the street and light domes for subterranean work.
TN_city03.JPG
Once the basic elements for the building are done, the main camera is placed so that there will be enough room for the rest of the scene. Better lock that camera, since from now on, we're going to work from that view to see exactly where to place what - so that it looks good. More and simpler buildings are placed in the back, some slightly tilted as if they were to fall over.
TN_city04.JPG
Now comes the part of destruction and detailing. I added a lot of antennas to increase the size of that scene. The wire structure that was used in the making of the tower can be re-used here. Make a version that is distorted and place it everywhere, where such a structure might make sense. Since out background will be quite bright and the foreground dark, it is best to place it around the edges, so we'll see it very good.
In order to have some sort of structure for walls and for the street I modelled a metal structure that'll work for both.
TN_city05.JPG
With all detailing, the city now looks pretty complex.
TN_city06.JPG
Texturing for that part also involves all sorts of rusted metals in different brightness levels. No specific maps were done for that, just all textures triplanar projected.
Once detailing and texturing is done, the first lighting comes into place. The main light is the sun coming from the upper right corner, so I placed a spotlight there. Since that illuminates the left side and the street, I also needed a light coming almost the opposite direction, but much lower in intensity, to make the building on the right visible. It was still not bright enough, so some additional small arealights on the front of the building were added, working very well in lighting a portion of the building.
TN_city07.JPG
The background of the pic consists of a simple plane with a red clouded sky.
In order to have the setting not on earth but somewhere in space, it is helpful just to put another planet in the sky. So I just rendered a sphere with some moon-like texture on it to compose into the pic later on.
TN_planet01.JPG

The battle wagons
After re-reading the rules I read the passage about 2 warmachines that should be in the pic. Since there was not much time left (about 8 days), I chose to do just one tank and create the other one by re-using that first one. In the first place, I wanted to show just the nose of those vehicles, therefore I would have to build just a portion of this whole thing.
While importing the tanks into the city, I noticed that this won't work very well in terms of the picture composition. I would have to show the whole tank in a distance. I started rethinking the design of the thing again so that I would have to build just one fourth of it and copy the other elements to make it a full vehicle.
First thing I started with was the tire. I drew a line and made a rotational nurbs object out of it. Since I didn't want to use bump or displacement mapping for the tire structure, I made a polygonal object that fits the tire and copy/rotated that so it covered the entire tire.
TN_tank01.JPG
TN_tank02.JPG
Now that you have the tire, duplicate it to make a second one and insert another rotational object for the axis.
TN_tank03.JPG
This tire is supposed to be pretty big - so adding lots of small detail on the axis will help to sell that.
TN_tank04.JPG
After the tire is done, it was time to think about the basic shape of this thing. Once again, I started with a polygon cube and extruded it to the front, squeezed and moved vertices and subtracted other cubes til I liked the final outcome. You have to be sure in this phase how big it should be and where windows and doors should be.
TN_tank05.JPG
If the shape is final, bevel it to make it look better. Beveling is very essential since in nature nearly no object has a sharp edge. Before that step, I subtracted more polys to make way for the windows.
TN_tank06.JPG
Since the tank will be covered with stuff, it is helpful to create some of the re-usable parts upfront. Of course, during the time of modelling, more elements will make their way to this library.
TN_tank07.JPG
The front section of the tank is the first to be detailed. Start using a simple beveled cube and place it on the wall that you want to cover. Make sure to delete the site that is not visible - this will save some thousand polys later on. Now you can copy that cube, move it and fill the whole wall with it.
While detailing, it is helpful to think about what element might make sense in that place. E.g. the ladder in front of the door, that is both a ladder for getting in and out, but also - if it's folded up - for safety so no one falls out.
TN_tank08.JPG
The details on the inner side need not to be as small as on the outside, since it will be mostly dark, but should nonetheless be existent.
TN_tank09.JPG
Of course, since this is a battle wagon, it needs to have some guns. Here's one example of how such a gun might look like. Beneath the polygonal shielding are some nurbs rotational objects for the guns itself. Make sure to group the elements together correctly so that it may move and rotate the right way.
TN_tank10.JPG
On top of the battle wagon should be at least a big gun. One half of it was done by creating a housing out of a poly cube at first, then adding lots of detail (some already established elements like shields and wire structure) and copy/flipping it on the other side. We will place that big cannon at the end of the modelling process.
TN_tank11.JPG
Now that one quarter of the tank is done, we can group everything together and copy/flip it to the other side. We will do that again to create the back end of the tank. Since front and back should be moveable, they need some connection in the middle. So leave some space for that.
TN_tank12.JPG
Now we can copy and flip that again to the back end. To make them one, we just need to insert some sort of connection tube between them. You could also add some mechanical framework, but since we won't see that in the final pic, I chose not to do so.
TN_tank13.JPG
TN_tank14.JPG
The textures for that battle wagon are again just some rusted metal. I used three different shader with variations in the brightness. This way, you can enhance certain elements or contrasts. For the windows, I used some technical texture that was brightened up very much. So all you see is a bright window with some sort of structure in it.
TN_tank15.JPG
Here's the final battle wagon with the big cannons on top and an additional radar dish in the background. I also added several small lights - e.g. where the windows are or the door lights. This will enhance the size of this thing and add believability. To make it bend just group the two sections and put the pivot point in the center. Put a lattice box around the connecting tube and put the vertices in those groups, so that the tube will move correctly with the sections.
TN_tank16.JPG
And a test rendering...
TN_tank17.JPG
In the scene, I had to adjust to location of the guns and the radar, so that it would be visible. The light setup for both battle wagons slightly differs from the city lighting. The main light is located much higher and more to the left. No one notices the difference, but it looks much better that way.
TN_tank18.JPG

Effects
This is the basic scene without the battle wagons.
TN_scene_wire.JPG
TN_scene_shaded.JPG
Since I wanted to have some fires and smoke in that scene, I placed some simple nurbs planes in the cityscape, some mapped with a fire texture, some with a cloud texture. To have them not look all the same, I flipped some of them and distorted the appearance by pulling cvs.
TN_scene_firesmoke.JPG

Putting it together
After rendering the three layers, I just had to combine them in Photoshop
TN_layer_city.JPG
TN_layer_planet.JPG
TN_layer_tanks.JPG
I also desaturated the whole picture, enhanced the glow in some areas and did some minor retouching - like some gaps in the destroyed towers in the back.
TN_lasthope_med.JPG
Well, I hope this short tutorial has shed some light on how to create such a rather complex scene.
Tobias Richter
The Light Works - Digital Imagery
Post edited by tobiasrichter on

Posts

  • tobiasrichtertobiasrichter333 Posts: 0Member
    Wow, itA’s been quite a while since I did this. In case anyone wants a bigger version, I did a 1280x1024 wallpaper of the scenery:

    http://www.digitalimagery.de/images/lasthope_wall.jpg

    Tobias
  • FoyleFoyle0 Posts: 0Member
    Excellent article, thanks for posting this. It's really inspiring to get some insight into other artists' workflow.

    I'm impressed with the level of detail you brought to the image. But the battlewagons especially stand out to me as a modeler (whereas the tower have a sort of abstract sense of industrial complexity, the battlewagons look... you know, practical. Like they WORK.)

    Did you do any preliminary sketches before hitting the computer? Or previous projects that gave you a head start on the designs?

    Thanks again.
  • tobiasrichtertobiasrichter333 Posts: 0Member
    Thanks - if I remember correctly, I did not do any preliminary designs or used any previous stuff. Normally, I at least do some scribbles or sketches as to how the composition will look like.

    Tobias
  • SandmanNinjaSandmanNinja0 Posts: 0Member
    brilliant!

    This style lets anyone use any 3D program to do something similar...

    Cool!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]2 Posts: 3Member
    Fantastic work! Amazing modeling!
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