Saturday, October 23, 2010

Polycounts & collisions

The thing with making a paper model from videogames, is that videogames weren't actually designed to be made into papercraft models. ;o)

Parts that you don't really get to see in the game (like the side of the coffin against the tomb's wall) are often simply not drawn in the 3D model, but of course in a paper model, you'll want to make a whole coffin again! ;o)

Collisions* often occur with character models (especially around the shoulders and hips and/or elbows and knees) but they're no problem in the virtual world of a computer game.

In fact, it usually solves the problem of having to create an often difficult connection between the different parts!

These are things you have to be on the lookout for, though, because in a paper model, parts can't collide of course, and they certainly can't be left floating in thin air like the roof of the tomb!

In order to be able to glue the parts together on the paper model without problems later on, the parts need to be connected properly in the 3D model first.

Often remodelling the parts is actually easier than trying to fix what's already there, but like with so many things, everybody has their own ideas about that of course. ;o)

Stay tuned!

(*intersecting solids/shapes)

7 comments:

  1. I love Warcraft III! This looks like it's going to be a fun build, can't wait to make it. Do you get your base 3d models from the game files?

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  2. I'm glad you like it so far! ;o)

    The original model came from the game, yeah; I had to make some changes for the paper model but I think most people won't even notice (let's face it, most people have other things on their mind when battling the Undead than seeing what the Graveyard looks like exactly ;o)

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  3. Nice. Will you be doing a tutorial or something with this?

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  4. I'm afraid it would take me too much time to make a full tutorial on this, sorry...

    But I think creating a paper model really isn't as difficult or "magic" as many people think. ;o)

    After you've built a few models made by others, you'll undoubtedly already have some ideas on things that you thought was very clever, or things that would have done differently!

    The most important thing is just trying things out and not be afraid to have to change something if it doesn't work out the way you thought, even if it means you have to things over again.

    There are already a lot of basic 3D modelling tutorials out there, and to apply those skills to create a paper model, only requires some logic thinking and lots of (test) building!

    And of course: have fun! ;o)

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  5. Thanks for the info:) I was wondering more about the Collisions. You know of an easy way to get rid of internal geometry? maybe in Blender. I know how to select the whole outside of the object and just see just the internal stuff but when I delete it doesnt work out like I want.

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  6. I'm afraid I don't know too much about Blender, but for any 3D program goes whenever you use an automatic select to delete parts, make sure the selected parts don't share any polygons (the triangles that make up the shape of the model) or vertices (the cornerpoints of the polygons) with parts you want to keep.

    The polygons that share the vertices you delete, will disappear as well because they won't be closed anymore...

    Sometimes cutting (usually Ctrl+X) instead of deleting works (in some programs like Metasequoia this makes sure any shared vertices aren't deleted) but the surest way is to do things manually of course; that way you have a lot more control over what you're doing! ;o)

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