Another
tip from me is: Before you start with
your model, create a simple "skeleton"
with cylinders. Have a look at your
anatomy-books (if you don´t
have one yet, get one ;-) ) and create
simple primitives with the correct
proportions. The size of your creature,
the length of the arms, legs, hands...
then model one part after the other
and remove those placeholders. That
works a lot better than simply starting
from scratch.
AND
another tip :-) : If you can´t
figure out how the joints have to
be created (and they HAVE to look
credible, otherwise your whole model
will lack credibility!) go out on
the street, look for the next roadworks
and examine the machines that you´ll
most likely find there. Look at their
mechanical parts! The hydraulics,
the cables, the joints... all this
stuff can be imitated. Do it :-) Don´t
re-invent it unless you think it´s
necessary. Use patterns that the viewer
is used to. (and don´t mind
the roadworkers shouting at you ;-)
)
AND
another one: (you heard that one before!):
If you can´t make it - FAKE
IT! There´s always more than
one way to get to your goal, and quite
often it´s not the first one
you try!
AND
another tip: Especially when building
something like a detailed robot: Hide
all the parts that you´re not
working on at the moment! So you can
easily handle hundreds of thousands
of polys without needing an extreme
powerful machine.
Group
all the parts that belong together!
Name them correctly! (My hunter contains
appr. 2400 parts - I named all of
them (or at least the groups)! What
do you think would happen if I had
not named them and had to find the
left index-finger again? ;-) )
My
final tip and probably the most important
one for EVERY 3D-Software: This is
something a real professional freelancer
from Germany (Johannes Schlˆrb)
said (it´s stuck to my mind):
Your eye determins the realism, not
your rendering-software!
If it does not look real to your eye
it doesn´t matter if it´s
calculated in a "correct"
way! Tweak it until it looks real!
OK...
that´s it! I hope you found
some of this "making-of"
helpful. And I also hope you´re
not disappointed because you expected
a STEP-by-STEP-Tutorial how to create
this whole thing. ;-)
Again:
If there are any questions left, please
send them to my email adress and I´ll
answer as many of them as I can. Please
do understand though that I still
have to work and earn some money ;-)
And if I don´t answer, please
be sensitive... do not send it again
and again and again.. I´ll answer
as soon as possible.Oh yes, I´m
not going to answer silly questions
like "could you please make a
nice monster for my sisters bithday"
(<--- that was actually a real
request!!) or "where can I download
MAX for free?" ... don´t
even try it. =o)
