Nassa the Gnome, Painted Textures

Finally getting around to finishing her up (again).  You may think that Nassa has become my excuse to try new programs and workflows; and you'd be spot on.  I'm now working on her in 3DS Max to get used to Max's Slate Material Editor.  I'm also thinkin' about using 3DS Max's rigging and animation tool, but there is a good chance I'll go back to Maya for that, and do a new character in Max later on.

I added and changed a few things here, especially her two obsidian-like daggers and oversized pirate hat (stolen from a pirate.)  If you were playing the D&D campaign with me it would make more sense.  This is also the point at which I should link to our campaign log, but I'm so far behind on it, that it wouldn't explain it either.

Funny thing, I have been digging Paint Tool Sai recently, for how their blending brushes behave.

The good news is that I can deal with layered Photoshop files in SAI.  The bad news is I can't export tiff files, nor does Mudbox play nice with SAI's psd exported files.  I like using SAI more than I like texturing in Mudbox; though I am still using both programs back and forth.  Mudbox's Export to PSD features is great for getting all of the zones and shapes down, and then I can work with the flat textures for most of the detail, then take it back into Mudbox for cleaning seams.

The downside to working on this while playing the character is that she develops (and changes) on a regular basis.

I'm not modeling the panther cloak.

Painting Using Mudbox's Export-to-PSD Feature

It's a start!  I have been digging this paint-directly-on-the-model workflow for textures.  It just makes so much more sense in my head.

I want to texture using Mudbox's export-screen-to-Photoshop feature.  It works a lot like Pixexix and ZappLink from ZBrush, but I found it to be much easier to use than the latter, and less buggy than the former.

When exporting to Mudbox, I had a lot of issues to fix.  Not surprisingly, it caught me for a lot of T-intersections and non-manifold geometry, both pretty much standard to a low poly model.  For the non-manifold geometry, I seperated those edges who were shared by a plane (such as in the hat), but kept them in the combined meshes.  I am going to swing back and clean up the UVs, before I jump back into Mudbox.

It really doesn't like dealing with multiple meshes at the same time (or perhaps multiple uv spaces at the same time), but that is a problem easily solved by working on individual pieces at a time, with some clever merging and unmerging in between.  I also ran into issues with overlapping UVs, so the simple fix was to get rid of the overlapping during the painting process.

Metroid 3D Environment

Metroid-style 3D environment in Maya's Viewport 2.0.

Metroid-Style Ship Model

Like the missle, we were given a concept before-hand, though the concept we were given was a silhouette, and we had to fill in the details ourselves.  After several redesigns, I finally ended up with the following ship.  I also have a much greater appreciation for using specular maps to make things look cool.

Metorid-Style Missle Model

We were given a choice of several missle concepts, and were to model, texture, and present the projects with our own little tweaks.  Here is the result of my project.

High Heel Boot with Textures and Maya camera in 3DS Max

I finished up texturing the boot and call this model complete!  It's just textured directly from the orthos I had; it looks okay, but more importantly, it was quick.  And with that, I'd say I have a good grasp at modeling in 3DS Max.  I'm ready to move onto the next project.

Another great step, I found a free maya-style camera for Max script.  If anyone else has this problem, check it out here: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/plugins/mems-max2maya-maya-viewport-navigation-in-3ds-max

I believe that one should learn the controls of a program, rather than try to replace them with another.  However, since I've been going back and forth between Maya and Max so often, this became a godsend.  Really, I'm comfortable with both styles, but it's good to be able to stick with one, just so there isn't that minute of mental lag when trying to get back into a project.

Sansa e200 rendering

Rendering of a Sansa e280 media player.  Modeled, textured, and lit from scratch.