S2 WEEK 5
For 3D digital literacy this week we’re back in Substance Painter, and Alec looked over a few of our models.
In terms of the Substance painter tutorials, we were asked to look at and follow along, in the first one we took the Hard Surface model from previous weeks and PBR textures in Substance Painter – and moved it over to Sketchfab to look at some extra settings that are available to us to adjust our final render of our models. In the second class exercise we cleaned up a scene and model of a sword in Maya and exported it into Sketchfab, and applied a tileable wood material, as well as learning how to create glass/transparent materials within Sketchfab!
This week I’ve continued modelling my staff and intend to get it done. One issue I ran into while I was modelling this was modelling the branches/roots around the stone/crystal. It was difficult to adjust them, and I’m sure there’s a much simpler way to do it, but since I don’t know how to yet it was a lot of vertex manipulation and face extruding. There was also the issue of when I would move the staff and crystal to a different part of the workspace to match up with my reference on the side, the crystal would change position, and when I would try and move it back, I could not get it to sit properly with the roots and branches I had modelled around it previously. I had to remodel the crystal/stone twice and manipulate the branches a few more times around it before I managed to get all branches safely around it without any warping into it. Again, I am sure a way exists for me to combat this, but I don’t know how to yet. I am very happy with how this is turning out so far, however.
I had a Talk with Michael O’Callaghan on Monday. It was so so so helpful as he gave me some modelling tips, as well as helping to guide me in UV unwrapping which I was VERY confused by. What he taught me was very needed as I needed a bit of guidance, but talking to him in that moment made me wish we could go to in-person classes instead of remote learning. I’d spent all this time modelling my staff making beginner mistakes that I could’ve gotten corrected on and taught more efficient ways from the get-go. Instead, I’d been modelling incredibly inefficiently and couldn’t really ask the questions I needed answers to, getting them answered after I’d already finished my modelling by Michael. The help he gave me was very much appreciated though, and because of his tips I can move onto other projects and be way more proficient in my modelling endeavours.
I was very confused when I started to UV unwrap my staff. This was by far the most complicated model I’d ever tried to UV unwrap and I didn’t know exactly what it was meant to look like unwrapped, so lot of it was me being very confused and attempting different things. There were times I’d try to unfold it and it would disappear, or look not at all like it was supposed to. In the end up, I employed multiple strategies when unwrapping, creating some UV’s that were camera based and some that were automatic. It took me quite a while to get it to a point where I was happy with it, but when I was done, I was very pleased with how my attempt had come out, when it was all neatly laid out beside each other, despite some of the mistakes and blips you can see in it I tried my best!
Once it was all UV unwrapped, I set about to transfer the model over into Substance Painter, so I could finally start texturing it. I baked the materials and got it primed to be textured and began! I went through a lot of trial and error when deciding on the final colours and textures of my staff. I experimented quite a bit with different materials and smart materials, and just trying to make it the way I envision it. In very early attempts I didn’t quite know what I was doing.
The first direction I went in was a bit bland as you can see above, I was still trying to figure out Substance Painter and I was very confused on how to add multiple effects to things, it ended up going in a completely different direction in the final outcome, when I had better learned how to manipulate aspects such as height and effects! It took me quite a while to texture this staff to a point where I was happy with it as it was a lot of trying something, deleting it, and trying something new. I really like the vibe I created with my final outcome though, it’s darker than previous experiments, but I think it looks very cool and for a first modelling assignment after never touching any of the programs I used to make this, I’m very proud!
Here’s the final model uploaded onto sketchfab after I edited the properties and 3D settings. I’m very very happy with it, even with the few mistakes I made!