My first design that I attempted was going to create was the Giraffe. I thought about creating a Giraffe as I had a Good idea of how I could create certain parts of it. Below is my final render of the giraffe model and then beyond that is an explanation of how I came to get this model with some screenshots to make it more understandable.
I started out with a simple box, which i converted into an Editable Poly so the edges could be rounded like so.
I used the "Extrude" tool to extrude polygons out of the original shape. This created the two legs on the near side
I did the same thing for the legs on the far side and then for the neck. To get the correct angle for both the legs and the neck, I used the Vertex and Line tools in my editable poly and angled tem accordingly. I also used the same idea for the tail although it was a bit harder as I needed it to come off of the original shape and then extrude downwards. To do this I firstly used the "Chamfer" tool, which takes a vertex and creates a polygon from it. This then allowed me to Extrude the polygon out of the centre of the body. I kept Extruding and Angling my vertices so that I got the desired shape.
I used the same method as before to create a head shape. Yes at this moment it did look very much like a deformed dinosaur but I was going to stick with it and see. I angled my lines and vertices to enable me to change the direcion my extruded shape would come off from the neck.
I rounded off the front of the head to make it a bit less blocky once the turbosmooth was used. I then started to create the ears. From looking at images of giraffe's, I noticed that the ears came out of the side of te similarly to a human but were built in stages. The first stage was a sort of connection between the head and the ear lobe. This was created as shown below.
The next stage was to further Extrude the shape and make the actual Ear Lobe. I moved the vertices as I extruded so that I could get a rounded shape that looked more like an ear.
The other thing I noticed about Giraffes is that on the top of their heads, they have two lumps. These reminded me of the way a camel has 2 humps on its back whereas these were a lot smaller and in the centre of the Giraffe's head. I simply used the Extrude tool again to create these.
I then played about with the position and angles of the vertices and lines around the mouth. At the moment there was no mouth whereas I obviously wanted one so played about with the angles and let the Turbosmooth do a lot of the work if im honest.
After creating the mouth I then moved onto the eyes. I was a bit puzzled about how I was going t do the eyes because a Giraffe's eyes are actually on the side of its head whereas most animals, including humans, have them on the front. I was able to use the "Chamfer" tool once again to create a polygon on the side of the head but was angled enough that it was still visable from the front. I then used te Extrude tool again but this time I pushed the polygon inwards to create a small hole where the eyes would be.
I used the same method on the front of the head for the nostrils. This Giraffe really does look angry in the image below but trust me he is not :).
My next task was to deal with the tail. I had created the tail earlier and had got the shape and angle that I desired however I had noticed that a Giraffe has a small bushy hair area at the end of the tail. I was aware that there was a "Hair and fur Modifier" built into 3ds Max so I thought I would investigate and play around with it.
I then created a material that could be used for the hooves of the Giraffe. This was then simply added in the same way as before to the lower Polygons of each foot. A simple method but in my opinion makes a big difference.
I decided that with the disappointment of the Hair and fur Modifier on the tail that I would like to use it for the small crest of hair down the giraffes back. I used the techniques I had gained from playing about trying to get the bushy tail and placed a small amount of light brown hair along the crest of the giraffes back. Personally for not being taught about the hair and fur modifier, I think it has come out pretty well.
So there is my final render of my Giraffer. Formy first model in 3ds max of this standard, I was extremely happy with how it turned out. More detail could be put into the amterials to get a wider range on the animal. I think the hair works well on the back of the Giraffe but I was very annoyed about the tail. Oh well, I guess thats life.........
I used the "Extrude" tool to extrude polygons out of the original shape. This created the two legs on the near side
I did the same thing for the legs on the far side and then for the neck. To get the correct angle for both the legs and the neck, I used the Vertex and Line tools in my editable poly and angled tem accordingly. I also used the same idea for the tail although it was a bit harder as I needed it to come off of the original shape and then extrude downwards. To do this I firstly used the "Chamfer" tool, which takes a vertex and creates a polygon from it. This then allowed me to Extrude the polygon out of the centre of the body. I kept Extruding and Angling my vertices so that I got the desired shape.
I used the same method as before to create a head shape. Yes at this moment it did look very much like a deformed dinosaur but I was going to stick with it and see. I angled my lines and vertices to enable me to change the direcion my extruded shape would come off from the neck.
I rounded off the front of the head to make it a bit less blocky once the turbosmooth was used. I then started to create the ears. From looking at images of giraffe's, I noticed that the ears came out of the side of te similarly to a human but were built in stages. The first stage was a sort of connection between the head and the ear lobe. This was created as shown below.
The next stage was to further Extrude the shape and make the actual Ear Lobe. I moved the vertices as I extruded so that I could get a rounded shape that looked more like an ear.
The other thing I noticed about Giraffes is that on the top of their heads, they have two lumps. These reminded me of the way a camel has 2 humps on its back whereas these were a lot smaller and in the centre of the Giraffe's head. I simply used the Extrude tool again to create these.
I then played about with the position and angles of the vertices and lines around the mouth. At the moment there was no mouth whereas I obviously wanted one so played about with the angles and let the Turbosmooth do a lot of the work if im honest.
After creating the mouth I then moved onto the eyes. I was a bit puzzled about how I was going t do the eyes because a Giraffe's eyes are actually on the side of its head whereas most animals, including humans, have them on the front. I was able to use the "Chamfer" tool once again to create a polygon on the side of the head but was angled enough that it was still visable from the front. I then used te Extrude tool again but this time I pushed the polygon inwards to create a small hole where the eyes would be.
I used the same method on the front of the head for the nostrils. This Giraffe really does look angry in the image below but trust me he is not :).
My next task was to deal with the tail. I had created the tail earlier and had got the shape and angle that I desired however I had noticed that a Giraffe has a small bushy hair area at the end of the tail. I was aware that there was a "Hair and fur Modifier" built into 3ds Max so I thought I would investigate and play around with it.I started off by looking online for some tutorials to see what and how some of the tools were used. I found a couple on the Internet but none really stood out and helped me greatly so I thought the best way to learn would be through trying. I added the modifier onto the tail and went through all te different options. Funnily enough I learnt some great things that you can do wit the modifier that I will definitely use in the future but unfortunately no matter what I tried I was unable to get a bushy tail affect I tried combing the hair into place, cutting the extra hairs away, increasing the hair count, increasing and decreasing the amount of hair segments and randomness, editing the area it attached and I even added a 2nd Hair and fur Modifier to see if it would increase the bushyness. I decided that the model looked a lot better without te hair because it was too wavey and looked very unrealistic and in my opinion, pretty poor. I decided that I was not going to keep it on the model but took some screenshots to show you all what it did look like.
After a bit of disappointment with the bushy tail, I now moved onto the texturing and materials of the Giraffe. I had seen that classmates had started to look into using a UV Unwrap to complete their textures. As this was my first model in 3ds Max, I decided that I would simply stick to adding materials. I looked on the Internet for a nice image of a Giraffe skin and added it to my maters. I played about with a few of the settings to get it how I wanted it to look. I then added a bump map of the same image to make it look more detailed, which in my opinion it did make a big difference.
After a bit of disappointment with the bushy tail, I now moved onto the texturing and materials of the Giraffe. I had seen that classmates had started to look into using a UV Unwrap to complete their textures. As this was my first model in 3ds Max, I decided that I would simply stick to adding materials. I looked on the Internet for a nice image of a Giraffe skin and added it to my maters. I played about with a few of the settings to get it how I wanted it to look. I then added a bump map of the same image to make it look more detailed, which in my opinion it did make a big difference.
I then created a material that could be used for the hooves of the Giraffe. This was then simply added in the same way as before to the lower Polygons of each foot. A simple method but in my opinion makes a big difference.
I decided that with the disappointment of the Hair and fur Modifier on the tail that I would like to use it for the small crest of hair down the giraffes back. I used the techniques I had gained from playing about trying to get the bushy tail and placed a small amount of light brown hair along the crest of the giraffes back. Personally for not being taught about the hair and fur modifier, I think it has come out pretty well. So there is my final render of my Giraffer. Formy first model in 3ds max of this standard, I was extremely happy with how it turned out. More detail could be put into the amterials to get a wider range on the animal. I think the hair works well on the back of the Giraffe but I was very annoyed about the tail. Oh well, I guess thats life.........
Terrible Beautiful
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