By Daniel Routh
As
if you hadn't noticed, science fiction is a popular topic for 3D renderings.
It's fun thinking up strange places and making them appear. Using TOPAS
this is easy easy:
- splines for landscapes
- spheres for planets
- lathed objects for strange buildings.
#1: Sketch.
I admit it I can't draw well. Though regular art skills in traditional area would be a great asset. Before you actually start grinding out polygons, you should have a good idea of your scene's basic layout and objects.I've found a great method for creating objects and scenes: steal them. No, not whole pictures, but basic ideas. The basic layout of this example is not particularly original. The design for the starship, and even the color came almost directly from an old sticker I have stuck on my book shelf. The two building designs came from studying an alien city in a Calvin and Hobbes "Spaceman Spiff" comic strip. I only used the basic shapes; I even changed those slightly. The actual look is much different from what Spiff saw.
Don't feel guilty about not being able to think up your own designs, particularly when you are first beginning. Painters learn to paint by studying masterpieces. Architects learn by copying previous designs. In fact, everything you know, even "original" ideas, are mostly things you have learned and pieced together over the years from existing ideas and objects. Don't be afraid to copy ideas piecemeal and put them together with your imagination. Once you have studied enough, you will eventually be able to create truly original objects with much more proficiency.
Sketch it all out, even if just as basic placement and shapes.
#2: Foundations
Here's where your sketch is most useful. You provides you a plan and helps you get where you're going. Start with the setting, in this case the landscape.1. Create the landscape with: BUILD -- SPLINES -- S-MESH.
- Set the mesh to 9x9. You'll want a greater sized grid for a more detailed landscape.
2. MODIFY -- SPLINES -- S-MOVE POINT to raise and lower areas of your landscape. Hold down the shift key to select groups of points to move.
Once you have the basic molding of your landscape, you can fly the camera around until you find a good angle to render from or just rotate the landscape until you find a desirable view. Further adjusting of your spline and angle can be easily done later. Be sure to save your camera view [CAMERA -- CAMERA POSITIONS -- SAVE] when you find a good angle.
CAMERA -- RESET CAMERA will return you to your original position. You may also want to save other positions that you use often for working over a detail. Saving camera positions is a key to arranging scenes quickly. Learning the shortcut keys can greatly speed up your modeling experiences.
Now, make your sphere BUILD -- SIMPLE -- SPHERE. This will be the moon that you see dominating the background in my example.
Use the MODIFY -- OBJECTS -- Z-MOVE command to move it well behind the landscape. This will prevent it from overlapping the landscape. Don't forget that when you have perspective off you see every object at it's true size. When you turn perspective back on, things in the background will appear smaller and whats in the front larger. You may want to scale your sphere with this in mind. Scale is MODIFY/OBJECTS/SCALE [Alt-F9], perspective is VIEW/DISPLAY OPTIONS/PERSPECTIVE [Alt-F2].
#3: Object-Oriented Drawing
When building objects, it often a good idea to work on a blank screen. I usually save the scene as I have it to this point, then clear the work area with FILE -- NEW without deleting any previously loaded images. This allows me to build objects in an uncluttered space, map it, save it, and load it back into the larger model when I'm prepared to place it.Another method often used is to MODIFY -- HIDE ALL. This allows me to work in a clean area without having to reload the any work I've already done. The MODIFY -- SHOW ALL when I've finished and want to place it in the rest of the scene. Another time saving idea is to texture your object before placing it into the scene -- then you don't have to wait for the program to redraw all the screen objects everytime you make an adjustment.
On to the exciting Part 2 Quick and easy Sci-Fi
scenes