UVW Unwrapping - Seams

We were given a pre-made model of an alien and told to use UVW unwrapping to add seams around the model to unwrap it correctly. I began with the head, making a T – shaped seam on the back of the skull like I had done last lesson, and then added seams on the edges of the eye and mouth holes. Then I added seams going down the Spine of the model, and separated the arms and legs with seams. However, the hands and feet were very difficult and was later shown that you separate the hands and nails and then add seams across the sides and tips of the fingers. When editing the unwrapped UVW map, you can turn on ‘Auto-pin moved vertices’ to make moving around specific parts of the hand easier.

 

Blueprint Modelling - Cartoon Character

We were given the task of modelling the basic shape of a full, cartoon character. We were given the blueprints for the character and I used that to match up the box’s vertices to the outline of the character. This was difficult as, the blueprint wasn’t very good and didn’t match up in some places. In addition, you couldn’t see under the arm, so I had to use guesswork to figure out where the outline was. To create the arms I just extruded a shoulder out from the body and then extruded down for the arms. I did the same for the legs. Using the relax tool, I could smooth out the body and make it less blocky.

 

UVW Unwrapping Practise

To learn basic unwrapping techniques, we were give a milk carton with a texture, and were shown how to use unwrapping to edit the texture. We flattened the model in the unwrapping menu and then applied the texture to the canvas. Then, we moved the different polygons of the model so that it matched up to the texture. It updated in real-time in the perspective viewport so it was easy to see if you were doing it correctly. A second monitor would be handy in this situation.

Blueprints - Plane

To practise my use of blueprints to aid in modelling, I found a blue print of a plane and begun with a box. Moving the vertices on the box to match the blueprint in the background, I was able to create the basic shape of the plane. I then extruded and matched up the sides of the plane to create wings. The rendering issues shown in the picture are not an issue at the moment.

Edge Flow and Autogrid

To prevent triangle polygons in our model and improve the edge flow of our models, we were taught how to use loop on edges to move them around. We were told to use rotate on the edges to prevent horizontal lines on our models. We did this by practising on a leg model and creating the basic shape from a basic cylinder.

 

We also learned that by using auto grid when creating an object, the object keeps the rotation of the polygon that it was created on. This is useful for creating objects on landscapes.