Modelling from a programmers point of view...
 

Yes I am a programmer (A hobbiest anyway, I need a real game programming job, heh). A programmer trying to do art!? AHhhhh!

3D modelling is alot harder then it looks, a big part of which is actually learning the complex modelling package.

Right now since I'm trying to make my own game, or rather something cool to put on my resume. I have taken up modelling to try and create some low polygons character models to use. Now even though I am making progress in the modelling field, making something low poly that actually looks good is a whole other thing. :banghead:

One thing I just CAN'T seem to do is texturing... I just can't do it it :(

Got an advice for me?

~Raedius

One way to reduce poly-count: Well, say you have two poly spheres. They are positioned so they intersect. There are many polygons inside the structure that you cannot see obviously, so it would be a good thing to get rid of them. Select one of the spheres, Then hold down shift and select the second sphere. In the modeling menu, choose Polygons>Booleans>Union. This joins both spheres where they intersect and eliminate all inside polygons that you cannot see when the spheres are shaded. This is something I just learned, too, thanks to Kbrown and Roman. The only drawback is that you usually have to delete the history of both objects before and after you do the boolean. It also cannot work on nurbs. You can always convert nurbs into polygons, though - select the nurbs object and choose Modify>Convert>Nurbs to polygons. This usually shoots the poly-count way up, though, so it's no help to you.

Assuming you're using Maya, all you have to do to texture something is right-click an object, choose Materials>Assign New Material>and then select a specific texture. (or whatever they call that list of items) Most people start off with blinn when learning. After that, a window will pop up. This is the attributes window if I remember correctly. In here, you can choose a colour for the object as well as a host of other things. To the right of the colour slider, there is a box. If you click it, another window appears with several textures avaliable in Maya. One of the selection is "file." This option lets you browse the files in your computer for an image which you can use as a texture. Obviously, you can scan items for an image, search the internet (google is good), or take pictures using a digital camera.

Light can also improve how your piece of work looks. I've also heard a lot about ray-tracing, although I haven't the foggiest as to what it is. Possibly something used in lighting.

Well, hope that helps you out a bit, mate.

I mean applying the textures to an object, its easy to just slap a texture on a model with it warping all over the thing but applying textures using texture coords.

~Raedius

We have a specific video tutorial that covers this by Craig in our VIP section.

Join up, and you'll have acess to everything you would need to start your Maya learning process:)

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