detailing help

[nightoftheroundtable]

hey is there anyone here thats good at detailing I'm in need of some help with detail on one of my models. if anybody can help me I would greatly appreciate it.


Well I was just needing someone to help me with detailing or teach me how cause I'm no good at it and I can't find any tutorials on how to detail

[Stiglr]

Define "detailing"....

[nightoftheroundtable]

detailing, as in adding texture, cleaning up the model so it looks nice and doing finishing touches

[Stiglr]

All of those are different subjects.

For texturing, the TCE is a great, easy to use tool. You'll probably need to be able to use Photoshop, PaintShopPro or Gimp or some sort of advanced graphics program to create good textures (and creating those is an art unto itself!)

For detail and cleanup, that comes from experience: your first models will always be kind of a mess, because you're learning. But, as you progress, you'll make fewer and fewer "mistakes", you'll create objects that are "cleaner" using less polys, etc. And you'll learn how to hunt down extraneous vertices, double sided polys that don't need to be double sided, etc.

[nightoftheroundtable]

ooh so thats how they do the detailing on there models they use different programs. I thought they just used AC3D as there main source of adding details.

[Mossie]

AC3D has TCE within it.

But you'll need a paint program of some sort to creat a texture. You could use free textures but these are generally of limited use longer term.

[nightoftheroundtable]

I know this might sound a little noobish, but I have only been working on AC3D for a little while and can I ask what does TCE stand for lol.

never mind I found out what it stood for lol how do I even use that TCE I dunno how to use it

[Stiglr]

Texture Coordinate Editor.

It's the F10 feature that helps you assign parts in your model to areas of a texture map to "decorate" the 3D shapes.

The TCE in AC3D is the easiest to work with that I have seen. Other 3D programs make you do all kinds of complex routines to create a UV map an apply it to a model. AC3D makes it really easy.

[nightoftheroundtable]

yeah thats what I have been hearing, So far I'm impressed with what you can do to your models and how far you can go with making them advanced. its alot better in many ways than the old modeler program, I'm using which is called "MilkShape"

[Stiglr]

Actually, the detail stuff starts before you create the first object or poly.

You should always have a poly count in mind before you start a project (or at least recognize when you may not have any kind of poly limit). Then, depending on how strict/severe that limit is, that will help you plan where to put the detail, and where to skimp and rely on the texture to trick the eye and add the illusion of detail.

I model primarily for an online flight sim, and because the objects have to fly and fight, and be animated without slowing the application down to slideshow speed, there are limits to how much detail I can put in the object. So, I had to learn pretty fast where the detail mattered, and some tactics and techniques that help me maximize and minimize poly count in specific areas.

Also, as I progressed, I was glad I always saved my models, no matter how crappy they were, because now I can go back to them, a year later or so, and see the mistakes I made back then that cost polys.

[luuckyy]

the old modeler program, I'm using which is called "MilkShape"

Well Milkshape is not that old at all, it is still updated, but the fact that you can't simply select faces is a real big disadvantage for me.

[nightoftheroundtable]

well one thing that I dislike about milkshape is there verision of subdivision. cause on milkshape subdivisions added more vertices but it also made the model look choppy, where as AC3D serves the same fuction but instead of making your model look choppy it actually makes it look smoother