CompuServe Thread

Chase, The best way for organic shapes without any IPAS routines is to use the Loft/Fit with user defined cross section. If you are having problems visualing the the cross section take a precreated 3d Mesh like one of the heads on the CD or one at Avalon then take that shape and use the boolean to cut it up so you get a bunch of cross sections. Use these cross section as templates in your 2d Shaper by using display 3d Objects to create your 2d objects for the lofter. Peter W.

>> What I would just like to know are a few short techniques experienced modellers out there are willing to share on creating organic forms using just the base tools<< Ahh.. without a doubt I would recommend," 3D Studio Tips & Tricks Series – Animals & People", by Michele Bousquet. Easy to follow. Come to think of it, check out the whole series. Enjoy! Bill – Triffet Animation Co.

Chase, for heads I create a bunch of "slices" (16 or so) in the 2d shaper and then brought them into the lofter on a surfrev path. The "slices" are cross-sections of a head from the top. Do half the head and then when happy (or just to visualize), do a mirrored clone of it, weld the 2 halves together, auto-smooth. There's a lot of tweaking of verts involved but the results can be spectacular. I used a similar technique, with the addition of the skin plug-in, for the film "Virtuosity". I modelled heads of Hitler, Manson, John-Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and some others from photos. Texture and bump maps can add extra details where geometry is lacking. have fun.

Chase, >>modeling on a shoestring… As well-mentioned, you can model some amazing things using the deform/fit method. You might also try a shareware program called GIFDXF, which deforms a mesh by using the brightness values in a bitmap GIF file. This is approximately the same effect you can get with the (much more powerful) Yost Displace IPAS. Although GIFDXF is more suited for building things like terrain than organisms, it is possible to paint a face, for example, turn it into a mesh, then manually splice it to a head. BTW, don't discount modelling by editing on the face/vertex level. Believe it or not, many expert modelers spend a lot of time dragging vertices around. All the low-res People For People models, as well as Tom Knight's excellent high-res human (and other) models were done manually. You can start with a basic primitives such as a sphere or cylinder (or a rough Deform/Fit loft) and modify it on the object, face, edge, and vertex level. Set up user-views to work in where appropriate. Use Modify/Vertex/Weld (drag&drop) to collapse unwanted faces. I like to use Modify/Edge/Divide and Modify/Edge/Turn to add and adjust faces where more complexity is needed. (Very powerful but often overlooked functions) You can also use Create/Vertex and Create/Face/Build to add faces where needed. Experiment with operations like Bend, Taper and Scale on selection sets of vertices. Don't be afraid of booleans – they can be used to provide a good starting point for manual editing. Render a lot from different angles as you work. You might also try a small free IPAS that Gus Grubba wrote called View (I think). It will let you swing a mesh object around in 3D in wireframe or with shading – makes it easier to evaluate the true shape of a surface. The Yost Optimize and Displace IPAS routines are good for this (much better, in fact). Another modeling tip – assign the most commonly used functions like Select/Vertex/Quad and Modify/Vertex/Move to function keys. This will improve productivity tremendously. Also, at the risk of blasphemy, some "organic modelers" around here use other, cheaper, 3D packages primarily to supplement the 3DS modeler. There also have been freeware DOS and Windows metaballs modelers available here which you can use to make very organic meshes to bring into 3DS. One last thought – be very careful! You are flirting with the Rendered Side of the Force. I too started this as a hobby but it eventually consumed my entire sense of self and now it is all I do. JKJ