Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Objective Complete - Mini Debriefing
In this task, we used a reference image to aid us in the creaion of the basic geometry from
which we could shape the ighter aircrat. We started by creaing an enirely lat mesh, but
made sure the geometry had the correct topology that would be useful later when shaping
the object.
This ime we used a mixed technique: The reference image was used to copy the shape of
the object seen from above, but we just performed free modeling when shaping the 3D
volume of our model. This way of doing things has the advantage of helping us to get a very
precise staring shape, but avoiding the repeiive process of just copying all the ime from a
blueprint; it's a good mix between the two ways of doing things.
If there's a word to define this task, it is...
tweaking
. If you (like me) are too lazy to do too
much iddling around and moving verices one by one, maybe the word will scare you. But
the truth is once your mind starts playing freely with the mesh, the trial and error process
involved in tweaking is just a way to explore interesing opions and be creaive. Once
immersed in the modeling process, ime goes by and we don't even noice it.
Classified Intel
The modeling part for this project required quite some work from us, mostly in performing
lots of small tweaks, but also on ensuring a proper
topology
for the resuling mesh.
A word on topology
Topology
is just a fancy word to mean the way verices, edges, and faces are
connected
in a
mesh. A good way to understand it is by knowing that if we take the mesh that took so much
ime to create and
only
move the verices around in space to form a random shape, the
topology of the mesh isn't changed. Topology is about the structure of the mesh, not about
its shape. Be careful, though, since a given topology determines how well the mesh will look
when shaped in a certain way; so we can say that a good topology allows us to have opimal
control over the shape.
To p o l o g y i is a v e r y i m p o r t a in t is u b j e c t i in m e is h m o d e l i in g . I t h e l p is a l o t w i t h h i g h - l e v e l
concepts, allowing us to decouple from the atomic elements of the mesh (verices, edges,
and faces) and start thinking in terms of how certain sets of polygons in the mesh will
give us a very good control on the types of shapes that we want to create at a certain point.
