3ds Max Macehead

It took a very long time but I finally got my macehead to look like I want it to. It was a long process of using the boolean feature to make it look the correct shape. I tried to sculpt it from a cylinder or lathe the correct shape but neither of these approaches worked. I also tried to join the vertices of the individual shapes together for a more seamless surface by selecting individual vertices but this approach was not satisfactory either. Texturing is still needed but I am happy with the progress on this at the moment.

 

More 3Ds max assets

Unity 4.1 has been installed to my machine in college but at the moment my files will not open in it. This is very frustrating as I had planned to do a lot of work in Unity today. I did manage to import my crannog to a new project in Unity by converting the max file to .fbx and bringing the textures in separately, but none of my older projects will work at the moment. Instead I decided to make some more assets for inside my museum, including a plinth with a cushion on top. This isn't done with the correct textures, but I did learn some interesting things about texturing for the purposes of the project. I think for my crannog I need to up the values in real-world map size to make the mud texture look more realistic. I might also attach a separate bump map instead of relying on attaching the mud texture to both bump and diffuse. Here is an image of my cushion file:

The swirl pattern you can see on the cushion is actually added to the bump setting so it looks like the swirl pattern is indented into the pillow. I will do some more work on this over the weekend.

The tutorial I followed is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhnrkYDWJys 

More Unity issues

Unfortunately Unity is not in any way backwards compatible. Older versions don't read files made on new versions, and new versions don't read files made on old versions. This is extremely frustrating. The version number of Unity does not appear in the program's properties, so the only way to check is by opening Unity. However, the last time I opened it in college was to view project files I created using files I created at home, with the result that it won't open now because it can't open without a compatible file. So now I have to do some detective work!

Objects in 3Ds Max

I have made a crannog that will provide the setting for the museum in 3Ds max, and I'm in the process of making a macehead, one of the items in the museum. At the moment I have no plans to put more objects into the museum as the project is just a prototype. The object creation for the crannog was very simple; I made a circle spline and extruded it, then applied a shell modifier to create thickness. I converted it to an editable poly, and cut the door out of it using the Boolean compound object. The roof is a sphere cut in half and then reshaped using soft selection and scale. The textures are problematic; I have a straw texture on the roof which looks okay but not perfect, and any mud texture that I have tried to make does not render properly, so I will have to find a solution to that. The macehead is proving more problematic still; I've been working on it for a while and I've been using the Boolean compound object to create the shape I need, but this causes problems with the topology and the textures. The different smoothing modifiers aren't of much use in this regard. I have also tried to create a line and then add a lathe modifier to achieve the shape I'm looking for, but that hasn't been successful. Back to the drawing board for the moment...

Embedding Unity to a web page

I tried to embed Unity into a web page in order to know how to do it when I have the actual Unity project finished. It wasn't seamless; the Unity file itself needs to be a .unity3d file rather than a .unity file. Any files I've created in Unity so far have been .unity files so I need to figure out how to save my file with that extension. It may be a simple problem but I haven't done enough research yet on it to know. Here is the screenshot:

I got the code from the Unity community and added it to my own. Here is a screen shot of the code:

 

More Unity

I'm exploring the use of scripting in Unity which has proved really helpful. What I'm doing is JavaScript based, which is great because we did it last semester so I've a head start on the understanding of it. It has been quite straightforward so far. As well as that, I've been able to create scenes with controllers that I can navigate with. Unity has a lot of templates for outdoor terrains, but unfortunately none for indoor terrains so I will have to model those in 3ds Max. I've really been enjoying working with Unity so far. Simple commands can have really cool effects.

 

Unity experiments

I'm currently trying to open a webpage from a Unity game with a click of the mouse using the Application.OpenURL function, but it's not working just yet. I've been playing around with Unity a bit more and it's very interesting to see the possibilities of the software. Here is a scene of a terrain I created and textured. The inbuilt presets in Unity are very handy and there are also options to import others.

 

Modelling the objects

Each of the objects in the museum must be modelled as accurately as possible. This involves measuring the objects based on the measurements given by the documentation. For example, this macehead from Lough Gur is on display in the British Museum, and the museum's website provides measurements for length and diameter. However, as the object is not a uniform shape, I have to calculate the measurements for the varying parts of the object. I am using an image in Photoshop, scaled in proportion, and I am using the rulers in Photoshop to calculate the various measurements.

The lines of measurement can be seen here. I am hoping that this level of precision will lead to an accurately modelled object.

I began modelling the object in 3ds max. My initial idea was to model it using Boolean operations to create a compound object made from cones and spheres. I did this on Friday but it didn't provide the desired effect. My current theory is to using the loft function in compound objects, as this allows me to more precisely model an object with non-uniform properties.

Website prototype

The prototype for the site in which the 3D museum is to be embedded. The emphasis is on simplicity and ease of use to make the experience as stress-free for the user as possible.

 

Site design and museum navigation

Here are the initial sketches for the site design as I envision it.

And here is the navigation design for the online museum.

Unfortunately the scans aren't perfect. However this is my initial idea of how the user navigates through the online museum, clicking and dragging to view the objects and areas. This may be subject to change as I am no longer certain that this type of navigation will be practical, but I am waiting to hear more advice from the project supervisors.