Any 3d modellers in here?
 

I've always wanted to learn how to do 3d modeling and animation, but my school doesn't offer anything in that area so I'm trying to teach myself. Just started today and this is the first thing I've done, it's pretty sloppy but something easy to do for my first time. I'm using 3DS Max 010 and have a shitload of questions if any of you are good at this stuff..all I really know how to do is move around vertices/polygons/lines.


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It's a Glock barrel and .45ACP round BTW, going to try and make a whole glock.. lol

No one eh? Lame :(

All I can say is good luck and practice. I started off 3d modelling, but kind of got unmotivated by it. Get a couple of books and just study up. 3D studiomax is good to learn on (never used it myself), but you'll eventually want to get into Maya.

This is a pretty good site to learn from.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/

I have some experience. not the best. But I am currently using Maya and have also used Auto desk inventor. I am a animation minor and a design and development major. Ill be glad and try to answer some of your questions. keyword being try.

Alright, well I'll go ahead and bombard you with the questions then, haha.

I'm trying to fully model a Glock pistol and the majority of it's internal parts, which means I have to have every side of everything visible, so it's not like game models or anything where you just see the outside and the inside is a black space. So I'm having to make a lot of parts and connect them. I don't really know how to do anything than create shapes with XXX number of segments, then edit the already existing vertices/polygons/lines, so I kind of suck right now. This is what I have so far after 2 days
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And I mean..it looks alright, but the wiremesh is a mess and there are tons of unnecessary and overlapping polygons. For instance, here
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Since I didn't know how to make a box shape and then cut out a perfect circle in it, I just made a tube shape, placed it in the box shape and then deleted the polygons of the box that would protrude into the tube. Then attached the two, the unmeshed outcome look goods, but there's a lot of overlap in the polygons and you can actually see some shading where they aren't lined up perfect. That's one thing I'm running into a lot.

Then the other is stuff like this, where I need to make 90 degree indentations into an object like this
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The faces of the polygons got messed up so I just deleted them, I have the basic shape of the indent I need, but there is no face on the sides or bottom. Is there a way to just connect the already-existing polygons and form a new face to close it up?

And then another issue I'm having is just needing more polygons than I have, I know you can insert vertices but I don't really understand that fully. I have something like this
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Where in the lit up circle I need to make that top area that is currently cut out like a rectangle, curve down smoothly and then the vertical faces need to be slightly angled downwards towards the chamber. So I need to add more areas where I can manipulate it into the right shape, but I don't know how to add vertices to pre-existing lines, only in the face of an existing polygon, which isn't what I want


And also..for forming the handle of the gun, I don't know where to start. Haha

Any of those questions make sense? I really need a book on this.

Jesus, it's been years since I used 3DS Max. So um.. How did you acquire that program?.. :P

jebus that is alot to read at once. Its been a long day so ill attempt to tackle them later.

After spending about the entire day looking at tutorials and reading, I was able to make the ammuniton and magazine fairly easily. Magazine was a little difficult to do but came out alright I think.

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and Evan. I uhh...lol wut

I must say thats pretty impressive Pee. Thats a great start considering you haven't worked with it that much. I say grab a book that gives you a lot of the basics and go from there. The books usually have some pretty good tutorials for you to walk through. You should try and find some junior college or something that offers some classes or even a class on 3D animation/modelling. Around here there are quite a few that offer it.

Thanks dude, and yeah I think I'm going to rent a book used for a class on it and read it through. I mostly just have problems making stuff seamless and smooth, I can't figure out how to make organic shapes flow.

Got some of the frame done, still needs to be smoothed out a lot and needs the holes for the trigger, assembly pins and the rail. Going to remake the slide, barrel and chamber.
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damn thats pretty good right there, i wish i had the patience for things like that.

nice goin man. you seem to have a knack for this sort of shit.

you need to rifle the barrel though :)