Guide: 3D Unit Making tutorial

[massi]

masterpiece! you are a great modeler!!!

[adherbal]

I figured I'd make this a sticky thread.

[VPaulus]

Indeed. It's one of the best 3D tutorials I've ever seen.

[bebro]

Thx

I thought after it's completed I maybe should upload the whole thing as doc or pdf including the pics somewhere? Because those image hosters like imageshack seem to delete pics after a while, and then the tut loses a lot. Of course, with file hosters it could be the same, but re-upping the whole file then should be easier then adding all the pics individually again..

Maybe by that time I have an English-language spellchecker helping me to correct mistakes/typos, I noticed I made quite many of them

[VPaulus]

Yes, a pdf would be nice.

[bebro]

5. Part

In this part we add wheels and tracks. After that our model will be almost complete, with some details lacking maybe, but these should be easy to add with the knowledge provided in this tut.

We’re going to need additional reference pics here again to determine the look of those parts. I use two sources here.

A forum thread dealing with a Italeri model of the PZW: http://www.aeroscale.co.uk/modules.php? ... _id=133516

And a number of nice photos of a real PZW in a museum:
http://www.panzer-modell.de/referenz/in ... /pzw42.htm



5.1. Chassis

I’m not really going to model a good chassis, since most of it will not be visible when we render pics of our model. My simplified chassis is shown below. It’s nothing special, some cubes and cylinders, albeit modified.



If you compare it to the pics from the forum link, you’ll see it is rather inaccurate, but that doesn’t really matter for our purpose. Important is the position of the axis (numbered). Adjust them in sideview so that they match their position on the background sideview. We will place the wheels and rolls later at the exact positions of their axis.




In the following we create mostly the running gear with wheels and tracks, and even here I’ll simplify things a bit to cut workload. Still, there will be enough detail for a nice look in PzC.




5.1.1. Front Wheels

For one front wheel we need basically two objects: for the rim and for the tyre.

There are really lots of ways to get the tyre. The most simple approach would be to create a torus or tube primitive for the tyre, then a cylindric primitive for the rim and modify them further.

Let’s take the tube. We could use a torus, but torus primitives have a circular cross section, unlike real tires that are flat on the „rolling“ surface and the sides, with rounded edges. So we would have to modify it further to get that. Using a tube primitive makes things easier, we just need to edit some basic properties here:



The coordinates should be ok to match the tyre in the background pic, control and adjust them if needed via sideview. Now we have something that can be used as a low-detail tyre. Unless you zoom in too much it would be acceptable for a unit in PzC size.

For a more sophisticated tyre, for example with detailed tread, I’d really recommmend to look for a dedicated tut on the web that deals with this topic explicitly. There are a lot of different ways to create wheels, one tut for C4D describing a more detailed tyre creation can be found here: http://kraphik3d.com/wordpress/?page_id=34

We now modify a cylindric primitive for the rim, so it needs to be editable. See the pic below shows how to modify it, dimensions can be adjusted later.



After copying the rim over into my main document, I grouped it in the object manager under the tube object we use for the tyre. Then I adjusted size and position, see following pic. Note that the position is now displayed relative to its object group, so determined by the tube object. Position 0,0,0 means now the rim is centered „within“ the tyre, not in the world coordinates.



As with the tyre, this could been modelled with much more detail and higher accuracy, but this will be enough for a demonstration.

[bebro]

5.1.2. Steel Wheels

These are the wheels used for the tracked part. I have no idea whether they were made of steel indeed, I use the term here to distinguish them from the front wheels that have tyres.

The steel wheels are all identical, except the leading one in position 1 of the pic under 5.1.1.

There seems to have been some production variety on the Maultier halftrack, you can find photos with wheels having six or four holes, or showing some other little differences, but that is secondary for us. We stay with those depicted in the background sideview, with four holes each.

To get the holes I describe so-called Boolean operations. There are other ways, but for the start this will do. We basically need a cylindric shape with four holes in it. One way here is to use an editable cylinder, and „bool out“ the holes, C4D provides a „Bool“ object for that.

The pic below illustrates the procedure: create a „flat“ cylinder first, then convert him to editable via „C“. Then create a second higher one, but with smaller radius, and place him so that he is overlapping the flat one as shown.



Then create the Bool object. This can be set to „subtract“ one object from the other, but for this both need to be grouped under the Bool object. Please see next pic for the exact settings, note he „A subtract B“ mode, and the object grouping. The lower object in the group is always B (I even renamed it here accordingly to make it more clear).



Once you did this, you get a flat cylinder having a hole instead of the smaller cylinder. You can use several B objects to get more holes in one go, you just need position and group them together then. So just copy the B cylinder three times, reposition the copies, then place all copies under the first B object in the manager. This will get you the four holes.

After that, select the Bool object, and each of the sub-objects in the manager, call „functions“ >„current state to object“ to get editables. Having all those selected, choose „functions“ >„connect“ to have a single editable cylinder having four holes.

Our wheel is now almost complete, I just use another tube object on ist outer edge, beause that will be textured separately later, please see pic below.

Then I took a simple cylinder with enough sudivisions and modified it using bevel and extrude to get the sprocket-wheel. Now we have all wheel types we need:



We copy those into our main document, then position them on one side of the vehicle using again our background pics as orientation. Of course, for this you have to copy the holed wheel a few times. The following pic shows our result, I also added two simple cylindric rolls that support the upper part of the track.

[bebro]

5.1.3. Tracks

Now to the tracks - these could be very tedious to model, but fortunately C4D offers a lot of help here.

The only thing we really have to model is one single track element, and a spline representing the path of the tracks. Then we tell C4D to arrange enough copies of the first element along that path, forming the complete track in that way.

Oh wait, we didn’t explain splines yet. Splines are more or less complicated math functions. In C4D they can represent various forms, curves, etc. which however as such are not rendered in any way in a final pic. But still they can also be edited like other objects, and by using splines we have access to many powerful options.

For example, splines can be turned into full render objects. In this way we could also have done our holed wheels. But here we will use a spline to position a large number of other objects fast, without much hassle. It may sound quite complicated now, but noone needs to be a math genius to understand their usage, it will certainly become more clear during this part.

So please create a spline as shown below:



Without any changes you get a hexagon-like shape. The properties are not so important for the moment, we have to edit it anyway. So make this editable first via „C“.

If you aren’t already in your main PZW document, copy the spline in there. Rotate the spline if needed to see it in the sideview. We edit it in point mode now to resemble the shape of the track. If you think you need additional points, you could use for example the knife here too. See the pic now for the result:



The properties are important now: „Bezier“ indicates the type, as opposed for example to linear splines. With bezier we get a nice curved spline instead. Also the spline needs to be closed.

Now we need a track element. I use a simple flat object with some modifications, for PzC you could even live with a simpler one:



Now we use the „Duplicate“ function again, but this time with different settings than before.



First, enter the number of copies under „duplicate“, after some tries I arrived at 48. Then the settings under „options“ are important: mouse-drag our spline-object from the object manager into the „spline“ field. Don’t forget to enable rotation. Finally apply those changes and voila:



Looks like we got our track. So now we should have all wheels, rolls, the track complete, but for one side of the vehicle only. Either you group everything together using null-objects, then copy the whole thing and re-position it for the other side or be lazy as I am, and use C4Ds symmetry function.

For this you just move the null-object containing all needed sub-objects into the symmetry object you can create via „Objects“ > „Modelling“ > „Symmetry“. Barring some details I just added quickly you should now get something like this:



This means the modelling part is done, but of course anyone can add further detail as he wishes.

[bebro]

Fifth part complete

In the final part I'll describe mainly texturing our model, then the rendering of it for use in PzC.

[VPaulus]

Thanks, Bernd.
You make it to look easily, but there's always a lot of work involved as well imagination.

[bebro]

6.Part

In the final part of this tut I describe some basic ways to texture 3d models, and the render settings to get images usable in PanzerCorps.

6.1. Materials, Textures, Shaders

During the preparations for our project (see part 2.2) I described some basic steps to add material tags to 3d objects. Now we do some real texture mapping to give out model a more realistic look.

Textures are 2d images „projected“ or mapped onto the polygons of 3d models in various ways. So you need to make one in a normal 2d way using software like GIMP, PS etc. or you search the web for free textures to download, though you may not always get exactly what you want for a specific purpose.

In C4D and other 3d programs you can also use so-called shaders which give a textured look by using mathematical procedures. So here you don‘t need to worry about 2d textures, but edit the shader’s settings instead. I describe both ways briefly; it’s also possible to combine those methods. However, this is not intended to be a complete walkthrough, the whole subject of material editing/texturing is far to complex for that.

Stock PzC German units have a basic greyish look, but it’s not just plain grey, rather there are traces of rust, dirt etc. which make a unit look more „used“ and so a lot more interesting. Certain details like here the tyres and tracks have their own materials.

Remember the channels in the material editor? Here’s the pic from part 2.2. again:



The good news is that we don’t need to deal with all those aspects. They can all be activated or deactivated in whatever combination you need. The material editor will show little previews according to the settings you use for each material. The following pic demonstrates some common effects using very simple settings which can all be customized further:



For the PZW we will use color, diffusion, specular, and bump.

So please create a new material as described in part 2.2., activate those four channels by checking them. Now we need a basic greyish image as color texture. Software a la GIMP, PSP etc should be able to create an irregular soft pattern like shown in the pic below automatically with a few clicks. For complex models with lots of mats I’d recommend to organize everything better into specific folders, for this tut I threw everything on the Win desktop.



Right now specific colors etc. are not that important, rather to understand the basics, then you can adjust everything to your liking later.

Note that this time I set the pic’s mix strength to 55%, and edited the color sliders to a brownish tone mixing to 90%. You can set the pic to mix fully, and add traces of brown for rust and dirt into the pic directly by suing a smooth brush in GIMP etc. – depends a bit how familiar your are in that field.

Instead of using a pic as color texture you have a lot of other options here, like using a shader provided by C4D, or using layers of several pics or shaders which can be combined to achieve a certain effect.

Bear in mind that using many shaders and layers can slow down the rendering process later, though this mainly plays a role if you render many large highres images or even animations with lots of frames. Images we need for PzC should render generally quite fast unless you really have very old hardware or use very complex models with lots of different materials.

Bitmap textures render faster than shaders, but the latter have other benefits. Shaders always look good regardless of zoom while the quality of textures depends on the resolution of the pic in use - a very lowres image will not look that good as a texture in close-up pics for example. Also if needed shaders „tile“ perfectly on large surfaces, while this can be problematic with certain bitmap images.

I use two layers for the colors finally, one having the greyish pic, and another using the in-built rust shader from C4D:



The „Diffusion“ and „Bump“ fields work similar to „Color“ – you either load a bitmap image to be used as texture there or define one or more shaders, then edit further parameters like intensity of the bump effect etc. I use some edited noise shaders there.

For „Specular“ you simply set sliders. We don’t need a strong specular effect here, otherwise your object looks way too shiny. I set width/height to 30, and left the rest untouched. Please see below for examples of low and high specular settings:




6.2. Assigning Materials

The basics of this were covered in part 2.2. as well, but now it gets a bit more sophisticated. We now have several objects that need the greyish material, plus some for which we need to define a different one.

Grouping objects together helps us here again: any subobject will automatically take the material definitions from the upper object of the group – unless you give the subobjects their own specific mats. Using logical groups here means that you don’t have to assign the same mat for lots of single objects again and again.

So using null objects etc. I’d recommend to group objects together which need the same mat – for example all sub-objects we used to model the launcher. Also I’d put all track elements together in one group.

However, in some case it will be better to assign the mat specifically, for example the rims are best grouped within the tyre objects, but need their own grey mat, while the tyres get the darker material. The steel wheels need special attention: the outer tube objects get a dark mat, the inner holed parts get grey.

But there’s more to the whole issue of texturing.


6.3. Texture Projection

This was briefly covered in 2.2 too, but let me expand on this a bit: we selected a flat projection method for our background pics.

The textures of the mats we assgined for our PZW are automatically projected as UVW textures by C4D unless we define another projection. What does that mean?

Well, it is a very advanced feature I will not explain fully here, but I want to give at least some info: basic methods to project a texture can be flat, cubic, spheric, and a couple more, please see examples below:



You can manipulate the projection in various ways; it can be repositioned, rotated or resized to achieve a certain look.

But 3d objects can have a lot more complex forms so at some point those basic methods don’t project the texture very well for a specific object anymore.

Using UVW coordinates for your texture is supposed to solve this problem, the software will aim then to adapt a texture for the specific polygonal form.

By the use of specific tools (in 3d software included or third-party) you can also „unwrap“ the 3d object into a 2d image which can be textured separetely. Many 3d games have low-poly 3d objects in combination with sophisticated textures using this method, but this is IMO nothing for the scope of our tut.

Since our grey mat is very simple overall I stay with the simple cubic projection for the hull. As properties I select 100% for x, y size. If the „projection cube“ is as large as the object this means the texture gets not tiled, if the object is larger it does, unless you deactivate „tile“ completely.

With deactivated „tile“ you may encounter cases where the texture does not cover the whole object. This is usually unwanted, but in some cases it can be useful, for example when adding multiple textures to one object. For this simply drag nother mat on an object that already has one. That last one gets shown then, but by editing texture size or using alpha textures you can have parts of the other mats showing through at certain spots.


6.4. Texture per Poly Selection

This is not as difficult as UVW mapping, still quite helpful. We can not only add several textures per object, but also limit a texture to specific polygons of a single object as well. We already know how to select polys, each selection can get own materials assigned. For this you just have to „freeze“ selected polys by choosing „Set Selection“, please see pic below:



This selection can now receive its own material. We assign it normally to the object the poly belongs to first, then specify that it is used exclusively for selected polygons:



So our hull has now two mats, one general for the greyish look, and a black one simulating the observation slits of the hatches. You can add more selections and mats if you wish to texture specific parts of one and the same object. I use a third dark mat for tyres, tracks, and the outer object ogf those steel wheels

Having fully edited and assigned all materials to the objects I get this as a result, only by using four mats overall (I use a second grey one with minor differences):



However, that is only a test-render directly from the editor window. It is not supposed to be perfect, but advanced enough to describe how this model gets rendered into pics for final use in PzC.

[bebro]

7. Setting up the scene, Part II


The first setup we made specifically to model our unit. All the test renders I posted here so far just use standard settings done by C4D automatically for lights and for the virtual camera which decides the perspective in which our unit is shown. As long as we were modelling also zoom level and rotation in the modeller changed all the time.

Now we will generate two scenes that resemble light and camera setup used for the stock units. Once this is done they can be used as „templates“, so that you can load other 3d models into those scenes to render them for PzC as well without the to create these setups again for every new model.

7.1. The Big UI icon

The big image with the unit depicted in an isometric-style appears in the purchase screens and when activating the unit panel in PzC. You can just zoom and rotate in the modeller to get that, but it will be quite difficult to achieve a similar look that way.

There are some specifics to the iso-style, namely that there is no perspectivic distortion of parallel lines. Normally 3d programs simulate perspectivic effects, like objects appearing smaller at a distance etc, but we don’t want this here. So we first tell C4D to use parallel projection in the modeller view. Actually, I had used this all the time during this tut, but now it is really needed.



C4D can also generate an isometric view automatically, but I found this preset iso-view does not match the one in PzC exactly. Therefore I need to adjust the position and viewing angle of the virtual camera:



For the angle values around –25 degrees will work, though they might differ a bit – it is not always easy to reproduce exact settings of PzC, you could need to test several variants. Provided your model is still centered and not rotated you have to switch back to object mode and rotate the whole PZW to 45 degrees.

Now we need to care about lights and shadows, because the standard C4D settings don’t match those used in PzC. If you look on PzC unit gfx you’ll notice that the light there comes slightly from „behind“ the unit.


So first, create a light source from „Objects“ > „Scene“ > „Light“. After reading that far it will not surprise you to hear that we need to define additional parameters here:



Unfortunately we don’t know exact settings of light sources used to create the original units, so we have to try around a bit again to get something similar. The following pic gives an impresssion where the light should be placed in relation to the unit:



As you see I use a „main light“ with settings as deicted, but that is most often not enough for a scene to look somewhat realistic. So I use two additional light sources with lower intensity (10-20%, no shadows) to lighten up some parts of the model that aren’t hit directly be the main light, and thus would turn out completely black without additional lighting.

Furthermore I use an „environment“ object that allows to set environmental light, so that the whole scene gets brighter a tad. Since the main light is supposed to produce a shadow I also added a „floor“ object – this simulates the ground on which most of the shadow appears.

Once you’re done I’d save that scene separately to have the mentioned „template“ – from now on you can just load other 3d models into this scene, though you may still have to edit the zoom in case they are not scaled all in the same way.

Having achieved that you can either render the editor view, and copy it into your 2d software to resize for PzC’s big UI pic, or you define specific settings for the render output. Here you can set the size of the output image, specify a path and name to save the image, image format, and lots of other parameters:



The pic’s size for the UI image is 256*256, but the units use only a part of that. Personally I use the first method, so I edit the rendered modeller view finally in 2d to get the UI image.

7.2. The Map icon

We now just modify the scene from above for this purpose, first save it separately again with a distinctive name indicating it is used for the map icon. Then rotate the PZW back to 0.

I copy the whole PZW , then place it like shown below to get the two sideviews. Note one of the PZWs is turned around to 180 degrees. You could also flip one sideview later in 2d, but it has some disadvantages: you’ll flip the shadow too that way, and if you have models that are not totally symmetric on all parts it becomes inaccurate.



The pic’s size for this is 296*296, here I use the specific render output edited to that size. But personally I only render the two sides of the bigger map icons directly, then copy and resize them to 50% later using 2d gfx software to get the second, smaller row you need in PzC.

There I also edited the transparency of the shadows, and finally save as PNG file using a fully transparent background. I’ll not explain the full procedure here since it has less to do with 3d now and has been covered elsewhere already, for example in these posts by zombiehunter and rezaf:
viewtopic.php?p=253047#p253047
viewtopic.php?p=255147#p255147

So this is the end of the tutorial. The goal here was not to produce a perfect 3d model, but to get people started in 3d editing and help them over some of the initial troubles. As mentioned before, there’s lots of other things to say or to explain, but I’m not going to write a book

People who are interested in this can find enough info on the web to get into this further, and if needed they could also ask here. I hope this tut helps at least somehow....

I will turn the PZW into a fully useable unit with both needed images during the next days and release it in the unit factory – unless someone takes this tut and beats me to it before...

[bebro]

Now it's done!

[VPaulus]

Outstanding work, bebro.
Thanks a lot!

[bebro]

El Condoro has compiled the whole tut into a docx file available for dl:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16283408/Panzer ... bebro.docx
(has also been editied into the OP)

Thanks

[drjeff21]

This is great! Thank you!

[Delta66]

Brilliant tutorial, and great modeling.
Being an amateur Blender user (and before Imagine) I appreciate this great works

Congratulations.

[Halibutt]

El Condoro has compiled the whole tut into a docx file available for dl:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16283408/Panzer ... bebro.docx
(has also been editied into the OP)

Thanks

Any chance to reupload that? Lots of pics are missing and they are pretty much essential to understanding the tutorial. Pretty, pretty please?
Cheers

[ThvN]

I've uploaded a backup of the tutorial for you to https://www.sendspace.com/file/oq3qnj

[guille1434]

Downloading! Thanks a lot!