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Trinity Aironaut
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I used to do a lot of prim modeling years ago, and have been trying to learn mesh recently. I finally finished my first real mesh object (not counting a few easy signs and stuff I made). My partner had wanted a vendor hut for her gacha shop.

It was modeled in Blender 2.8, painted in Substance Painter, then the textures baked in Blender. I ended up doing something a little weird - the original model has 4 separate mesh objects (1 - roof and floor, 2 - structure, 3 - wall frame, and 4 - wall paper), each with its own UV map and texture. I painted and baked each separately, then blender-joined the two wall meshes into one for export. If I were to do it over I would've kept it 3 meshes all the way through, but I didn't want to go back and UV unwrap the wall from scratch. 

It took a few weeks with a lot of trial and error, but I'm pretty satisfied with the results, especially since it came in at 3LI, and has accurate working physics (including an invisible prim floor to help bug-free object rezzing).

Thanks to @Chic Aeon, @ChinRey, @MaxMare, and so many others who contribute to this forum.

 

 

1545764387_VendorHut1_001_001.thumb.png.6a7b035e0acecde0fa267d02caceca75.png

 

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I love the idea of sharing our stuff, especially the chance to learn and get feedback - I know I've still got a long way to go in my learning journey.

Today I'd like to share my low-poly lori (don't try to say that quickly too many times in a row!)

A bit of background - this is my first real attempt at a non-geometric mesh...sculpting in blender is not something I'd attempted before. I wanted it to sit on a birdbath I'd made for my backyard, and I wanted it to be animated (though I can't rig yet, and I didn't want a tiny lorikeet to take 20+ LI for animesh). So I decided to work with alpha switching since I thought I might have the skills to script that. The pic below is what I came up with. I modelled the basic lori the way I learned to draw - starting with circles (or spheres in this case) and joining and shaping them, extruding the tail. The basic lori (body & legs) is a bit over 1000 tris (I think!). After unwrapping I made 4 copies of the body and rotated and moved sections for 4 different poses. Each body was given it's own face for the finished mesh (which would switch alpha faces), the legs were stationary and had their own face that wouldn't be alpah'd, and then finally I made the lowest LOD imposter the 6th face - 2 planes that would show a standing lori in profile. The final joined lori is a little over 4000 tris.

LoriWireframe.thumb.jpg.c7554cc46571df228f08f865b556e862.jpgLoriUVEx.png.ae4f770a9be08b46d36ef6aa8c3d4841.png

I ended up using the same model for high, med & low LODs as being so small (under 40cm) he switched LODs very quickly. With a simple cube as physics, he came to about 0.8 LI. I was even more amazed when my first effort at scripting from scratch worked too! Below is Lori inworld in my garden...I'm now debating whether I should give him a squark too!

803504606_190907Birdbath.thumb.jpg.69dc0a40409b69ffe82e94748277230e.jpg

Edited by Peony Sweetwater
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1 hour ago, OptimoMaximo said:

First, good job on sharing wireframes and uv mapping. Second, there's no need for such a debate, it's your learning project so go for it! 😉😁

Ah, but would the neighbours appreciate a squarking Lorikeet? Actually, my own Lori in RL is loud enough for me, do I need to introduce SL to the unique aural experience that is an over-excitable Lori? 😁

And as for sharing the wireframes and UVs - I found it useful. Already in talking about it and looking at it again, I’ve identified a few things I could do differently and other things I’d like to try. I might revisit this project when I’ve a few more skills under my belt.

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4 hours ago, Peony Swee*****er said:
6 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

First, good job on sharing wireframes and uv mapping. Second, there's no need for such a debate, it's your learning project so go for it! 😉😁

Ah, but would the neighbours appreciate a squarking Lorikeet

Well, that's the joy of versioning or, perhaps, scripting on demand behavior with a menu 😉 since it's a learning project, anything goes... So your neighbors would enjoy your lori's crystaline voice when you're online and feel like to have the sounds on, switching it off before logging out... Just an idea

Edited by OptimoMaximo
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6 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Well, that's the joy of versioning or, perhaps, scripting on demand behavior with a menu 😉 since it's a learning project, anything goes... So your neighbors would enjoy your lori's crystaline voice when you're online and feel like to have the sounds on, switching it off before logging out... Just an idea

Well, I did mention to hubby that if he happened to get a recording of Lori’s various vocalisations, I might find a use for it...we’ll see. Menu scripting would be a challenge, and I won't derail a mesh thread with scripting questions. :) for now, on to my next mesh project!

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On 9/20/2019 at 3:21 AM, Peony Swee*****er said:

I'm now debating whether I should give him a squark too!

 

You did a great job on Lori. He would  be a jewel in anybody's garden. And yes, give him a voice !

I have one suggestion to make for next time. If possible, consider stacking parts of the model which have  similar uv unwraps. For example, the legs and wings,  and spend a little time moving the islands about to reduce wasted areas in the UV space.

Then you could scale the UV's up to fill that saved space. This would result in a higher texture resolution on the model,   something like in the image below :

2.thumb.png.1321313bd40bc569080951416e8284c5.png

 

and a question, what method did you use to make the texture for the model?

Edited by Aquila Kytori
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On 9/25/2019 at 3:20 AM, Aquila Kytori said:

You did a great job on Lori. He would  be a jewel in anybody's garden. And yes, give him a voice !

I have one suggestion to make for next time. If possible, consider stacking parts of the model which have  similar uv unwraps. For example, the legs and wings,  and spend a little time moving the islands about to reduce wasted areas in the UV space.

Then you could scale the UV's up to fill that saved space. This would result in a higher texture resolution on the model,   something like in the image below :

2.thumb.png.1321313bd40bc569080951416e8284c5.png

 

and a question, what method did you use to make the texture for the model?

Wow - thanks for that, and you're right - doubling up on some of those texture islands makes so much sense...so obvious once the suggestion's been made. :) I've decided playing with UV mapping is like doing a jigsaw puzzle without the reference pic - it takes a lot of trial and error, but I'm sure it'll get easier with practice.

As for how I did the texture - I struggle with texturing in Blender (still trying to work out cycles), so I tend to default to my tried and true method in Gimp, working with reference photos I took of my pet Lori.

 

Anyway, now that you've given me the idea of stacking texture islands, I'm going to redo the UV map of a gypsy cart I'm working on - I think I can see how to get much sharper detail on the paintwork without using such big textures. Thanks for taking the time to make the suggestions!

 

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Your pallet seating really looks like it owns the 3d space it occupies.

I was going to mention optimization and LODs but I expect that  will be covered in one of your future Blender Bender lessons :)

Something important and often overlooked are reference images.

Before starting a new project, if possible check out the object in RL first and or do a quick search on the internet.

Collecting a few reference images can help you avoid basic mistakes  😀

Pallets.thumb.png.375dad4fe80d6924f5c7526e752946f3.png

 

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On 9/20/2019 at 4:37 AM, Peony Swee*****er said:

Ah, but would the neighbours appreciate a squarking Lorikeet? Actually, my own Lori in RL is loud enough for me, do I need to introduce SL to the unique aural experience that is an over-excitable Lori? 😁

And as for sharing the wireframes and UVs - I found it useful. Already in talking about it and looking at it again, I’ve identified a few things I could do differently and other things I’d like to try. I might revisit this project when I’ve a few more skills under my belt.

LOL, just hit the check box to restrict sounds to your parcel................. and go for it!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Going to post another creation, because I don't want this thread to become lost & I hope more people will share what they're doing...I love what I'm learning from it.

This week I made a suitcase in blender...it was primarily meant to be a prop to sit on top of my wardrobe, but my alt has taken to carrying it around as if she's off travelling :) Anyway, as such I wanted to keep it well under 1 LI, and I wanted it to be a bit more detailed and "smoother" looking than some of the earlier things I'd tried to make, which meant my focus was really on LOD models. So this is what I came up with:

SuitcaseInfo.thumb.jpg.44148a11d94805ff98a829fb58beae6c.jpg

The high model is just under 4000 tris - I discovered if I added extra loop cuts around edges the shading in-world looks a lot nicer, but of course that makes the mesh a lot heavier. So for the Med LOD, I tried taking out  those extra loops...I wasn't sure if that would be enough of a trim, so I continued cutting out loops til I'd roughly halved the tri count. For the Low LOD I just tried to keep the basic shape with minimal details and for lowest it was just a cube, playing with the UV mapping of that cube to try and retain some of the texture detail. (Discovering I could adjust the UV mapping of the LOD models was a real revelation for me...I can't believe how long it took me to work that one out!)

Testing in-world, I discovered that the med LOD model didn't make a huge difference to the LI of the model but the higher tri version (bit over 3000 tris) looked much better, so I went with that (in retrospect, in terms of LI I probably could have just used the high LOD for the medium). I did trim a few extra tris off my initial low LOD model though, to end up with the 207 tri model in the pic. All together it came in at a download weight of 0.8 LI, which I was pretty happy with.

The UV map - I did stack the uvs of some of the features like the locks and corners, but decided not to double up the straps and sides since I thought I might want to texture them separately with stickers and things. I've left a small section of the UV map free partly because I'm thinking of making a separate luggage tag for it, and that could go on the same texture.

Suitcase1UV512.png.5bd746c706ecc40a387caf3c45890684.png

I initially uploaded the texture as a 1024, but then decided that actually a 512 works just as well for everything except an extreme closeup. And I just used a generic, rough, dark grey 256 spec texture to give the leather faces a bit of a sheen and the same texture on the brass face but with higher shine settings.

Pretty happy with it, and even happier that it replaces a 7LI prim suitcase that had been sitting on my wardrobe.

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