Here it is, my city trash can. I have been stuck on this for some time, the Normal map + Alpha was -really- giving me some problems. That is all fixed now. Without further ado….:

Here are some of the things I have left to make:

2 Soda Machines, Street Light and Street Lamp, Electric Lockers and Power Meters. Vertical Vents. Roof Hatch, Roof Table, and Roof Chair, Roof Vent, Skylight, Ally Blocky-Thingy Poles, and Party Scaffolding, and Fire Hyrdant.

Next time I get some time with Max, I will be turning my attention to reshaping the face of the 1st building (hotel) to look more like the animated paint-over Vig provided me.

I really like how this turned out. I wasn’t going to add any -real- normals details to it but I am learning in all cases not to go the half-assed route.

512 Normal, Spec, and Diffuse. Might be a bit large, but I bet it would hold up well if you shrunk them down. Again, I am loving the Direct X Shader, and 3 point lighting system, and am not even wasting my time playing with Marmoset anymore.

Next. City Trash can.

I knew, after I deviated from the “popular” green Dumpster to the less popular (but still used for garbage) blue dumpster, that I did not what to make a -blue- Mailbox.

So, I had some fun surmising, what if the USPS was still a mechanized, modern version, of the Pony Express. It’s kinda Fringe-ish. Mailboxes from an alternate reality.

Any-who, Marmoset is till a bitch, and I am resolved not to use it. I get more use from a Direct X shader and 3 point lighting model. More control too. Without further ado here it is:

Based on my previous list and my paint-over, here are some of the props I have to complete. 2 Soda Machines, Street Light and Street Lamp, Texture the Parking Meter, Electric Lockers and Power Meters. Vertical Vents. Roof Hatch, Roof Table, and Roof Chair, Roof Vent, Skylight, Ally Blocky-Thingy Poles, and Party Scaffolding.

All in all is 13 more items. I also have to make some new textures for the buildings, and plan how I want to execute the railing and Fire Escapes.

It will be a couple more weeks I am sure. :| Tomorrow I will begin shaping the buildings to better suit the scene.

This model took much longer than I wanted. And where I thought I was saving time by resurrecting and retouching an older model (and it did) the time spent went into the texture. Three times.

I’ll say it now, KNOW YOUR TEXTURE SPACE. I packed these UV’s again and again, and it’s all my fault for screwing up the first time. Not giving enough pixels to the faces that needed them, and not wanting to let parts be mirrored.

I made this texture three times. And finally, after my mind had shattered, I had lost all confidence I knew what I was doing, and I watched a tutorial to tell me what I already supposedly knew, I set to work doing -this- one.

I am happy how it came out. The moral of the story is, it could have come out this way the first time, with little more planning; but then. I don’t think I would have found the etching brush I did.

If you want some good tutorials on Max related things pop over to CGTuts. Also this guy, Racer445, has some nice tutorials and you can get his etching brush HERE.

Here is my dumpster. Also, I am starting to hate Marmoset. You have more control in Max if you will just use a 3-Point light setup and a DirectX Shader or render.

It’s been a day. I seem to have a pretty good work-flow down for this sort of stuff. I still couldn’t model and texture a fire-hydrant in 4 hours (wasn’t there a test out there for Environment artists like that?).

This sort of thing is the result of a full 8 hour day. It’s frustrating getting only one model done a day. But that is Modeled, Unwrapped, and textured :|

Any-who, here are my two Newspaper Dispensers. Courtesy of Marmoset Toolbag.

And here are the two adverts a little closer:

I had a great time doing this. This was some of the best planned and efficient modeling and unwrapping I have done in some time.

I looked at several different city bus-stops to get a feel for how I wanted this to turn out. I may tweak a few more things here and there; but it’s not going to change much so enjoy!

If you want to see the adverts:

Above are the two renders from Max, and below is the realtime output from Marmoset. Good-golly I love Marmoset:

I got up at 6:30. Since them I have been working on adding props to my building scene.

Here is a render of the Air Conditioning unit I modeled. It’s one of the large commercial types. I learned a lot today, like how to clean up seams in Photoshop, and how to load models into Marmoset Toolbag.

This is also the first time I have made judicious use of Floats rather than trying to carve the geometry right in and vomit everywhere while trying to deal with Chamfer Stars. :S

Other things I am going to be modeling:

Newspaper Dispensers, Parking Meters, a Bus Stop, Dumpster, Trashcan, Light Sconces, and a Billboard.

Well, I have gotten a little farther on this High-poly Wheel. I am fixated on the wheel because it is just a small part of the larger piece. I figure if I can get the work-flow down for just this wheel, then I can do the rest and more.

So I have modeled the parts, not worrying as connectivity between parts. Next I will take them into Mudbox, and do some basic pronouncement to the topology (wood-grain, pitting ect). From there I need to build the Low-poly, unwrap the UVs and texture. Another reason I am finishing the wheel now, and giving it it’s own texture sheet is, I plan to mirror it -and- reuse it when I build the covered wagon.