Week 5: Serra’s Class | Modelling the Obelisk and the Tate

In Class work: Presentation

The day started with us giving on a presentation on what we has done so far as a group. We talked about our project and how we had come up with a name, Lost World and our progress so far. I talked about the mushrooms I had modelled. At this point we had a rough draft of how it would look in Unity.

In Class work: Tate Modern

That same day we travelled to the Tate Modern to take scans of some of the objects to create models using our phones and Photogrammetry. There were several scans I did but I ended up liking the plant object the most. I could not get any closer to it unfortunately as there was a barrier. I also could get behind it. But still thought it was worth try next week when were turned them into 3D models.

Collaborative work

The Obelisk of Buenos Aires

My next object I needed to model was the Obelisk. The tower which would be in the monument of Buenos Aires. I got some reference images from Google and studied the images. I noticed the bricks and the horizontal lines going up. At the top I saw the windows at the top of the tower too.

Reference images

Maya

I wanted to start everything off in Maya as I was started to know my way around it for Modelling.

It all started with a prism, it was quite easy at first to get the basic shape. I extruded the bottom face of the prism to create the tower shape. I used the vertex mode and used the Move tool and the Scale tool to manipulate the bottom.

I added edges with the Insert edge loop tool doing up horizontally that would later use as the lines I saw in the Obelisk reference images. I added two edge loops on each side of the tower this created little squares at the top of the tower. I then used the Extrude tool to make a hole resembling those window spots at the top of the tower.

I then used the Bevel tool on the horizontal lines and then scaled those bevelled edges inwards to create those indented lines on the tower.

This is what the tower looked like when rendered in Maya with a fog.

The tricky part…

From here I was happy with what it was looking like so far. But needed to add texture to make it look like stone bricks with damage. So I needed to take it into ZBrush. I had only used ZBrush a couple of times and was not confident in using it. But it was long overdue to use it.

I needed to work out how to do the brick texture first then add damage.

I found a few tutorials on YouTube that helped. I liked this tutorial…

I realised I needed to create an alpha.

Substance 3D Sampler

I found an image I liked with nice texture and similar width bricks to the ones on the tower, and imported that image into Substance 3D Sampler. In Substance 3D Sampler it converted that image into a height map. That is what gives the actual depth of the image. I was able to export it as a TARGA file. I wanted to use this as a alpha brush in ZBrush. But first I needed to take it into Photoshop.

Photoshop

I imported the file into photoshop. It was black and white which represents the receding and raised parts of the texture. And then, on a separate layer on top of the brick texture layer, I used the Paint Bucket tool to fill that layer with black. I then erased that layer a bit in the middle with the eraser tool. This is what the bricks looked like in the end…

ZBrush

Before I used the Alpha I took the model into ZBrush but saw a few problems.

When I first took it into ZBrush, I needed to add subdivisions to create more polygons so I could sculpt detail into the tower, however, the this got rid of all of the sharpness of the tower and made it “doughy”. So I went back into Maya and added more edge loops which created support.

But then there was something wrong with my mesh, the second time I imported it. I think the issue was there were a few n-gons at the top of the tower.

Back in Maya…

Back in ZBrush I used the Brick alpha, I also used some damaged texture brushes. I also went into created a surface noise texture. I was really happy with how it was looking so far, so took a picture and sent it to the WhatsApp chat to check what everyone else thought.

Constructive feedback

So the members of my team really liked the look so far minus the brick texture. They thought the images of the Obelisk didn’t have it so the model didn’t need it. I was glad they were happyish but I also had do undo hours of work texturing in ZBrush. I didn’t know a way I could remove the brick texture and keep everything else so had to start over. I was a bit gutted but I have now learnt how to create and use alphas in ZBrush.

So started over again, I did the same process but didn’t add the brick texture. I went it with lots of details like the noise texture, lines that resembled cracks, dents and crumbling. I added noise to the crumbling area which i thought was a nice effect.

UV mapping

I learnt that in ZBrush, to add texture I needed to subdivide the mesh several times to add high details. But this meant that by this point the mesh had over 2 million points. Not realising how dense the mesh had become I took exported my model from ZBrush and imported it to Maya, and inevitably, Maya crashed. I knew this would be too much for Unity as well. So, I went again on the look out for some juicy tutorials explaining how I can reduce the mesh count.

I liked this one and it explained the whole pipe line.

I firstly had to duplicate the tower and with the second mesh, I hit the Zremesher button and it significantly reduced the number of points in the mesh. It went from over 2 million to 50 thousand points. This meant that the details were reduced. From there I did the UV map by clicking on the zplugin tab and going to UV mapping, and selecting that. ZBrush then creates the UVs.

From there I had to regain that detail into the topology, so I divided the mesh again so that it was up to 2 million points, then from there, was able to Project the topology of the first model on to the UV mapped model. This took about a minute. From there I could export the UV maps like a normal and displacement map and the simplified model.

Back to Maya…

So I was SO worried that it didn’t work so I wanted to take the model into Maya to see what would happen. Firstly, Maya didn’t crash immediately which was a good sign! Also it wasn’t slow at all which indicated to me that the low poly mesh was usable. Then I used the normal map and displacement maps to add the texture details back and thankfully it worked! No crashing!

I did a quick Arnold render and this is what it ended up looking like 🙂 I wasn’t asked to add a material for the colour at the time and was told that it could be changed in Unity. So I exported the model as an FBX and added it to the Google Drive for Neeti.

Reflections

I was very happy with the results of the tower and after showing my other project group members, they were happy too.

I was also super happy that I got to finally use ZBrush and understand the interface a bit more. There are so many tutorials online that are free so that was incredibly helpful.

In the future, I think I need to check in more with the other members before I go on a whole adventure like when I was doing all the brick texture with the alpha I created. It was hours of work that was not needed. But I don’t regret doing it because the alpha is something I can use in the future and I had learnt a new skill.

I now also know that I need to prepare the models before you take them into ZBrush, for example, checking the Topology and making sure there is plenty of supporting edge loops.

And know I also know how to make UV maps and export lower topology.