Allan said:
So how do you do a picture of the Bird for instance, is it a photo that is converted into 3d or do you draw it from scratch?. How do you get the reflections?
Buzz
I wouldn't know where to start when describing all the different ways to produce models in 3D but lets just say that ya can't take a picture,press a button & suddenly have a 3D model.
The 3D picture of the Blackbirds is created in a 3D enviroment.I can move round the bikes,go underneath them and even travel inside them.I can also move the bikes around,and rotate them any way I want. It's a virtual enviroment and if it could all be created from a photograph, everyone would be doing it and no one would take any interest in it.
Creating something, absolutely anything, a modeler has to start with absolutely nothing,blank interface,squat,zilch.
Now, you can either place a series of points and connect them. this will,with a lot of time, eventually produce a mesh and if youve a good eye and sence of proportion, will have created the desired shape/shapes to form an object.
You can also use shapes from the programs default collection of object/shapes. These are called 'simples' as they are just that-simple shapes such as squares,cylinders,triangles & circles. You can take these 'simples' and push and pull/distort them to make a required object.
When building , the two methods mentioned above will be used in conjunction with each other to build a model from the ground up.Building a vehicle or piece of furniture, landscape or whatever, is all done piece by piece and then all slotted together to make the final model.
All models are made of polygons. If you are creating a computer game,you want to use as little polygons as possible as a model with lots of them slows the runtime down.thats why the models in the games are very simple in structural detail. The detail you do see is from the image mapping.
'Image mapping' - covering a model in an image by wrapping round the mesh.
It's like putting a skin on something. Think of it as making a flush fitting body suit(with no details on it at all) but before you put it on,you lay it out flat and draw pockets , zips, buttons and all the details as well as colours.
So when ya put it on- from a glance it looks like you are wearing a suit and not a plain body stocking. You can then add textures to this-to add ruffles and bumps- this is texture mapping and can be done using 'bump maps'
To make reflections - your not making the model or part of model reflective but telling the program what area of colour or image map to make reflective.This is done by using a properties dialogue box.
I probably haven't explained this very well - you really have to some 3D software to try in order to understand.