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3d stone figures


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want to do 3 d figures. as carved stone angels. this to me seems too difficult in vectorworks. Has anyone got any ideas about getting to a realistic figure representation in vectorworks 3d. I would have to start with something that is partially already there (the angel) and be able to fiddle with the stance, then drape clothing on her (using drape tool??)

anyhow, if anyone has a good idea i'm open

thanks

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If you even considered modeling an angel in VW, you'd probably be willing to try it in subD. Silo is an inexpensive and excellent subD modeler, free trial, and it talks to VW through the .3ds format. It would be tedious work, but it might at least point you at something you'd like to try.

subD modeling takes getting used to; there's a wicked 'knack' thing in the learning curve.

Edited by mmyoung
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so, this is a bad Idea. assumed it would be.

Subd modeler - is this a better character modeler? (I need something to dimension and vectorworks is good)

I would be handing the final off to a sculptor.

as long as the shape is there, I could hand draw over it...

Edited by tallboy
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Have you considered Sketchup - it can dimension in 3d and has a handy push - pull feature to help. If you make you Carving block with sufficient faces you may have some success. It's an interesting concept.

In VW you may try fiddling with meshes and moving the nodes. I'd like to know if anyone would consider this sort of freeform modeling feasible in VW.

Good luck with it - let us know how you get on.

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I would consider modeling something like this in a program such as Cinema 4D, 3DS Max, or Maya. In these programs it's very easy to "box model" or push and pull polygons. VW handles 3D geometry very differently, comparatively speaking. Sketchup, unless they have improved their curvilinear geometry, isn't a wise choice either (in my opinion). The 3 programs I mentioned first all have ways to "dress" models as well -- learning curves in these programs are pretty intense, as I have found. It's a total change of your "modeling mindset."

What is the end result you want? High quality renders of a sculpture, or are you adding these to an architectural model as details?

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tallboy, subD has to do with modeling a 'cage' or polygon mesh, which can be 'subdivided' (hence the subD moniker); as the mesh is subdivided, it collapses towards a 'limit surface,' which I believe is an interpolated NURBS surface, though I'm not sure of that. I haven't done the math. Electric Image's modeler, before they started bundling Silo with their app, had a feature called 'SuperNurbs,' which was mind-blowing but sufficiently flawed that they abandoned it (I have heard they might revive it). It allowed you to do subD-style 'character modeling' and end up with a full-parameterized NURBS surface you could hand off to a CNC miller, so I understand. I worked with it a little bit and loved it and hated it because it blew up so much, but this is where I got the idea that "Catmull-Clark subdivision surface modeling" (read about it in Wikipedia for a quick upload) produces surfaces that are inherently parameterized, i.e., every point on them is defined mathematically and resolution-independent.

Yes, you could model something in Silo (excellent, free/cheap [depending]), Wings (free, a little balky), Blender (free and very sophisticated, multi-platform), or of course 3DS or Maya (fancy, very good, and expensive), then port it to STL (which VW handles very nicely), or you could get it 3D printed. This "maquette" or small-ish 3D model could be carved into, drawn on, added to, or otherwise manipulated, re-digitized with a 3D scanner and re-manipulated digitally, and so forth, until you have what you want.

NextEngine:

Look at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggvzcGdZsTc

and

and

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/jay_leno_garage/4320759.html

(reprise with text)

A nice aspect of working this way, is that you can port your model back into VW and leverage its strengths: Work out your armature and supporting hardware, get full dimensioning and shop drawings, make a bomber presentation to your client, fit up the rebar, picking eyes, mesh attachments, and all manner of other details. This would give your sculptor something to work from and take a lot of the dog work out of building the thing, and it gives you dimensioned points to work off of, which is probably going to be important if you want to install it somewhere tricky.

Now you have the best of parameterized control (VW) and free-form creation, and you can predict the outcome reasonably well, giving the model and accurate dimensions to a diligent sculptor or someone like Digital Stone or Talix (ha ha the range of money here really covers the waterfront).

This is one of the bleeding edge frontiers of 3D, in my opinion. Keep at it!

*Ideally*, you'd model the thing up and pass it to someone with a large-scale, 5-axis gantry mill.

Or you could work out something like the holy grail, which would be large-scale deposition forming, i.e., 3D 'printing' out of structural or at least permanent material (the structural bits might be the armature inside it).

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I suppose it's worth adding, having mentioned SuperNURBS, that whoever developed that is a *&^$#! genius, and I wish it had worked. You could pull and push on control points, just like you do on an interpolated surface, only it was *easy* to do: You didn't have to engage in a prickly struggle with NURBS control points, and neither did you have to deal with oddball sub-D cage geometry; you just built something and started tugging on it. And the result was parameterized.

This strikes me as substantially the fusion so many developers are seeking between direct poly modeling and parametrics.

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Yes, I have Cinema4D. I bought the student edition and am working hard at understanding the program. It's a bit of a doozy (very in depth and a different way of looking at modeling).

Blender is open source (free) and apparently just as good, from all the work I've seen come from it. The advantage to using Blender is that it costs nothing, versus Cinema 4D is about $1500 plus $500 per module you get (MoGraph, Hair, Sketch and Toon, Advanced Render, Thinking Particles etc). For a basic package to build/render you'll spend easily over $2000. On the flip side, it's an OUTSTANDING program...though they need to really improve some snapping, distribution/moving and measurement functions in the program for the architecture and industrial design world to really enjoy it!

Feel free to email me if you have any other questions about it.

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Hi Michael K ?

modo is a very competent subD modeler with a gorgeous rendering engine and a good animator (no rigging though), that was started by some refugees from Lightwave. It's got some of the best tutorials in the business, made by their on-board genius, Andy Brown, which apply to any subD modeler.

The modeling environment isn't as fast or intuitive as Silo, but it has excellent spline patch modeling and a suite of functions that make it a better hard-surface modeler in many respects, though the snapping functions in modo are a little strange. Actually they are real strange. Silo's snapping is straightforward and very good, but it lacks rotational snapping.

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