Brachiosaurus - Tutorial

Tutorial - Brachiosaurus Š2002 by Marcus Carra marcus@universe-3d.com www.universe-3d.com
Used Tools in Modeler: BOX, KNIFE, BEVEL, RAILEXTRUDE, MIRROR, MAGNET, ROTATE, SMOOTHSHIFT, MOVE, DRAG, MAKECURVE Estimated time: 1 Std 45 min; pure Model time: 45 min Difficulty: Novice and Advanced Hello and welcome to my "Jurassic Park" Tutorial. I am glad that you have chosen my tutorial. This tutorial will guide you from the beginning of box through each step of modeling and texturing to have a ready and impressive Brachiosaurus. I already disclaimed with what tools we will have to work. Let me give you some ideas what the tools do: The BOX-Tool: Makes a box(who would have guessed it??) with different abilities of settings like amount of segments, roundings a.s.o. The KNIFE-Tool: as the name of the tool tells us: with this tool you can "cut" the object and add a lot of detail to the mesh. The BEVEL-Tool: here you can bevel the selected polygon and add nice detail like plates to a spaceship texture or a fingernail. The RAILEXTRUDE-Tool: one or more polygons can be extruded along a given and certain path The MIRROR-Tool: like the name says: it mirrors an object and makes a copy of it at the same time. The MAGNET-Tool: works like a magnet and pulls or pushes a selected amount of points/mesh within a certain radius and a certain strength. The ROTATE-Tool: rotates the selected and points/polygons around the mouse pointer which is the axis at the same time. The SMOOTHSHIFT-Tool: alike the bevel tool with one little but main difference that the selected polygons are moved as one polygon and are not beveled as single polygons. The MOVE-Tool: moves the selected items/points/polygons in any direction The DRAG-Tool: is pretty much the same as the move tool. The moved point now doesn't need to be selected and u ONLY can move points with it. No polygons can be moved. This tool is used to redefine the mesh. The MAKECURVE-Tool: connects the selected points to a Bezier-curve Well, so long. I assume that you know where to find all the buttons in modeler so i don't explain where the buttons are but as u will see i give always the key shortcuts so it should be easy to find what you need. Let's start the party..
1. The "MAGIC" Box
1.1 Open modeler and be sure that the four views are named as followed: Left top: Top right top: Perspective left bottom: Back left bottom: Right So, after we have set up everything, let's start. We create a Box (shift+x) with these values: (press N-Key) -> ref.:1.1 Width: 500 mm, Height 1m, Depth 1,8 m Center: x: 250 mm (this aligns the box along the z-axis for later mirroring) Segments: x: 1, y: 3, z:6 Now u set up already the basics of the dino. Everything else will be created out of this box. Like in the jurassic time even, as life had begun from protozoa Our protozoa should look like ref.:1.1b	ref.:1.1 ref.:1.1b
TIP: press the o-key and change the undo-level to 128. This ensures you to have 128 undoes instead of 8. This can be a LIFESAVER :)
Just deselect the numeric tool. If you think the box is way too small, then just press the A-Key and the whole object will be visible in the maximum view size in all viewports.Lets rush to the next step...
1.2. Ok now where we have done the basics let's go the shape of the main body. Hit the Drag Function or the STRG-T key. Now start dragging the points which build the outer seam of the body in the right view port and bring it into the shape of the dino torsos. Just click the points you wanna move with the drag tool and start building the shape. After a short while u should have something like ref.:1.2	ref.:1.2

1.3. Now we have to define the shape of the brachiosaurus body in the Back View. But consider that in big projects it's a MUST to go the fastest way of modeling to accomplish the deadline goals. Time is money. Lemme give ya an insider trick: just imagine your object as half of the model which will be mirrored later on. so u have only to model one half and save much time in adjusting and modeling.	ref.:1.3
Keep that always in mind. It all depends of course of the object you want to model. That saves a lot of time. Be sure that the left seam of the object is always on the 0-x-axis which will be the mirror-axis later. If possible don't touch the points on that axis in the x-direction. Select now the right points(ref.:1.3) of the Object. Press space-bar once to reset the mouse pointer. Then press and keep the Right Mouse button (further called RM) pressed (lasso-function) and now draw a circle around the yellow highlighted points from ref.:1.3. When done, release the RM and the points get highlighted.
TIP! After you've selected the points/polygons and you think you could have added some more, don't worry just keep the shift-key pressed and start selecting the missing points/polys :) With the shift button u can add points/polys to your selection.

1.4. Select the Magnet-Tool (shift+.).Yeah baby, its getting into deep now ... Now it's time again for the N-key. A requester(ref.:1.4b) appears, where we have just to tweak the "fall off" a bit to get a spherical look to the points we want to use the magnet-tool on. The yellow points(selected points) will get into the shape of the Magnet-circle(blue line). This is also shown by the "gray bell" in ref.:1.4b. The RM activates the radius of the Magnet-Tool. While pressing and holding down the RM you can change the radius. You should move to the middle of the selected points and then hit the RM and drag it to the top of the last selected yellow point like in ref.:1.4a. With the left mouse button (LM) you can drag the selected points to the shape of the blue oval. Move the mouse in the middle of the selection press the LM and move it to the right. After u moved the points to the right you might have the feeling that the body became too wide. Simply press the t-key(move-tool) and move the selected points to the left. The result should look like ref.:1.4c.	ref.:1.4a ref.:1.4b ref.:1.4c
TIP! If you press the N-key while using the move tool u can set also a fall off. Try and play around with that so u get a feeling for it.
1.5. We keep the points selected and pick up the Drag-Tool (strg-t). Lets drag some points to build the final shape for the dino's torso(ref.:1.5). Here u need to select and deselect some points. Actually you can move any point you think it has to be moved so it looks like the torso of our Brachiosaurus. At the end the object should look alike that in ref.:1.5. Try to prevent sharp edges. Now the basics are done and we ar not that far anymore from our final goal. Let's go into the next round...	ref.:1.5
2. modeling the legs
2.1. Without its feet the dino can't walk, so we are going to model some legs now. Have a look at the second polygon using the Front-View. We will modify this one using the Bevel-Tool (b-key) to bevel-out a leg. Switch to the polygon selection mode and select the mentioned polygon. Then press the b-key to activate the bevel-tool, followed by hitting the n-key so we can access the numeric panel for this tool. The advantage of the numeric panel is the ability to bevel precisely by adjusting the values, whilst still seeing the results in real time. So, lets finally make him a leg ! ref 2.1 shows us the leg after one bevel pass. Bevel: shift: 270 mm, inset: 20 mm Close the numeric panel. Now deselect the polygon, and this time, select the newly created polygon pointing to the bottom. We can roughly guess a leg already ! It's generally a great advantage to use reference images (books, internet). Usually they are a good helper to retain a believable shape whilst you can focus on pulling points. I was using 3 segments for his leg. A segment is created if you click the RMB whilst the bevel-tool is activated, then simply enter the next values.	ref 2.1 ref 2.2 ref 2.3
Whilst we are happily beveling out our leg, we notice that the foot is following a weird path. But we have a solution for this: the Rotate-Tool (y-key). The small black crosshair is the center around which the selected geometry can be rotated. Don't hesitate to use this tool on the selected polygons, so our feet is parallel to our (virtual) ground again. (for our impatient companions who beveled further already, select the leg to the polygon of your wish, and rotate everything until it fits again.) So, when this step is done, bevel 3 more times and chose a negative value for inset at the last time, which will be our foot later. I took a value of -80 mm. ref 2.3 displays the result. We can see a strange edge at the leg, just use the Drag-Tool to adjust this point. Now for the leg at the back ... We will create this leg using the same techniques as with the first leg. Select the last polygon at the bottom / right and repeat step 2.1. If you have done everything right, it should look similar to ref 2.4. I have adjusted the shape of this feet a little using the Drag-Tool. What's still missing is the head and the tail. For those we will use the Smoothshift-Tool and the RailExtrude-Tool.
ref 2.4
3. creation of the dino-tail
3.1. Now lets select the "butt-polygons" of our friend. (ref 3.1). At the same time i made both polygons planar using the Drag-Tool (parallel to the y-axis). This step is important for our RailExtrude-Tool. I was doing it this way: Select the next layer and bring our previous layer in the background, it should look like this on your layer-tab: In this new layer we will create 4 points. To do this hit the "+"-key. The LMB will set the first point, the RMB will create the next points. You can re-adjust the position of newly set points using the LMB again, this will only affect the last point set without creating new points. Of course you can re-adjust the points afterwards using the Drag-Tool. The points should be set so the first point lies at the left edge of our previously selected polygons (ref 3.1). The last point marks the end of the tail. The 2 points in between define the shape of our tail (ref 3.2). Don't forget to set the last point back to the center of the z-axis since these points define the shape of the tail.	ref 3.1 ref 3.2 ref 3.3
4 points should light up in a yellow color. (If not, then switch back into the point selection mode, now select all the points from the left to the right). Then chose the MakeOpenCurve-Tool (ctrl-p) and our tail-guide is created ! In the top view of ref 3.3 you can see the 2nd guide, which we will be using as a scaling-guide. It is constructed the same way as the first one. Your modeling view ports should now look similar to what i got in ref 3.2 and 3.3. If not, then analyze the whole chapter again, usually we miss the most important steps :) Now hit the shift + ' key to "flip" the layers, it means that we get the foreground layer as our background layer, and vice versa. Now the dino mesh should display in grey, and the guidelines for the tail should show up in black. if that's the case, the 2 butt-polygons should still be selected. No ? Then just re-select them. But take care that no other polygon is selected, or else we will get a mutant-dino, a so called Tschernobyl-Dino ! With those 2 polys selected lets chose the RailExtrude function located under Multiply --> RailExtrude. In the panel that just popped up we have a lot of options, but in fact, we don't need to change anything. It's just important that the field labeled "scaling" is checked, or else we won't really get a dino-tail. If that is done, click the OK button and... ....woooowww !! What ? You don't like it ? Oh right, you can't see the tail in the perspective view port, though it's visible in all other view ports. Now we can handle that ! Select all polygons that define the tail and just press the f-key (flip polygons). And there you go !
There is still a little thing to adjust, we have to delete the remaining polygons we don't need. The best way to do that is to use the right-view port and to draw a line around them using the RMB. This will select all 2 of them. ATTENTION! Take care that only 2 polygons are selected, or else we will delete parts we actually want to keep. Then just hit the k-key (kill polygons) and we are done. Our dino should now look like in ref 3.4. But there's still a little thing that annoys us, the tail has a very strong twist in the hip area. You can adjust it using the drag-tool. Now we can finally delete the unwanted polygons at the middle side of our dino. Since we want to mirror over the first half of him later, we don't really need anything there. Just select the mentioned polygons and press the k-key once again. ref 3.5 shows the polygons that are to be deleted.	ref 3.4 ref 3.5
Hit the m-key (merge points) and then click OK. That effects that those points that share the precisely same coordinates will be merged into one single point. If you "nurb" objects (tab-key) you will sometimes see very wicked deformations, all too often this is caused by overlapping points or needless polygons. In between you should have a look at your mesh status. Enter the point selection mode and hit the w-key (point or polygon statistics). There is a line that reads "0 polygons...26", those are points that are not connected to any polygons, and which are pretty useless for us in this case. Just click at the little "+"-sign (this will select all the points that match this criteria) and hit the del-key to delete them. Now they are gone. But you should always double-check that you didn't accidentally select other points before, since the little "+"-sign adds the points to the selection, rather than completely changing it. I have adjusted the shape of the legs a little further to get a more natural look to them. Just select the drag-tool and drag some points around until it looks good enough when the sub patch mode is activated (tab-key).
4. Modeling the neck
4.1. Woah, that was a damn big part, wasn't it? The dino gets some shape now. Lets do the neck/throat. Actually you can do it like we did the tail, but i want that u see some other method too. That way you can chose for your next projects which way is the best. For the neck section we need the Smoothshift-Tool. That works similar to the Bevel-Tool with the decent difference, that bevel is applyed to each single polygon and Smoothshift is applyed to the selected group of polygons and moves that as one solitaire polygon. Select now the 3 "throat"-polygons and press shift+f and once the RM. With that we "copied" the three polygons and can move them by hitting the t-key. After doing that press the H-key to stretch the polygons.(like in some gyms where people go to stretch and then it starts hurting and itching in the knee pits) for giving it the right shape.
Important , while pressing the LM, is that the Stretch-Tool mouse crosshair is on the "mirror axis" (Y-axis). Keep doing this as long as the neck has the wanted size.. From time to time you should rotate the polygons so the neck will be well formed(it is indispensably to rotate it after the stretching) After a view minutes the neck should look like ref.:4.	ref.:4
5. Modeling the head
5.1. ref.:5.1 shows the top view of the Dino. If you look at the Brachiosaurus a little closer you will notice that he has a kind of a hump as a nose. Therefore we are going to bevel the selected polygon ref: 5.1). ref.:5.2 shows the result after the bevel. Now we have to shape the head a little. Use the Drag Tool or any of the other tools you already learned to use until now to adjust the points so they look like in ref: 5.3. I only moved the points around, nothing else. It takes some experience to find the right place for them. It took me about 5 minutes for the head. To keep things easy I didn´t make any details like eyes, nostrils or mouth. This tutorial should not end up as a book. But with the tools you learned you can add detail easily.	ref.:5.1 ref.:5.2 ref.:5.3
You only need the Bevel-Tool, the Drag-Tool and the Smoothshift-Tool. All these we already learned to use. Now we have to delete the polys that are not needed anymore from the neck. You should delete the polygons which show to the mirror axis. After this is done you should hit the m on you keyboard. All points that are nearer than 1mm (you can adjust this) are merged. I think I mentioned that before scratching head Now hit the W key for the Polygon/Point Info. Select the 0 Polygons and delete them too.
Now that we refined the Dino a little more, we should hit the TAB key. Ref.:5.4 shows us how it suppose to look like.	ref.:5.4

Now we are going to add some more detail so the model looks a bit more apparent. The Brachiosaurus has ribs that everyone can see. There are also folds around his neck. We are going to make them with the Knife-Tool. Just click the Knife-Tool or press shift+k. In the side view just cut like slicing bread tow or three times across the body from the top to bottom. I mean a little away from the shoulder down to the feet. The body gets more detail an we can select some new points and move them towards the Z-axis in or out. That way we get the ribs we want.(ref.: 5.5)	ref.:5.5
HINT: Those who are more experienced can make this detail with the BandSaw-Tool. I am not talking about this tool too much so nobody gets too confused.
Now everyone can do as he/she likes. The same can be said about the legs and the muscles that can be more detailed if wished. The Picture at the end of the tutorial shows you how more detail makes the model look more apparent. But remember what looks good to me is not always what looks good for someone else.
6. The End: Mirror, mirror on the wall...
6.1. We just have to mirror the dino and put some textures on it.. For mirroring just press the strg+v key and mirror the Brachiosaurus along the y-axis to its full size. Here you have to take care that the points on the y-axis have all the same x-value. Read to learn how to do this: mark the points which are close to the y-axis, but make sure there are no other points selected and press strg+v. Now in the opened requester you click on X and put in the value 0(zero). You just assigned the X-axis value of 0(zero) to each selected point. After that hit the OK button and u can start to mirror. Press Shift+v and N-Taste. Set all values to zero and chose the X-axis. Almost done is the Brachiosaurus. You can see that the throat is a bit flat and the tail is pretty big. But hey, we got the tools and we got the power to change that :) Just use the stretch tool as i described it before and bring it into the right shape. Press the Q-key to assign a texture to the dino and fill in the name. Be careful that NO other polygons are selected, elsewhise they will be assigned to the texture instead. For changing the texture and adding details u need to open the Surface Editor(strg-F3). Here u can setup everything a surface needs. Let's get the party started...
TIP: While stretching, be sure that the crosshair of the mouse is on the z-axis for granted symmetrical stretching.
7. Let's get it dressed
Since i got a lot of requests for some texturing, I thought I could add some texturing. Who doesn't know the problem that you have modeled a damn good looking model in modeler and then the big bang: the wrong texture screws up the entire model. That happened not only once to me. The choice of the right texture is almost as important as a good model. NOw i had to think of the best mixture how to texturize the model so you wont get bored and further you won't come to resignation. That's why i was focusing on Lightwave's^Ž intern textures, where u can archieve impressive good results. But enough of small talk, let's hit the road and open the Surface Editor(strg-F3). Well, here are countless possibilities of setups and i will just explain those which i was using for the other please refer to your manual. I for myself found it always interesting to read tutorials where the result looked approximately like the reference but Ii never understood WHY I had to do this or that so it looked like the reference. Well I try to do it better here. ref.:7.1 shows the Surface Editor(will be further called as SE) and we will look at the first setup:
Color: here i have chosen a bright grey. The marked T shows that here is enabled a texture. But i will talk about that later... Diffuse: is the ability to diffuse light (or to absorb), where 0= no diffusion(complete absorption) and 100% complete diffusion(no absorption) is. Values above 100% cause a "unnatural" brightening of the objects. A value of 75% is pretty good for a skin setup of a pachyderm, while the skin has scars and wrinkles there is lees light reflection. Specularity: Almost every Object in the real world has the property to reflect light. Here you can chose the amount of reflecting light.	ref.: 7.1
Glossiness: shows how much light is getting diffused on the surface of the object. Whereas 100% simulates a flat smooth surface like glass for instance. Bump: here u will select the value of the bumps, scars, wrinkles etc. So, after that short introduction of how SE works you can also lookup the manual for further help. But now let's see what the "T's" are for.
The 1st "T" at Color: Why the heck Fractal Noise? To be honest you could also use another procedural texture which brings some noise to the surface. According to my opinion Fractal Noise is the best way to our purpose. The texture has only one task: to give the impression of a natural randomness to the color of the skin. To make that difference you need to change the color of the procedural texture so the randomness gets visible.(ref.:7.1)	ref.: 7.2
the smaller the scale value gets, the smaller becomes the randomness with the different color on the dino skin. This depends from the size of the object. The bigger the model was built in modeler the bigger you should set that value here.
The 2nd. "T" at Diffuse: the diffuse channel has the same job to do as the color channel here I also use the Fractal Noise-Texture as mentioned above. We want to achieve a random light diffusion so the surface reflects and absorbs the light differently Through that you achieve that the skin reflects more and on some parts it reflects less the light like it happens also in nature. Comparable with a dusty car: the dusty parts are dim where it's not dusty it reflects light. That's the way it works here too.	ref.:7.3
I dare to doubt that dino was clean from head till toe... the smaller the scale value the smaller are the absorbing parts. That's why i decided to take a value of 1m to let the dim and glossy parts look more real.
the 3rd "T" at Specularity: same as above here I almost can't add anything besides that the scale value is bigger be cause i want the specularity to be bigger.

The 4th "T" at Bump: now its getting really interesting.. Here should be said, that you need some experience in choosing the right procedural textures. Learning by doing!!!Don't be afraid! Why the heck "crumble"? If you take some reference pictures of the dino skin or some lizard skin , then you will notice a lot of bumps. No, not only the reptiles had scales they were even found on bigger dinosaurs in some fossilization. For that purpose we best use the crumble texture which produces those scales. But be sure to set a minus in texture value.
That causes that the bump map will be rised instead of lowering them which is exactly what we need for the scale bumps. If you don't put the minus you will get the opposite which means that the bumps will be lowered and you get the impression that the dino is made out of stone.
TIP: With that texture type u can achieve great rock or water surfaces.
and why STClouds? ...will think some of you. What have clouds to do with a dino skin? The solution is found in the parameters of STClouds. The trick with that texture is the parameter: cloud type.If you chose Jet Trails then u get a kind of scars pattern which we can use perfectly for the wrinkles of the dino skin. IMPORTANT: both layers need to be in additive blending mode. The layers in Lightwave work as they do in Adobe^Ž Photoshop^Ž .
Now if leave the setting to the default Normal, then the first layer is displayed stronger than the one beneath the second. The additive function adds both layers with the same strength and will be "copied" into each other so they are displayed as one homogenize layer. Well, if this would be a game, then you would see : GAME OVER ... i hope u enjoyed my tutorial
That's how your picture could look like if its composed into a real photograph. ADDON: The details of the legs were done with BandSaw Pro. Here u can't use the knife tool because it causes more then 4-point-polygons and then nurbing gets difficult. BandSaw Pro has the ability to select and if wanted to divide the selected polygons in a kind of a "band" - Advantage compared to the knife tool: u can add details without destroying the 4-polygon structure for better nurbing (tab-key). Well i hope i could show a way of fast modeling and happy painting and god bless [dedicated to Mr. Bob Ross who died 1996] FINISH Thanks a lot for reading and let me know if this tutorial helped you. So long yours Marcus Carra Special thanks to my friends who helped me translating this: Michael Jabbour mike.j@aon.at DIS dis@realm-of-dis.com