[WIP]first map(no name)

[Sub-Zero]

anyways i've been learning 3ds max for awhile well 3 months and i ran into halo ce so i looked at some of the multiplayer maps, and hek for about a month to learn the tools. So i started to create a map (my first halo ce map).
its alittle early to show but i decided to show it anyways even though i have bases that are being fixed up with more detail, and also with the terrain, but im trying to keep it as halo 1 simple as possible.

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic1-5.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic2-4.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic4-1.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic3-2.png

[NuggetWarmer]

Looks pretty nice for your first. Add some more variation in what cliffs you've already gotten made and add some in the ones you will make. Your forerunner needs work too. I suggest chamfering some of the edges.

[jngrow]

Make a wireframe render. I can't tell if that terrain is a bagillion polys or not. Looks ok so far, but still pretty hard to judge. The bases look interesting, even if not following forerunner law to the last inch.

[SnaFuBAR]

need some wireframes. as far as i see, your terrain is too high poly, and there's an over-abuse of the noise modifier. that's not modeling, it's letting the program do randomness for you. plugging in numbers into a feature isn't really modeling.

As for the structures... don't use chamfer if you don't understand it. best thing for you to do is to manually edit and model. don't rely on feature sets to get you anywhere, because it's only fumbling around until something looks "right", which doesn't sharpen your skill set, it hinders you. the designs of the structures are pretty boring, they need a lot of work, or even redoing. they all look like boxes with 45 degree chamfers on the edges. not very interesting.

keep practicing. start modeling manually.

[Sub-Zero]

there are only 6,500 polygons, but yes there are quite a lot of polygons on the ground.

and no i didnt use the noise modifier, but i guess i can learn how to create polys without and modifiers.

[Ki11a_FTW]

6500 polygons is to much for what you show us in the pic, like snaf said, dont let the program randomize things for you

and the structures dont seem that forerunner to me, the cylinders like that dont really match the forerunner style if thats what your aiming for, but for the rest of the structures, they dont give the feel to much either..i cant really point out the problem..but they dont look right to me, keep practicing.

[Sub-Zero]

k i understand. thanks for the crit guys.

[Sel]

This is an excellent first map, way better than mine. Your terrain is okay, but your structures really arent that pleasing, work on those some more.

[paladin]

Try to make your ground and cliffs look more organic and natural, respectively.

[Gamerkd16]

I see open edges. ;)

[Sub-Zero]

^lol i bet your right.

[Tweek]

I see open edges. ;)
OH GOD NO, NOT OPEN EDGES!!!

meh, it's some kind of a start, don't let the polygon budget hold you back, the # of polygons actually makes a surprisingly low impact on everything.

your structures seem to lack any sort of definition, and it's mostly just some square thingymajiggys stacked ontop of eachother with an odd rounded thing somewhere.

doesn't matter though, close it up, and texure it a bit, so you get more of a feel for the rest of the pipeline.

you'll feel good about yourself when it's ingame, even though it'll suck.

[Gamerkd16]

Uh, it was a joke. Based on the exact phrase he said in that other WIP thread. Irony, heard of it much?

[Apoc4lypse]

hmm, the map mesh is actually fairly impressive when you take into consideration you started learning to 3d model 3 months ago. I'd still need to see a wire frame though, just to get a better look at the mesh. Currently its a decent start, but the organics need to be more "organicy" there not smooth enough they need to flow more naturally, and the round cylinder type structures are bothering me a bit...

Also snaf is right the ground looks noise modified, or at least you used soft selection and dragged some vertices's on the z axis up and down to make it lumpy. Instead of trying to make randomness, make it controlled randomness (the ground I'm talking about if that makes any sense). Like hills and such that players could use for cover, elevated spots to give player advantage, or just in general land formations that look interesting.

Also even though it really doesn't matter like tweek said 6500 polys is still too much for something as simple as that. As you get better at modeling try to learn how to maximize your poly usage. IE: Don't have flat planes with a bunch of polys when 1 or 2 polys would be enough to create the same exact mesh.

EDIT: one other thing, try to study forerunner structures more, the current bases (if they were even meant to be forerunner) are sort of just boxy creations with not much purpose, try to figure out what the structures are there for, then design them around that. Then again the layout should be considered first too.

All in all its a good start.

[Sub-Zero]

okay i talked to some people about forerunner modeling and terrain in general...so im reduing the terrain and structures. heres pics of the remade flag base i made.

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic2-5.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic1-6.png

yes some parts of the bases are alittle blocky and stuff so im still going to add detail to it. o and if you wanted a wireframe of the crappy old terrain suit yourself here ya go

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/untitled.png

[Ki11a_FTW]

:o there is no way you modeled that so fast, major improvement

[Sub-Zero]

i modeled for 4 hours. (waste of life) instead of the 45 minutes i did on those other bases.

[Jay2645]

That actually looks... Nice. Watch one of the modeling gods prove me wrong, but good work!

[Apoc4lypse]

its pretty good, but you seem a little bit cocky the way your responding to some of the requests...

All of it seems pretty nice to me, in exception of the cylinders and the cliff sections, there just flat, they don't transition to the ground nicely.

[Sub-Zero]

cocky? okay i guess i was alittle sorry about that.

[SnaFuBAR]

okay i talked to some people about forerunner modeling and terrain in general...so im reduing the terrain and structures. heres pics of the remade flag base i made.

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic2-5.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic1-6.png

yes some parts of the bases are alittle blocky and stuff so im still going to add detail to it. o and if you wanted a wireframe of the crappy old terrain suit yourself here ya go

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/untitled.png

the bases are just more boxy extrusions with more angles, it's the same exact thing, just more of it. the density of the terrain mesh would be appropriate only in a few places. it's kind of wasteful, honestly. though if you were keeping your map this small it'd be fine.

keep practicing. still nothing special.

[Sel]

Those bases are pretty good, but you really should chamfer some of those edges, too boxy right now :\

[Mass]

Add some panels to the base and chamfer some edges.

But the root problem with that base is that you're adding intrest to an ugly, boring shape and not accentuating the shape of an intesing figure.

[Sel]

Simply what massacre is saying, is that if you can overlay the top view of the base with a box, or boxes, youre not doing it right, there are of course exceptions, but this is not one of them.

Either way, its not a bad start and this could turn out to be kinda interesting.

[Sub-Zero]

sorry i dont know alot of the modeling tactics you guys do around here since alot of you know how to make levels for ce.

[beele]

Looks very good, keep it up :)

[Tweek]

theres no set-in-stone wat to go about doing things, but that doesnt excuse a bad result of whatever technique you're using.

if you find a certain technique to be flawed for something, find another way of doing it.

[Apoc4lypse]

this is true, method is important, but in the end if the result doesn't look good then you need to re-think what exactly your trying to make. For example the base or structure you created has a decent basic shape imo, but its still just boxes like everyone has pointed out. What is it that you see thats wrong with it when you look at it?

To me its the fact that every surface is flat, theres nothing really interesting, each extruded section leads to more flat bland walls, I do see some interesting shapes but thats about it. The reason I'm guessing for this is your not putting enough thought into the structure, and your not giving it enough purpose. If it had purpose or you gave it a purpose, then you would be able to create more detail on the walls. Its missing detail with purpose basically. I don't know, I can't exactly tell you what to make because its your model.

Right now to me it looks like an entrance to some sort of structure that could have some sort of purpose, also the grate at the bottom is sort of suggesting there will be water running underneath it and through the interior of the structure. If its going to be an entrance its missing decoration I think.

[Sub-Zero]

im going to post some pics of my other structure...which im adding detail, and chamfers. to it right now as we speak.


http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic3-3.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic2-6.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic1-7.png

[SnaFuBAR]

looks a lot better. i'm liking the positive and negative space there as well.

[Bodzilla]

i know what you mean snaf

that's looking pretty good dude :)
+rep

[Chainsy]

I like it, I could never model any of that stuff in a million years, Im 3d challenged.

[SuperSunny]

...wow! You've improved in such short time, and it's so good!

[TheRMBFurion]

I can safely say that you have a decent looking model there, nice detailing, good attentiveness to shape, I like how that looks so far.

[Phopojijo]

Definitely looks really good.

I think you're getting it too... there's no "set way" to model. Some people tend to develop a style... rather -- almost everyone tends to develop a style... yet it doesn't necessarily mean one style's better than another.

I've even seen someone plane-model a biped. No joke... and it looked great.

I wouldn't recommend plane modeling a biped as a good method to start out with... :p but it has been done, and done well.

That being said you obviously know what you're doing, since you seem to be much better than I am at 3D.
{I tend to make things too low poly :p}

[Bad Waffle]

It takes about three years of modelling to develop a full, rounded style. Look at my work, and you can probably even notice my influences pretty quickly.

And don't listen to phopo on the plane modelling of bipeds, the best way to do it is roughing it out with primitives like cylinders. In fact, cylinders are all you really need. One day im going to make a video where i model a complete character.

[Corndogman]

yes primitives are good for the body of a character but i would plane model the face/head of a character i think. seems easier to me. its really just directing the edge flow using connect and cut to make natural looking details on your character.

[jngrow]

im going to post some pics of my other structure...which im adding detail, and chamfers. to it right now as we speak.


http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic3-3.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic2-6.png

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/dapimppope/pic1-7.png
Looks awesome! +rep, huge improvement.

[paladin]

I like what you've done. It looks very promising.