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Guide for 3D modelling (request)

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#1

This is a guide to teach those who wish to learn about modelling. The amount of times I've been asked to teach someone how to do this or what program to use is just too much. So this is slightly orientated towards garrysmod but the theory behind the basics can be applied to whatever you want. I've split this into sections so its easier to understand. This is from my personal experience so I will try to stay neutral as possible with each program. Keep in mind that the ratings I give is based off MY experiance with the programs and will not be very accurate as it depends on the user.

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In this section, I will explain the 4 main programs that a lot of modellers use today for garrysmod and other respective applications/games.

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MODELLING TOOLS: 7/10

UI AND EASE OF NAVIGATION: 6/10

SUPPORT FOR SOURCE GAMES: 9/10

RANGE OF PLUGINS AVAILABLE: 9/10

PRICE: FREE

DOWNLOAD LINK/STORE PAGE

Blender is a widely used program by many modellers. It’s easy to use layout makes it a primary choice for modelling for games. Its large community provides a large amount of 3rd party plugins including a powerful toolkit for importing into source engine. If you are a newbie and want to learn about 3D, this is the program to learn.

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MODELLING TOOLS: 8/10

UI AND EASE OF NAVIGATION: 8.8/10

SUPPORT FOR SOURCE GAMES: 5/10

RANGE OF PLUGINS AVAILABLE: 8/10

PRICE: $3695 - £2800 - €3256 – TRIAL AVAILABLE

DOWNLOAD LINK/STORE PAGE

Cinema 4D is a very popular program for when it comes to creating content for TV and media. It’s used heavily for private and commercial projects and sometimes for film VFX. Its layout can be a bit daunting for newbies but becomes very easy once you’ve learnt the basics. Although the program isn’t used for games as much, it is still a powerful program and does have the support for exporting into source games but requires you to purchase a 3rd party plugin. It also has a very nice and easy integration with many adobe products so you can easily import and export AI (illustrator files) for logos and vector work.

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MODELLING TOOLS: 9.8/10

UI AND EASE OF NAVIGATION: 8/10

SUPPORT FOR SOURCE GAMES: 8/10

RANGE OF PLUGINS AVAILABLE: 8/10

PRICE: £186 (monthly) - £1500 (1 year) – £2850 (2 years) - £4050 (3 years) – TRIAL AVAILABLE

DOWNLOAD LINK/STORE PAGE

Autodesk Maya is the most powerful 3D application. It is the industry standard program so that means it’s used by a lot of well-known CGI companies and film companies including Warner Bros, Pixar, Disney animation studios and so on. It has a free source engine exporter and importer. Although the UI is quite tricky to get your head around, if you want to be the best, I would highly recommend learning Maya. Not only for garrysmod, but if you wish to pursue a career in 3D modelling.

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MODELLING TOOLS: 9.5/10

UI AND EASE OF NAVIGATION: 4/10

SUPPORT FOR SOURCE GAMES: 9/10

RANGE OF PLUGINS AVAILABLE: 8.4/10

PRICE: £204 (monthly) - £1662 (1 year) – £3156 (2 years) - £4488 (3 years) – TRIAL AVAILABLE

DOWNLOAD LINK/STORE PAGE

Made by the same company who made Maya, 3DS MAX is primarily used for architecture. Nevertheless it still boasts a powerful modelling toolkit. It’s UI and layout is tricky to learn even for someone with quite a bit of experience such as myself. It has a powerful plugin for exporting in and out of source engine.

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Welcome to hell. Texturing is the process of where you apply materials to your model. Whenever you work with textures, you MUST remember to work in the powers of 2. So this means all games always use an integer of 2 when it comes to texture sizes.

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There are many textures that can be applied which make a model look realistic. Sometimes, if you want to hide something in a model, textures usually are the best way to go around it (although I DON’T recommend this).

Heres a link explaining the different texture maps

I bet your thinking "but whats so hard about this?!?". Texturing itself isnt too hard, whats hard is making it look real. And then theres the process of UV mapping which was made by the devil himself. UV mapping is the process of turning a 3D model into a 2D texture. How does this work?

You are essentially "mapping" each polygon/face of the model onto a 2D image. This is your texture and from here, you can use photoshop to start texturing/colouring in your model. You can either do an automatic UV map which isnt recommended but it saves time. Heres the shit job that automatic UV mapping does. This is how you should present your UV maps. To be honest, the way you present your UV maps isnt important. Especially for garrysmod anyways because noone is going to look at the texture file and be like . And automatic UV mapping does a half decent job and you can polish it up yourself. You can find tutorials which explain this better than I do online.   enter image description here

Understanding the theory of modelling is very important. Failing to understand the basics of key terms and lack of how to model correctly will result in shit results. Digital tutors has an epic article made for newbies who want to learn 3D. I highly recommend you learn this first before getting into any 3D application.

LINK

You must be able to know what things like topology are, making sure for games you use triangles and not quads, understanding how UV mapping works (your gonna enjoy this), knowing what normal are and so on.

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A small collection of links that explain the basics of each program including actual modelling tutorials to help get you started.

LINK

NOTE: You will have to find tutorials yourself on how to import models into garrysmod mainly because there’s legit a million tutorials for this and the concept is the same. But here is the basic explanation of how source engine models work.

MODEL > SMD + .QC = MDL

MODEL: This is your model file. It can be imported as an OBJ, FBX, DAE etc.

SMD: This is the model format your model MUST be exported in. This is the premodel before importing.

.QC: Think of this as like the instruction manual for your compiler. With this you, will define what you want the model to be named as, where you want it being exported to, any bones for a rig that you may have to define, where the materials folder is, any attachements you want to add, how much it should weigh and so on.

MDL: This is your garrysmod model. It usually comes with 6 other files including the MDL itself.

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"But pyro, when will I be on your level?!?"

Well thing is, I'm not that good nor am I the best but I know my stuff and I do the best of what I can and what I know. Whenever it comes to modelling, realism is the key. I cannot stress how important it is to always always always always always always always always always use references. References are images that you use to base your model off. Using blueprints or image planes to create your model is always how you should model. Yes you can model from eye or by memory but the best results come from using references.

Even if you are making some weird ass alien monster with 4 tits and 8 ass cheeks, making sure you understand how anatomy works so understanding muscle proportions, bone structure but that’s only if you move onto making player models.

This is just a very basic tutorial on how todo the basics. I could explain more but I would be here forever and the best way to learn is by reverse engineering and trial and error.

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#2

This is super helpful! Thanks Pyro!

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#3
ByRedat 16th of July 2016 16:25:57
This is super helpful! Thanks Pyro!

Welcome :)

#4

I appreciate that you've put this guide together, as 3D modeling can be pretty hard to get into. However, I'd like to clarify a few things:

Whenever you work with textures, you MUST remember to work in the powers of 2. So this means all games always use an integer of 2 when it comes to texture sizes.

I'm not sure if you meant all games using Source Engine here, but I think Source is unique in requiring textures' dimensions to be powers of two. There may be a few other games/engines that require this, but by no means do all games have this requirement.

To be honest, the way you present your UV maps isnt important. Especially for garrysmod anyways because noone is going to look at the texture file and belike.

I don't know what you mean by "present" here, but you provided an image of a UV map as an example. I wouldn't say the layout of the UV map isn't important. Mapping a flat plane (the texture) on to a 3D model isn't a perfect process. Some distortion will occur, and if you're not careful with your UV mapping then the distortion could be very pronounced and/or in an important position on the model (e.g. the face). Of course if you don't care about stretching or other distortions of your texture, then sure, do whatever you want.

Thanks again for this great resource!

#5
Byroastchickenat 16th of July 2016 22:07:02
I appreciate that you've put this guide together, as 3D modeling can be pretty hard to get into. However, I'd like to clarify a few things:I'm not sure if you meant all games using Source Engine here, but I think Source is unique in requiring textures' dimensions to be powers of two. There may be a few other games/engines that require this, but by no means doallgames have this requirement.I don't know what you mean by "present" here, but you provided an image of a UV map as an example. I wouldn't say the layout of the UV map isn't important. Mapping a flat plane (the texture) on to a 3D model isn't a perfect process. Some distortion will occur, and if you're not careful with your UV mapping then the distortion could be very pronounced and/or in an important position on the model (e.g. the face). Of course if you don't care about stretching or other distortions of your texture, then sure, do whatever you want.Thanks again for this great resource!

Thanks for the feedback. But as far as I know nearly all games are using power of 2 textures mainly because it better suits the graphic pipeline. I know source engine can resize textures to fit the model when you import them but its a good practise to use 2^ texture sizes and when I meant the UV map I meant as in its UV tidiness. Ofc everything has to be proportionate but i meant things like layout of where everything should be. Auto UV mapping mode does a shit job of this as it can accurately map everything but at the expensence of a shit UV layout.

#6

we should have a section for guides. nice job, very helpful info.

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#7
ByII_PYRO_IIat 16th of July 2016 23:10:50
Thanks for the feedback. But as far as I know nearly all games are using power of 2 textures mainly because it better suits the graphic pipeline. I know source engine can resize textures to fit the model when you import them but its a good practise to use 2^ texture sizes

It used to be that graphic cards required image dimensions to be powers of two. Source is an old engine, so it makes sense that it requires it/works best with it.

Today's graphics cards can handle non-power-of-two image dimensions just fine, so choosing to use power of two image dimensions today (if the engine doesn't require it) is likely misguided.

You can read more about the subject here: (keep in mind most of these responses are from 4-5 years ago)

Should I use textures not sized to a power of 2? - Game Development Stack Exchange

Why are textures always square powers of two? What if they aren't? - Game Development Stack Exchange

ByII_PYRO_IIat 16th of July 2016 23:10:50
Auto UV mapping mode does a shit job of this as it can accurately map everything but at the expensence of a shit UV layout.

Well, I'd be cautious with it. As far as I know Blender's Auto-UV doesn't detect detail or anything, so it can't make a good decision as to where the UV map should be distorted, meaning that you could get obvious distortion artifacts.

#8
Byroastchickenat 19th of July 2016 06:57:12
It used to be that graphic cards required image dimensions to be powers of two. Source is an old engine, so it makes sense that it requires it/works best with it.Today's graphics cards can handle non-power-of-two image dimensions just fine, so choosing to use power of two image dimensions today (if the engine doesn't require it) is likely misguided.You can read more about the subject here:(keep in mind most of these responses are from 4-5 years ago)Should I use textures not sized to a power of 2? - Game Development Stack ExchangeWhy are textures always square powers of two? What if they aren't? - Game Development Stack ExchangeWell, I'd be cautious with it. As far as I know Blender's Auto-UV doesn't detect detail or anything, so it can't make a good decision as to where the UV map should be distorted, meaning that you could get obvious distortion artifacts.

Hmm makes sense that. My practise has always been work in powers of 2. But I guess it doesnt really matter. And I know for sure that all auto UV mappers are different since Ive seen this myself. Ive used both maya and cinema 4d for Uv mapping and I can surely say that they have different algorithms to UV'ing a mesh. Some are better than others with each having pros and cons but I get where you are coming from

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