modern NYBT?

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Simcoug - thanks   (and noted )

Lot Creator - my apologies for taking this random, misplaced BAT request off-topic by posting an actual BAT .. anywho...

PBGV103 - Thanks...Yeah, this shape is always going to be a bit tricky. All the materials have bump maps already (Except for the bricks on the central structures). I just did a bit of reading, a few people have suggested lowering the blur, as well as increasing the sampling. I've gone to extremes  .. Blur of 0.01 and sampling of 256. It seems to be better on the less-sharp angles, but on the really sharp angles there's no real perceivable difference... hmmm dunno... . I don't have a lot of experience with displacement maps, I'll give it a go.

Huston - thanks .. I'll do some more tweaks

Tony - Thanks

 

Next, I think I'll BAT the entire Liberty Island, rocks and plants and all, that always seems to go down well...

 

 

 

 

(Yep, that was a joke)

[Hotwheeler 409]

Squeeeeeeak...the Statue (or whats already done of it ) looks really great.Love the details of the foundation so far.

Can't wait to plop the finished lady liberty in my NY region.

About your joke: there are a bunch of buildings and other structures on the island that might be worth to be recreated...

However great work my friend, i'm always amazed by your batting skills.

[Lot Creator 304]

@Reddonquixote

 

Somehow I doubt that would be your fault, it seems the lack of those modern midrises and the renovation of maxis landmarks are quite obivous once we are this stage of BATness(3Dsmax level, HD rendering, nitelite, etc) and thus I could safely say this topic is really about adding those details to our cities instead of focusing on 50~100 story buildings. By the way, I do like how you are going with the statue, rather a refreshing take on the monument.

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Gotta agree with SimCoug. The sandstone/bricks whatever look very "this is a nice poster on your wall"-ish

[Seraf 1,239]

 

 (although I'll have you know that I will be nagging you about architectural details

 

Yes please   I'm actually surprised how little reference materials there are for such a famous monument. There are plenty of references for the statue and pedestal but not so much for the podium / base. There also appears to be conflicting references, some have no staircases, some have one, and some have both. I've obviously made an assumption the two staircases are most recent additions and have included them. I can't quite work out their sizes accurately though (apart form width), the rest I've pretty much made it up.

 

Although there's lots of references for the pedestal, getting good dimensions has been difficult. As far as I can tell, its 18m around the base, 16m around the top balcony, and according to wikipedia, the pedestal is 27.13m tall. I think these dimensions make it look too squat

 

Anyway, any advice along the way would be great

 

 

Well the base isn't all that important The staircases we can see now are probably from the 60's or later, I have one photo from 1959 that still shows original staircase to the pedestal.

I figured that I could spend the eternity staring at your model and still not find out what exactly is off (in terms of the dimensions that is), so I've made this rough model to help me:

(HD and SD sizes)

 

It appears that your model is overall too short below the circles (I think they wanted to carve seals of forty states on them), also the capitals of great pillars are too short, as is the balustrade around the highest part of the pedestal. The part of the pedestal that statue stands on is an octagon, not rectangle I think that would be it... ah yes, the little "houses" above circles should be sloped []

Good work on the textures

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Thanks Seraf, thats very helpful, great pick-up on the octagonal shape    Luckily these aren't too hard to fix

 

Now for something a little bit frivolous.. but that's ok... a bit of frivolity never hurt anyone . I know the ornamentations are a bit exaggerated, but kind of needs to be for when it gets to BAT scale.

 

[SimCoug 5,976]

Nice!  Can't wait to see the torch at night... unless you are planning on a street lamp version like your Cristo Redentor model 

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

I guess one of your step by step tut thread would be in order here.

[tonyr 926]

It's coming along beautifully, Red.

[Sgt Pepper 864]

This is going to be stunning! Great work thus far!

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Thanks

 

Now for the hardest thing I've ever had to make.. oh my goodness

 

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Double-post.. here's the flame and some early copper textures:

 

[Charlie_Zane 963]

Oh goodness that flame texture is absolutely incredible! Amazing work as always, Red!

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Almost a triple post.. here's the book

 

 

I think I've run out of things.. time for the statue

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Wondering hoy you got the dimension of the hardest thing ever. Isn't it hard for you since you have to polymodell everything (because of the very diffuicult shape? I'd really be interested how you managed)

[SimCoug 5,976]

The flame texture looks brilliant!  

Great stuff!

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Thanks

 

Wondering hoy you got the dimension of the hardest thing ever. Isn't it hard for you since you have to polymodell everything (because of the very diffuicult shape? I'd really be interested how you managed)

 

The reason why it was so hard is I had a few really difficult problems to solve along the way. At a couple of points I really got stumped on how to proceed. Also, it's very far from perfect still, but I've stopped at this point because I think its going to be good enough for BAT scale. If it was going to be a full scale model I'd need to do more work on it.

 

To make the actual crown:

1) I started with a long box poly, divided into 27 sections. That's 25 windows and a closed section at each end. It also had 5 height sections.

2) In the side view, I contoured one side of the box so it makes that curving ridged shape that faces outwards on the crown.

3) I created an arch-shaped poly using a cylinder, sliced in half and extruded out the bottom. I replicated it 25 times and fit each one inside a window section.

4) I turned the long box into a pro-boolean and subtracted the arches to make the cutouts of the windows.

5) I attached cylindrical shapes to each end of the box to make the ends of the crown, and squashed a sphere and placed at both end to make the large buttons. I used a long plane to fit the window glass, with 5 height sections also contoured to the shape of the window in the side view. Then I attached all these together into a single object.

• At this stage I've nearly made the entire crown as a straight piece (as opposed to a curved crown) The mistake I made here, a few times, is I tried to do step 5 after I'd already curved the crown. I kept going back to step 5 multiple times.
• I used stacked modifiers probably for the first time in a model. This really helped because rather than having to keep starting again from scratch, I just deleted the unwanted modifiers. Its like a really powerful 'undo' function (The trick is to keep adding Edit Poly modifiers for anyone that's not done this before. Largely unnecessary for most BATs though)

To make the curving crown shape:

6) I added a Quadify Mesh** modifier.

7) I added a Bend modifier. This gives the crown its rounded shape.

8 ) I added a Taper modifier, with Primary Taper Axis 'X', and Effect 'Z'. This makes the crown taller in front and shorter at the sides. I used a negative value Amount and zero Curve on the taper.

9) I added a 2nd Taper modifier, with Primary Taper Axis 'Z', Effect 'Y', zero Amount, and positive value Curve. This didn't work as well on the final version of the model, but what this does is flatten out the ridge contours at the sides of the crown, a problem I found especially challenging.

10) To makes the spikes, I created a large, flat cylinder, sliced in half, with 28 sides. At the fifth side from the end, and every 2 sides after that, I selected a poly, then used Bevel to extrude the spikes.

11) I grouped the objects together and tilted the entire model, probably about 15 degrees.

 

**The biggest problem here was bending and tapering the model kept resulting in stretching, tearing and deforming of the poly's. After a few attempts to fix this problem, I discovered the Quadify Mesh modifier (trial and error basically). I set it to 1%, but what this does is make a really tight mesh for the model, enabling more controlled deformations.

 

Here's the straight crown piece, before and after the Quadify Mesh modifier. (This is a really early version of the model though)

 

Here's the full final version in wireframe mode:

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

You really seem to have nothing to do, right?

[SimCoug 5,976]

Your like a modeling Michelangelo!  

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Wow.. Michaelangelo is my all time favourite so I take that as an extreme compliment

 

Here's the head. I made this in Z-brush and imported into 3DS Max in case you're wondering It's lost a bit of detail during the import but should be fine for BAT scale.

 

[TCD 123]

Very impressive. That crown is very complex looking and sounds like it was a pain to get just right. Can you post some shots of the Z-brush model?

[cmdp123789 710]

OMG! is this even real? You are awesome! I cant believe you are actually doing it.. and in like 2 days..

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Here's the model in z-brush.

 

The red one is the clay model. The white one is with a material applied. The bluish one is the closest to a wireframe in z-brush.

 

Not sure if you know z-brush but its a very different modelling technique to the poly-modelling/ spline modelling we're used to in 3DS Max. You basically start with a ball, and you mold it into shape the same way you would a piece of clay.

 

 

There's a very cool time lapse video on youtube

[SimCoug 5,976]

That's insane!  You would give Michelangelo a run for his money if he were stuck in front of a desktop

[TCD 123]

Here's the model in z-brush.

 

The red one is the clay model. The white one is with a material applied. The bluish one is the closest to a wireframe in z-brush.

 

Not sure if you know z-brush but its a very different modelling technique to the poly-modelling/ spline modelling we're used to in 3DS Max. You basically start with a ball, and you mold it into shape the same way you would a piece of clay.

 

 

There's a very cool time lapse video on youtube

 

I've used Z-Brush before and I find it's easier to start a low poly model and import it into Z-brush and crank up the polys and start sculpting away. Z-brush is fantastic for baking normal maps.

[Seraf 1,239]

Good job The crown, the torch and flame all look splendid (Just out of curiosity, did you model the door in the torch? )

 

You did very good job on sculpting the face. Z-brush is a powerfull tool, although I think I prefer traditional sculpting to it. The digital sculpting lacks this sense of ... reality. You can't touch the piece you are making, you can't feel it.

 

My only pointers would be to lower her brow ridge (now the face expression is very different from original), her nose is much more squarish in the brigde and verry narrow at the tip But that's only if you really want to make her similiar to the real one, I don't think a model for SC4 requires this

[Hotwheeler 409]

Whoa,next time you better hang up a warning sign for people with weak hearts.

I almost got a heartattack from all this awesomeness.The detailing is mindboggling.I`m just a little bit wondering about the greyish texture you used.In most pictures,the statue looks  more like a bright seafoam green/patina green.Currently the statue looks like it was made out of stone,but this might also be a bug in the settings of my computer screen.

However,you are doing a great job and your BAT will surely find it`s way into many games...

[Reddonquixote 4,339]

Thanks Seraf, yeah I think I want to do a little bit more work on the expression. Not much, but it doesn't have quite the heroic/ noble expression of the original. Ps. I based the model on the original face that is housed inside the statue, rather than the corroded exterior face we see today.

 

Regarding the door in the torch, I assumed there was a door, but I haven't been able to locate an image that shows the door... Also, not sure I have the floral railing quite right atm either, I think it might need to be taller... something

 

Hotwheeler, thanks - You're right about the texture, its only a place-holder texture for now. When its at BAT scale I'll redo it, and it will probably be lighter, bluer, smoother and shinier

[SimCoug 5,976]

Lighter, bluer, smoother, shinier... Sounds like she will be the million dollar lady

[Huston 5,800]

I agree with SimCoug. This statue is gonna be ST's own seventh wonder