ThunderChild
Active Member
I finally got back to doing some work on my massive to-do list.
Eventually we'll get to the build pics, but first I think some might benefit from seeing a brief overview of my design process when working with game-ripped models.
First up, the actual model from the game. I absolutely loath game models for conversion to paper. The most awful aspect is overlapping parts:
Again, this is just my opinion and personal preference, if you are comfortable spending time correcting such a model, I truly am happy for you. I have actually come across the odd ripped model that was fun to build, but for me that's the exception, not the rule.
What I do is create my own mesh using the original as a reference. Not only is it much quicker, but it also allows me to know exactly what my model does, that the faces/verts/edges are aligned and that I won't get any funky surprises during the unfold process.
It also allows me to bypass some of those nasty excess detail that, unless you are building a model that's measured in meters or yards, will make the model nigh impossible to build. Here's what I mean:
Dont worry about the missing detail, it get's added in the textures.
Because after the new mesh is ready and textured, it gets unfolded in pepa. Unfortunately another problem with game-ripped textures is low resolution some of the time, so after exporting the unfolded pages from pepakura, the actual hard work begins. in Photoshop I do the cleaning up, texture correction, part placement guides, adding extra details etc:
Here's a comparison pic between the game mesh and my own mesh:
That's it for now, only thing left on the parts pages are adding part numbers. Next up: The dreaded instructions!
Eventually we'll get to the build pics, but first I think some might benefit from seeing a brief overview of my design process when working with game-ripped models.
First up, the actual model from the game. I absolutely loath game models for conversion to paper. The most awful aspect is overlapping parts:
Again, this is just my opinion and personal preference, if you are comfortable spending time correcting such a model, I truly am happy for you. I have actually come across the odd ripped model that was fun to build, but for me that's the exception, not the rule.
What I do is create my own mesh using the original as a reference. Not only is it much quicker, but it also allows me to know exactly what my model does, that the faces/verts/edges are aligned and that I won't get any funky surprises during the unfold process.
It also allows me to bypass some of those nasty excess detail that, unless you are building a model that's measured in meters or yards, will make the model nigh impossible to build. Here's what I mean:
Dont worry about the missing detail, it get's added in the textures.
Because after the new mesh is ready and textured, it gets unfolded in pepa. Unfortunately another problem with game-ripped textures is low resolution some of the time, so after exporting the unfolded pages from pepakura, the actual hard work begins. in Photoshop I do the cleaning up, texture correction, part placement guides, adding extra details etc:
Here's a comparison pic between the game mesh and my own mesh:
That's it for now, only thing left on the parts pages are adding part numbers. Next up: The dreaded instructions!