3D Modeling: My Creative Process

Introduction

Hello, and thank you for being interested in my content! I'm Aya, pursuing a degree in Game Development with an emphasis on 3D environment modeling for games. I have selected my latest favorite pieces to showcase my creative process in 3D modeling.

Foldable Scooter

I was looking at various concept art for inspiration and found one by @gatring3. I fell in love with its practical and somewhat fantastical design, so I contacted the artist for permission to use it for my project. I really learned a lot from the experience I gained by modeling another’s concept. Since it's foldable, I felt like I should figure out how to make the model actually foldable, instead of just modeling it as I was in the concept art.

So, is it foldable?

I thought it would be better if it could be toggled to show how I designed it to be foldable, so here it is. In the top-down view, you can tell the shell is slightly wider towards the front, and the snail-head part is slightly narrower to match the shape of the shell. The handles can fit inside the snail head as well. I designed the scooter as an electric, chargeable type. Push down the handles, detach the snail head part, and store it in the shell, then fold the middle part, and voilà! That's how it can be folded.

How big is it?

At first, the scooter was planned to be relatively small, like a suitcase. Imagine a rideable electric suitcase. However, that seemed too compact for the 6’ mannequin, so I changed it to be more like a normal scooter, but foldable. The model consists of 22,235 tris. Reference images and modeling WIP are below.

I admit that I'm not a mechanic, and I realize the rider has to bend awkwardly to ride it because the handles are much shorter than the seating area compared to real scooters. But remember, it's a practical yet fantastical vehicle. At least that's how I convinced myself and kept working on it.

Realistic or Stylized Texture

As I shifted to the texturing process, I was torn between aiming for realistic, or stylized textures. I started with shiny textures, switched to matte textures, but finally settled on a balance between the two.

Because the shell is the largest part of the model, I wanted it to have some subtle depth. So, I created a hand-painted tileable texture before starting to paint it in Substance Painter. I also used all the techniques that I learned at my university. Below is my model with only the base color material and the final result. Some close-up shots follow.

And these are two 2k and one 1k textures. From left to right: Base Color, Height, Normal, ORM, (Specular).

Japanese Storefront

I modeled this in one of my favorite classes at AAU: Texture and Light. I finally was able to grasp the 3D modeling workflow by doing this project, because I had to use everything I had learned up to that point. Additionally, this project had specific constraints for height, width, depth, and triangle count. We needed to stay below 20,000 tris, and mine turned out to be 19,936 tris. Pretty close!

How this project started...

First, I had to get my reference approved. The instructor looked over my choices and selected the one that would work best for this project. After that, I gathered references for different areas. I didn't have experience in modeling exteriors at this point, so I visited many architects' websites to learn more about scaling, materials, and even the techniques and history behind their inventions.

I found an image on the Internet and decided to model this particular building because I wanted to try creating a Japanese storefront. As I kept researching, I started building stories for my version of the storefront, such as what kind of people would visit here, the time of day they might come, who the owner would be, etc.

Modeling for Games

For this project, I focused on optimizing the model. This included deleting any parts that wouldn't be visible to players and removing irrelevant edge loops. However, I also learned that it was important to retain some edge loops to avoid stretched textures.

Baking in Substance Painter and Maya

To include as many details as possible within the constraints, I had to get creative. In addition to adding wrinkles in ZBrush and baking them in Substance Painter, I created exterior wall textures by baking them in Maya and painted the bamboo shade from scratch. It was a time-consuming step, but necessary to achieve the desired see-through effect using alpha transparency.

Because I was instructed to set a texel density of 5.12 or 10.24 pixels for this project, I stuck with 5.12 for everything. Efficient UV layouts were also mandatory for this class, and I learned a lot by doing this. The textures below show, from left to right: Base Color, (Emissive), Height, Normal, ORM.

Conclusion

Thank you for taking the time to view my creative process in 3D modeling. I hope you enjoyed seeing the journey and the final results of my projects.