3D – Week 3 – Preparing for Assignment 2

This past Tuesday we went to visit the Gotland Museum, and after taking a tour through the museum we got to choose one object that we want to model and texture during our 3D classes. When we’d chosen an object we were to take reference photos of it.

I looked at many different objects, and took a lot of photos of everything that I thought might be interesting to try and model. I realized that there were a couple of objects that many of the other students chose, and I liked the idea of trying to model something other than the most popular items. I wanted to choose something that wouldn’t be too hard to model, as I’m still very new to 3D and unsure about the program. At the same time I didn’t want to choose something that would be too easy to create. There were for example many nice boxes, chests and crates that caught my eye, but as we’ve already been making crates I didn’t want to make another and make it too easy for myself. Even though I didn’t want to choose anything too complicated I still want the model to be a little challenging, so that I’ll have to work a little for what I’m creating.

When I found this collection plate it immediately caught my interest, mainly due to the neatly coloured painting, but also due to its simple shape and the details on the top that might provide the challenge that I’m looking for. It’s a collect from the medieval Gotland, from sometime during the late 1200s or the beginning of the 1300s. It was probably used in a church on the island during the time that Gotland was christened.

I’ve decided to try and model the collect after how it looks in my reference photos, which would be a worn style, something similar to the objects in Uncharted, partly broken and worn by time and usage. I chose this style as I’d very much like to be able to use the photos that I’ve taken of the collect, with its old looks and yet strong and vivid colours, as textures later on when I’ll be texturing the model.

I’d like to emphasize the collects worn and well-used looks, with part of the frame that once framed the painting missing. I won’t however go into so much detail as, say, modelling the edge between the wood and the torn off paint, as those small details don’t provide anything to the collects overall silhouette. I’ll leave the smaller edges to the texture as the difference is so little, and as the collect isn’t any big object where that small difference between the wood and the paint would be visible.

I don’t know of any stereotypes regarding collects, and have a hard time thinking of any stereotype that could affect my model negatively. I intend on trying to keep it simple and as close to the original as I possibly can with my current experience in 3D. There are many stereotypes within Christianity, positive as well as negative, but I’m having trouble seeing how this simple collect could be interpreted in any stereotypical way, as a collect isn’t an object that you would normally encounter in media.

The basic shape of the collect is very straightforward and simple, so I don’t think that I’ll be having any bigger problems with that. What could prove to be more challenging and a bit problematic are the details on the top of the collection plate. I’ll try to model the base and the top separately, so that I won’t destroy the base by accident if I do something wrong with the top. I’ll also be doing the different details separately before welding them together instead of trying to create all of the details from a single block. Whatever the outcome, I’ll be trying to do my best, and hopefully I’ll learn a lot even if something would happen to go very wrong.

MPh out.