I had a hard time at first, but then after I fixed a couple of mistakes I made with the speakers, everything came out nicely. Now I want to create a STNG (Star Trek the next generation) tricorder. Plenty of reference photos on the internet. Can you do a tutorial on how to model neoclassical cathedral type buildings with the rose window and vaulted ceilings and columns?
Hi Paul,
Glad you liked this Course!
The tricorder might be a nice new project for you, you'll be facing plenty of new challenges and modeling something by yourself, without the guidance of a tutorial is already a lot harder than you'd expect. You should definitely do that, that's a really good way to learn.
That being said, a cathedral is almost certainly out of your reach at this moment;; first do maybe the Core Modeling and then maybe the Pothead Course. That'll give you a bit of a basis; You won't be at the cathedral level though. That is rather advanced.
I'd even dare to say that, as long as you still need a tutorial, you won't be ready for a cathedral. (Even finding usable reference is hard 😉)
Usually we think that following a tutorial on exactly what we want to do is the answer, but really the best thing to do is learn all the general rules of modeling and topology and try to do it yourself. Because watching someone else do it, you'll just be copying and not learning that much. When it comes to modeling, you're doing the same thing over and over and using just a small selection of tools over and over, it's not like it changes from model to model, it's all the same, the things you use to model a dog are the same you use to model a cathedral. So just learn the basics, practice a lot and let your brain start to "get it" when it comes to how to model stuff in 3D.
2 more things to keep in mind...
1) If you want to do a building like a cathedral, why not try a couple of smaller, simpler buildings to start. The simpler building might use skills you've already learned and still have a thing or two to teach you about buildings specifically. So before trying to do something as complicated as a cathedral, try doing a house, then maybe an apartment building. Once you have a feel for what you need for buildings, then you can tackle a more complicated one.
2) Any "big" project can often be broken up into several smaller projects or parts. So figure out how you could break it down into smaller parts that you know how to do and then combine those smaller parts into a bigger piece. For example, if I wanted to do a living room, I could break it down into a cabinet for the enteraiment area, all the diferent things I'd put on that, a coffee table, a sofa, a chair or two, a side table, some lamps, etc. Each one of these might be a quick project that I could combine into a larger project. For something like a castle or a cathedral, I might figure out what pieces I could put together if I had them to "kit bash" something that looked right, and those pieces of the kitbash would be the different "smaller, easier" projects along the way.
A large part of just about any project, once you at least know the basics of modeling, can simply be broken down into doing these two things... something a bit bigger or different than what you've done before but still mostly the same (with maybe a bit of new learnings that help you with a specific problem you have along the way) and combining a bunch of little projects into one big one. Rinse and repeat. Over and over.
Before you run off to try to find a "tutorial" on how to do it... why not try a project (doesn't even have to be the one you want to do.. just an intermediate stepping stone) using what you've already learned and see how far you can go before you run into a challenge. And then if you run into a challenge, figure out just what you need to overcome that challenge. You might surprise yourself with what you can already do!
Yes, breaking things down!
As for cathedrals, think 'compass and ruler' design, so for example, for a ceiling, take some half circles and connect them:
The windows start like this:
You can also learn a lot of useful techniques from the (modeling part of the) treasure chest Course: https://cgcookie.com/courses/modeling-texturing-and-shading-a-treasure-chest-in-blender-2-8
But like I said, I'd postpone any cathedral project, until you have some (read: a lot!) more experience. And even then, start smaller, like Grady says, with a (few) house(s), for instance