Becoming great at anything requires constant practice and that is especially true with 3d modeling. If you're here it's probably because you want to become a better digital artist. I myself want to improve my 3d modeling and texturing skills and that means I need to model a ton in order to become better.
Building a consistent habit is the path to becoming great and with that I wanted to provide a challenge to anyone else here who wants to join me. The challenge will be to model one new 3d model daily for 30 days.
The goal of this is not to create amazingly realistic models, but to get you practicing your modeling skills daily. You are not competing with anyone here but yourself.
Each day this post will be updated with the object to model based on that week. Below are the rules and guidelines to make this more interesting:
Themes
To make this more interesting, every week will focus on one theme. Each theme will represent a set of 7 objects that are relatively easy to model, but each have unique elements to them to challenge you in different ways.
The themes for the next 4 weeks include: Home, Weapons, Props, Nature
Rules
Submissions
Post a rendered image of your completed model. While texturing won't be required, it is highly encouraged.
HOME (June 1 - June 7)
For this week we'll focus on objects found around the home. Typically these objects are relatively easy to model and reference. You are free to get as creative as you want with these as long as you modeling what is requested for that day.
June 1 - Sofa
June 2 - Lamp
June 3 - Book Shelf
June 4 - Coffee Table
June 5 - Lounge Chair
June 6 - Shag Rug
June 7 - Floor Speakers
Week 1 is Done! Congrats on making it through the first week of this modeling challenge. On to week 2.
WEAPONS (June 8 - June 14)
For this week we'll focus on creating hand held weapons. Think melee weapons. These usually have a mixture of primitive and complex shapes. You may use sculpting during these models, and some may actually require it to achieve the look you want.
June 8 - Axe
June 9 - Combat Knife
June 10 - Spear
June 11 - Shuriken
June 12 - Spiked Bat
June 13 - Sickle
June 14 - Nunchucks
PROPS (June 15 - June 21)
This week will be focused on props you might commonly see in games or background scenes. These can be reused to add "filler" to an environment. These props mostly reside outside.
June 15 - Barrels
June 16 - Tires
June 17 - Filled Trash Bags
June 18 - Concrete Barrier
June 19 - Shipping Container
June 20 - Dumpster
June 21 - No Object
June 22 - No Object
Vegetation
This week will be focused on organic plants and objects you'd find out in nature. Think of these as natural props.
June 23 - Grass Clumps
June 24 - Rocks
June 25 - Flowers
June 26 - Bushes
June 27 - Hollow Log
June 28 - Vines
June 29 - Trees
CHALLENGE COMPLETED
This officially ends the challenge, technically it's 29 days but we have another challenge starting up on Monday so use Sunday as a way to gather reference photos and start your next modeling challenge with vehicles!
Thank you for everyone that participated in this challenge. Some objects were easy, others were challenging and I hope you learned some new tips and techniques. This challenge was about keeping a habit going and learning some new techniques and use different tools to create something you may not have otherwise. It was great seeing all the new renders on a daily basis. Good or bad, you've created something and that's what matters. See you all in the next challenge!
jgonzalez Smoothness in Unity is literally just the inverse of roughness. I'm not sure why Unity decided to stick with that instead of roughness like pretty much everything else, but there you go. If it looks wrong you just need to invert it. iirc metallic / metalness maps are the same in Unity as everywhere else. Don't forget to set any of the texture nodes in Blender (except the base color) to 'non-color', else the results can be slightly off. Another thing is that Blender uses OpenGL to calculate the normals, which flips the green channel I believe. I'm not sure which one Unity uses atm. You can choose between DirectX and OpenGL in Substance's project settings.
Besides that, sometimes Unity's renderer just makes the material look slightly different than in Substance / Blender, which just requires some tweaking.
williamatics What if you want a rough edgy look? Can that be achieved by still using a sub-surf?
here is my attempt at nunchucks, the chain needs work, etc. but I learn as I go. This challenge is proving to be more fun then I thought.
Tried wooden handles, but found it too boring, so experimented a bit, trying ivory ones. Took a lomg time to render due to the SSS and I am not overly pleased with the result, but, for one day it's sort of o.k., I think...
Now I'll have to skip 4 days, because I'm going to Blenderland, but I'll be back!
mmonaloren Apart from the chain, it's a beautiful picture! I'm kinda jealous;)
( You could try Rigid Body Physics for the chain next time, there are many tutorials about chain simulations out there...)
This is what I get for spending all my time playing with rigid body chains. It still explodes instantly despite playing around with the Calculations per Second and the margin. Also made sure the scale was applied and the individual origins are at the geometry. Any advice?
train30 I had the exact same thing happen to me. I used mesh for the rigidbody shape, convex, tried passive and everything went wonky. The handles themselves also had issues, they would create this weird vibration effect as if they never settled onto a flat surface. Blender crash on me quite a few times so I gave up and just manually placed the chain.
jgonzalez Were you working in true scale (with like half inch wide chain links)? That's what I was trying. This morning I played around with 2 meter wide chain links and they seem to be much more reliable. I think remember the Intro Dynamics course mentioning small objects can be weird.
Also the small chain links behaved a bit better when I scaled their mass down by the same amount as the geometry.
I don't like my barrel at all,
but time was up a while ago. Learned a lot about modifiers and materials, mainly what doesn't work.
train30 Yeah I found that same issue. I was trying to go true to scale and apparently the rigidbody system doesn't like that. I cranked up the scale and it worked a bit better but I still had issues and crashes so I gave up on it.
jgonzalez I think you forgot to put a subdivision surface modifier on the caps...
