Week 1 Castle - Second Attempt

Following on from my first castle attempt I wanted to create a larger better, castle working on the points from my first attempt and creating something I was happy with.

The idea of my castle was too create an outer wall, and a few buildings inside, with a separate tower etc... I wanted to create the wall, and then have separate towers to the wall, unlike the previous castle which was all one wall.

This involved shaping and beveling the walls and towers, and then creating an instance of the towers and moving them to the appropriate corners, keeping these separate would help when applying textures etc...  this worked well, but i was confused as to creating a copy, or an instance, I wished to be able to edit one, which one then change the rest. I have since learnt that the instance was the right choice, being able to edit them all and saving on repetitive work. 

The major problem I had was around the windows on the church, these were a nightmare to get right and at first I created this from the box primitive, I then found it completely impossible to clone the window without cloning the whole object, I didn't find a way round this and ended up deleting most of the primitive, and then cloning the window a number of times lining it up on the view ports and then mirroring.  I'm sure there is an easier way of doing this!

I really wanted to create a smooth curve, having looked at various tutorials on 'nurbs' curves i tried to create a door, but this proved to be quite tricky, and I have since used a great tool to create a curve based around using vertex on the face of an object. The tool i used to create the curved door was the 'soft selection tool' in the modify section which allowed me to create the door in the image below. 

The door itself has a good curve, which could be increased by the number of vertex used, This to me was a good answer to my problem with the curves and effectively made the archway for me. 

Positives from the Castle exercise -

• Now confident in the basic tools of 3DS Max
• Understand that most models should be created from different components as opposed to one large model
• Use of the soft selection tool really helped create desired shape
• Inserting and adding extra vertex to help move and change shapes (create windows)
• Use of Inset tool was useful
• Being able to reset pivot point to the middle of an object useful
• Confident with the layout of 3DS Max and scale, having each square = to one meter for the castle project gave me a better understanding of the overall scale, and how it could help in a group project etc...
• Beginning to learn short keys such as ALT + W for full screen and S for snappi

 Points to work on for the future -

• Creating indents for windows
• Creating round and curved shapes using NURB curves
• adding finer parts to models, and using a plane to create a sense of ground.
• Turning off snap when not required and wish to manually align items. 
• Cloning items and creating specific components to buildings e.g. windows
• Snapping angles as well as snapping to vertex, and grid etc..

My final castle -