Titanic Telegraph in 3D

I completed my first proper 3D project in May 2011. This is a short post showcasing the work I did in AutoCAD reconstructing one of the telegraphs from the bridge.

I didn't have much to work with. A few photographs like the one below and some dodgy measurements from a website that disappeared mid-way through me working on this!

But using this and my beginner 3D modelling skills I managed to create something I was actually quite pleased with.

This is the overall view of the telegraph, rendered using some basic AutoCAD materials and with a lot of guesswork as to what it would have actually looked like. (Photographs from the Father Brown collection were invaluable, though black-and-white!).

Texturing with UVWs

Work on Building 77 is progressing... steadily. There have been many improvements since last I posted, mostly with texturing the model. I wanted this post to focus specifically on one area that I've found really useful, and that is texturing using UVW maps.

I used this for my gorgeous aurochs horns that I have decorating the north-east platform. I wanted a really good bone texture but 3DS Max was lacking in standard ones! Which isn't really a surprise. In order to create my own texture I decided that a UVW map would be my best option, especially given the unusual shape of my horns. It meant I could create the texture myself using my mesh as a template and then "wrap" my texture around them.

I followed this very good tutorial which gave a decent overview of how to go about doing this: An In-Depth Look at UV Mapping an Object in 3DS Max 

I'm not going to go into the details of how I did everything, as there are far better tutorials out there already! Rather I want to show you what I started with and what I ended up with, with a few steps thrown in along the way.

Introducing Building 77

So I'm finally getting to grips with 3DS Max and am working on an exciting new project - recreating a building from the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey. 

I'm working from information found on the online Çatalhöyük database, mostly photographs and measurements although I was very glad to find a floor plan on one of their research publications which meant creating the layout much easier!

After much drama, I thought I'd share with you my first, blocked out version of the house.

Site photograph

Reboot

Well my first attempts at this failed miserably, so I've decided to restructure this from the beginning again. I'll be replacing all the old posts gradually over the next few weeks (updated and made even better!).

A quick explanation of who I am and what this blog is:

Hi, I'm Charley. I'm a 23 year old final-year Masters student studying Archaeological Computing, specifically the areas of Virtual Pasts. While the main focus of my degree is on 3D modelling and computer animation, using programs such as AutoCAD and 3DS Max, my course also covers Geographical Information Systems (GIS), website and blog design and management (using both HTML5/CSS3 and content management systems such as WordPress), databases (both MS Access and XML) and theoretical applications of all of the above!

I've completed a few projects so far (again these posts will be restored as soon as I can) and I'm working on organising my dissertation (which is very exciting but I won't share it with you until it's finalised!) and am currently using the WordPress.org software running on my own XAMMP server to create a blog/website, details of which I will share later!