Início
》》》》》》》1
Tutorials LightWave 3D Surfacing Basics: Labeling a Can of Soda Qua Jan 26, 2011 1:58 am
Admin
Admin
| by Nick Lucio, NewTek Technical Support |
 |
Here at NewTek, we like to drink soda... a lot of it. We just cannot get enough of the stuff! In fact, your position in the company is directly proportional to the amount of soda that you can drink! And pity be to the employee who can't even make a 3D model of a soda can on his own. He may as well look for work elsewhere, as we will point and laugh at him and drink soda while he has none. Fortunately, this tragedy does not have to occur, as I have developed a simple step-by-step method that anyone can use in order to prevent such an embarrassing scenario from ever taking place. In LightWave® Modeler, we'll be utilizing the Lathe tool in order to quickly and easily create a can of coke, and then we'll also set up a couple surfaces so you can apply your own labels onto the can as well. To start things off, we need to establish an outline for the can. We really only need to create half the can, as the Lathe tool will actually automate the creation of the full shape for us. In the Modeler interface go to the Back viewport and activate the Pen tool (located under the Create tab). Start plotting out some points and define the outline of a soda can. Now keep in mind that you only really need to create half a can. Once you've got a shape that looks acceptable, hit the Enter key on your keyboard. We now have our outline!  Next, click on the Multiply tab and activate the Lathe tool. Click and hold your left-mouse button on the vertical polygon line that defines the center of your can. Drag upwards and you'll see the shape of the can pop into view. Now here's the cool part... tap the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to increase and decrease it's resolution. You have complete control over how detail the lathe will be... it could be high-detailed for use in a computer animation, or it could be low-detailed for use in a video game. The choice is yours! Once you've decided how detailed your can will be, hit Enter to confirm it's shape. Take a look at it in the Shaded viewport... something might not look quite right. If your can appears to be inside-out, hit the "f" key on your keyboard to flip things around.  Can Object before being flipped It's a can but it's pretty ordinary looking. All cans of coke usually have colorful labels to attract your attention, so that's what we need to do next. At the bottom of the Modeler screen, click on the Polygon button so we're now in polygon selection mode. In your back viewport, click and hold down the left-mouse button and select all the polygons that make up the middle of the can.  Hit the "q" key on your keyboard and the Change Surface window will appear. Let's give it a surface name of "Soda Label". Type that into the Name field and then hit the Tab key on your keyboard.  Now the Set Initial Color information should be active. Let's give it a red color. Click on the color block to the right of the Color field and a pop-up window should appear. Select a nice red color, turn on the smoothing checkbox and close the window. Finally, no can of cola is complete without a proper label on it! I've taken the liberty of creating a label for you, so just save it to your local had drive. In Modeler, open up the Surface Editor, and select the Soda Label surface that we created.  Click on the "T" button that's on the row marked Color. That'll open up our texture properties for the object's Color channel.  Once the Texture Editor window has opened up, click on the menu for Projection, and change it to Cylindrical. Below that, click on the menu for Image, and load up the sodalabel.png file you downloaded. You should now see it listed in the small image preview window. Now comes the tricky part. Which direction is this texture going to be facing when we apply it to the soda can? If you've ever seen a soda can (and I'm sure you have), you've probably noticed that they run up vertical along the length of the can. In Modeler, that would be along the Y-axis. So that's what we'll set it to. Click on the Y-axis button and you should see the texture re-orient itself in the main preview window. But there's still something wrong with it... it just seems to repeat itself too many times. That's okay, as we have a button that will simplify the process of sizing up our texture for us. Click on the Automatic Sizing button and our texture will be resized by Modeler to fit the length of the Soda Label surface. Now all we need to do is click on the Use Texture button, close the Surface Editor, and we're done!  Congratulations, you have created a soda can! Now go grab a real cola, kick back, and enjoy! Download Source Files Here |
