United3dArtists Archive

I am a huge, huge Star Wars fan. Probably because I was an impressionable 18 year-old when the film came out and I was also lucky enough to be working in London at the time of the release. I managed to sneak away for a few hours and see the film at the Odeon, Leicester Square, which had the biggest cinema screen in the UK at the time and probably still does. Needless to say, the whole experience left a lasting impression on me. To date, I have never, ever modeled anything from the Star Wars universe, partly because I have always thought I could never do them justice. Guess it's time for me to step-up and have a stab.

So here we go...and as Rolf Harris would say - Can you tell what it is yet.

I always liked star wars! I did several things of it, you feel really good when finish one. Of course your work will look much better than mine.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks leonregis.

Here is a small update.

Okay, now that I have managed to finalised things like proportion and scale, I'm actually starting to get somewhere.

LOOKS NICE WILL IT BE AN AT-AT??

fantastic job. Never been a big Star Wars fan but I can certainly appreciate the work going into this model..

3dfrog wrote:LOOKS NICE WILL IT BE AN AT-AT??

Thanks 3dfrog. No, it's definitely not an AT-AT, although it is on my to do list. That is gonna be one mother of a model to attempt so I'm gonna start off small and work my way up to that one.

Thanks for the kind words tahnoak.

Here's an update and these images show the modeling at about the 70% complete stage.

Looks great BB....Modeling all the teeth on the gear that controls the movement of the guns looks like it was difficult to do. Curious how you went about creating that part. Looks difficult because of the arc, was it all done PE or did you also use Obj Subtraction?

I liked the illumination of the last render also the model is amazing it's a good example that details make things realistic, like the details in the base of the cannon.

Did you used the array tool to make the gear?

Keep the good work!

BB your work always shows how to use detail in a mesh. Detail where needed and simple where not.

Ok I am either gonna be captain obvious or dumb. But if those teeth are the gear for the aiming of the guns, would they not "bump" into the square support structure?

Thanks for all the C & C guys, very much appreciated.

To try and answer some of the points/questions:

rjeff - Hi rjeff, long time no see. Yep you are quite correct. But hey, I'm just copying the design used in the film.

finis - Thanks, but any plaudits must go to the modelers at Industrial Light & Magic, they did a really fantastic job on the towers.

Musikman/leonregis - With regards to the teeth/cogs, in the real model, and btw I'm using reference photographs from the Lucasfilm archives, they are placed along a real strange curvature which is neither round nor oval. Now normally I would just array the teeth and use the bend tool to get them into the correct shape. However I wasn't confident the bend tool would give me the accuracy I required so I found another soloution. Point edited a sphere to get the correct curvature, quad divided the leading edge a whole bunch ot times to give me the correct amount of evenly divided faces I needed for the teeth, got rid of all the surplus edges the quad divide created, selected every other face and just drew them down with the scale tool. Tidied up in PE.

Anyhows, here is an update:

Breech, first of all great model, lighting, rendering and composition, can't add anything more except Rjeff is right
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1015/939 ... bc50_o.jpg"

Those squares that make it impossible for the gun to change elevation should fit inside the grooves, not be wider than?

weevil wrote:Those squares that make it impossible for the gun to change elevation should fit inside the grooves, not be wider than?

Hey nice find of that piccie and thanks for posting. And yes it certainly looks as if both you and rjeff are right. The design does kinda defy logic.

However, I don't know if the picture you've posted is of one scratch built by a fan, but if you look at the images I have been using for reference, those of the studio FX model, there appears to be a difference and that the casing is indeed wider than the grooves/teeth. Go figure.

If you move the gun (a rotation), it seem you will have a problem with the corner of the cube or maybe some part of the gun can move along the gun. (?)

You would think that as much detail that ILM put into that movie, they would have caught that one.

rjeff wrote:Ok I am either gonna be captain obvious or dumb. But if those teeth are the gear for the aiming of the guns, would they not "bump" into the square support structure?

There is much strange things about guns in Star Wars. Explain to me why laser guns in Star Wars has a recoil for instance... and why does laser swords cast shadows?

Why they are so slow?

Or the sheer fact that all the weapons on SW are unrealistic. I watched a show on History, and to be able to produce a light saber would take a very larger room of equipment.

rjeff wrote:Or the sheer fact that all the weapons on SW are unrealistic. I watched a show on History, and to be able to produce a light saber would take a very larger room of equipment.

What? Would it even be possible at all?? That would be quite cool.

I thought it was totally impossible because of two things:
*) the laser sword act as a regular sword when you collide them. If you collide two beams of light, they don't stop each other - there is no matter to stop them
*) the laser stops at one end of the laser sword. All lasers we have now works like a gun - the laser beam will shot out and continue until it fades. So the best you could do would be a laser sword that was perhaps 100 km long. How do they make the laser suddenly stop about 1-1.5 meter from the laser sword handle?

Laser guns is rather easy, now they need a lot of space but it wouldn't surprise me if we have hand held laser guns for combat within 50 years (the biggest problem is probably the power issue).

Sorry for drifting of topic by the way - the Gun we started with here is cool and looks spot on as the originals.

Lasers? Laser sword? Is there anything in the SW stories about light sabers being lasers?

Model is looking great BB.

Actually I think the Light Saber is supposed to be plasma. That is what I heard anyway.

Edited previous post because it sounded disrespectful. I apologize.

Mmm. Time to get this thread back on track methinks. And what better way to do that than with a couple of new piccies. Modeling work almost done and then it's on to creating the UVs and texture maps.

looking good BB :) my favourite topic, Star Wars! ;D

Thanks theuns. Yeah, the Star Wars universe has a great selection of models. I know the franchise is not everyone's taste but for anyone wishing to learn modeling, you can't go wrong with a Star wars model. Primarily because there is just so much resource material and examples out there.

Yeah, and the SW universe has such a broad scope for imagination that you can come up with all sorts of new ideas in the Star Wars settings

Started an ELP Emergency Life Pod ship design long ago base on the Star Wars Droid Tri-Fighter that I still need to finish...

Hey, an ELP. Now that sounds cool. Your gonna have to finish and post that at some stage, theuns.

Bit more work done on the tower. It's really soaking up the hours trying to get all the detail exactly as per the original. This will go into an animation eventually so it will be well worth the effort I think.

I like star war too. You can find some hidden model from the movie in my anim project. This tower is a great model. Do you plan to put it on a car?

Thanks Marcel.

Well, at long last, the modelling phase of this particular item has drawn to a close. Next up is creating some custom UV and texture maps. I'm hoping these will add a whole new level of detail as the model's looking kinda sparse in places.

Looks great amigo!. I love me some Star Wars. Especially the animiated Clone Wars series.

Very nice deathstar turret. I look forward to seeing more star wars work. I'm also a huge star wars fan check out my Star Wars 3d work here; http://zaphos.me.uk/artwork.html

Thanks rjeff, glad you like. Must admit, I saw the animated Clone Wars movie at the cinema and was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing. It even made me add the Clone Wars General Obi-Wan figure to my "must-do" list.
Thanks Meki. I liked the Tie Fighter and Stormtrooper on your website. Nice Rancour animation too.

Cheers Breech Block, just checked out your firebirdstudios website, looks awsome, nice one!

Great modeling... Great detail.. Very clean..

Texture maped it should rely POP..

Cant wate to see it... I take it this is a small
part of a much larger scene... I look forward to seening it..

Meki wrote:Cheers Breech Block, just checked out your firebirdstudios website, looks awsome, nice one!

Thanks Meki, glad you liked the website. still a lot of work to do to it but I think it's getting there.

Thanks Ranger. Actually this was just going to be a stand alone model but I can already feel the urge to develop it further. So I'll probably try making an X-Wing next, see how that turns out and then try combining them into a scene/animation.

Another small update. Mainly the barrels to do now. Not too sure if i really want to "weather" the whole thing down or not.

Hard to stop when you start a model.
the lower half of the tower seems too simple compared to the upper half. Perhaps a more complex base balance the whole. The elements that make up the lower half are too similar. Another solution would be to enhance the base with a texture dirtier than above.

marcel wrote:...the lower half of the tower seems too simple compared to the upper half. Perhaps a more complex base balance the whole.

Thanks for the feedback Marcel. And yes, strictly from a design point of view I'd say you are probably right. But hey, don't tell me, tell the modelers at ILM as this is an exact reproduction of their studio effects model.

Anyhow, here's the finished item. Enjoy.