"David D" <dav### [at] dousetteorg> wrote:
>...but what about more complicated and irregular objects like a bird
> or a space shuttle?
>
> I suppose this is more of a general art question with applications to either
> sculpting in clay or computer modeling -- but I have searched a few Barnes and
> Nobles, Amazon, and several resources on the internet but cannot seem to track
> down what I'm looking for...

I do think it comes somewhat from experience--not just in CGI modeling, but from
'looking' at the world in terms of the primitives you mentioned. It's
interesting--having spent so much time with POV-Ray, I now find myself looking
at real-world objects with an almost immediate thought of "How can I make that?
 Which modeling technique is appropriate?" As the saying goes, "You know you've
been raytracing too long when..."  ;-)

The books and magazines I've seen (or bought) do describe modeling techniques,
but those techniques are usually, and unfortunately, 'application-specific'.
(Maya, 3d Studio, Form*Z, etc.) Some of the info is immediately applicable to
POV-Ray, some isn't. The newsgroups here are quite good at presenting novel
ways of going about building objects; but when it comes to an 'organic' shape,
like a bird, mesh-building does seem to be the method of choice (over CSG with
primitives.) Something like a space shuttle would most likely be a combination
of the two. It also depends on how 'real-looking' you need the object to be.

I wish I could point you to a definitive source for an answer to your basic
question, but I've never come across one.

Ken W.

Post a reply to this message