(I posted this thread at Arachnophiles and it was suggested that I should post it here as well. I modeled a T for a commercial project then after completing the external modeling I decided to carry on and model the whole inner workings. Any help, support, corrections, additions, improvements will be greatly received. I'll be making the model freely available when its completed.)
I'm a long time `T` owner having always had at least a couple in my collection at least. I made a descision to try and breed Brachypelma smithis for a year or two and have been building up my stocks in recent months. I've also just aquired a few spiderlings to ramp up the numbers.
The reason for my post other than to introduce myself is to share with you some of the images from a project I did for a UK based company recently. I am a freelance digital modeler and specialise in creature design of all manner of beasties. As nearly everything I've ever built needs to be based on some `real` anatomy in some way I often get asked to model invertebrates. This however, was my first go at a spider. I only needed to do the modeling (or geometry/the wireframe) as other people take on the job of texturing, rigging (giving it a dynamic bone structure that allows a 3D animator to move it) and animating.
When ever I model a real creature I study its anatomy in great detail and having kept spiders for years this was fairly easy task for me. Each of the body parts is initially given its own color (for easy selection and identification) and the software I use to build these models with allows me to name each part according to its name. So, for example, after modeling a leg I can color the tibia in green, the patella in red, the femur in blue etc. making life much easier later on it the process.
Incidentally, models like this are fantastic for education purposes as you can manipulate them on-screen and even break parts off to show inner workings or more detailed areas. An example would be the eyes of a spider: this area is chock full of detail for a modeler to reproduce but it only takes up a small area on the spiders carapace.
So, some basics. The type of modeling I use is called Sub-division modeling and involves making a basic geometric shape and then allowing the software to smooth it out to get smooth curves that describe the required shape. It's a great way to make organic looking models and was used for Toy Story and for most other things since then. You only need to build half of a creature as most living things are symetrical and the software mirrors what you are doing across a central axis (called X)
This image shows the beginning of the modeling where I start to build the sternam and the coxa. After roughing out these two area I started to construct a basic leg. This leg with all the correct parts colored and labelled becomes a template for the others and in some way is only a place-holder for me. At a later stage I would construct a mintutly detailed leg and replace this version.
Here you can see how I've copied and pasted the leg around the model to give me a feel for the overall shape. Remember, this is very `boxy` as it has yet to be smoothed in any way.
You can see here in the close up that the legs are not even attached to the body at this stage. The thing with this type of modeling is that the overall shape matters more than the details at this early stage. The grey area will become the carapace. At this stage it is just an extruded ring that reaches right around the top.
The carapace is extendedto the edges and down towards and over the area where the trochanter are to be. The carapace is now green and has been smoothed just to get a `feel` for its shape.
A temporary abdomen is added to assist in getting the shape balanced.
part 2 soon...[/img]
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