BONE BASICS

This section looks at bones: what they do, how they work, and how you use them in your models. We investigate bone hierarchy, control point weighting, bone properties, and inverse kinematics. By the end of this chapter, you should have a complete skeleton in your flour sack model. You should have already read and understood Part 1, "Interface," particularly the section on Bones mode tools, and you will need the finished flour sack model from Part 2, "Modeling Basics," to complete the tutorials in this section.

The plan of attack is to first learn what bones are, their various parts, and how you place them in models, assign control points, and determine falloff for weighting. Then you will develop a workable animation structure for your character. This will require a single control to move the entire object easily in action; a way to move _he top and bottom of the model separately from each other, yet retain a smooth middle; and a way to animate each corner of the sack to emulate hands and feet.

Activity for your porfolio (when finished with this exercise, save it into your porfolio in the AM_ch6 folder*):

One of the most common mistakes made in modeling sets and props is to expend a lot of time and effort creating highly detailed objects that wind up not being in the shot, or they are so small that all detail is lost. There are times when this cannot be avoided, but with planning, you can put the detail where it will count and save the patches where it will not. One of the best ways to plan is to visualize the shot you are working on before you begin work. Storyboards, sketches, and reference photographs can show you where to add detail and where to skip it.

For most props, the level of detail depends on whether or not a character uses it and how close the camera gets to the item in the course of the animation.

Without knowing how close the camera gets to the object during animation, it is impossible to know how much detail is needed and how much would be lost.

It is important to move from the Modeling window to the Choreography window as soon as possible-the choreography is where models and animation come together into a completed scene. Until you see the models together in the choreography, you have very little idea how they work together. Choreography also contains the camera. This allows you to see what will be lost off-frame in an animation and to trim detail.

Set building in 3D is very similar to painting: You lay down the broad strokes first, and come in to refine the details as you work, modeling new items or refining existing models as needed. Later in this chapter, when you proceed to model full sets, this procedure will be used.

Roughed-out sets will show where particular areas of detail can enhance, while at the same time giving you a base from which to start. When working on
a production with more than one artist, starting with low-resolution models allows the modelers and texture artists to work on refining the models at the same time that the animators and lighting artists work.

To make a complex object, model to the camera. Start with a simple base and combine small sections of a larger item from small models in choreography. When you build the brownstone apartment building later in this chapter, you will use this technique to build the set in modular chunks.
Before you get into modeling sets, however, look at techniques that these sets will employ.

Modeling mechanical items takes a certain amount of patience and an eye for detail. The tendency is to attempt to create models to real-world levels of precision, but most of this detail will be lost on the audience. A relaxed stance can be taken to precise dimensions as long as when the object is rendered it looks "right." In many ways, modeling mechanical items is easier than modeling characters and organic objects, as most of the time unibody construction is not necessary. More than any other type of modeling, mechanical items are rooted in the process of breaking an object down to its basic shapes.

Start with a basic object and look at how it is modeled. Figure 6.1 shows a simple remote control for a television set. Before you start laying splines for this object, we need to discuss a couple of the more important features of its modeling.

One of the most important things to note here, and for any mechanical or man-made object, are the bevels. Beveled edges are everywhere in real life, but in 3D they must be added. We add them to create a greater feeling of realism that comes from the added specular highlights that beveled edges provide. These highlights add an amount of solidity that an object without them would not have.

Notice, too, that the model has holes built into the case for the buttons and a seam where the parts join. This is not done with booleans, as A:M has no modellevel booleans. Instead, this detail has to be modeled into the object at the spline level, which can be difficult if you do not take the time to plan for it.
With those points in mind, you can begin.

Punching holes into the model for the buttons after you have already modeled the top of the remote would be a serious chore and one that, generally speaking, would not give the best of results. A better approach can be taken from the methods used to model the face in Chapter 5: start with the holes. A single hole can be modeled with a lathed tube, setting your cross sections to 4 to keep the geometry down. Don't worry about animation here; every consideration can be given to low patch counts. Reducing the number of patches helps reduce render times. Start by lathing a two-point spline with four cross sections. You could copy and paste this to make holes for each of the buttons, b)the spacing would vary unless you are careful. Instead, use the Duplicator Wizard. Select all the CPs for the hole and bring up the group's contextual menu. Set the Duplication method to copy and the Repeat setting to 3. The offset you will need for your holes will depend on the scale to which you lathed the first hole. For the example, an x-translate setting of 20 was used to get the first row. Select the three holes that you have now, and run the Duplicator Wizard again. This time use a z-translate setting of 20, and put the x value back to 0. You should have a regular grid of nine holes (see Figure 6.2).

The holes can easily be connected to start splining the top of the remote. Start by connecting the facing CPs on the top of each hole. The space between each set of four holes can then be broken up into five-point patches by simply adding a grid of splines between each set of holes. Close these five-point areas with the Five-Point Patch tool, and you have a good start (see Figure 6.3).

You need two more round holes, one for the power button and one for the zero number button. These can be copied and pasted into position. You also need to spline in holes for the three rectangle function buttons. Start by lathing a two-point spline with a cross-section setting of 8. Deform the rings into a roughly rounded square, and place it inline with the first of the round buttons. Use the Duplicator Wizard to make three rectangular holes with the same spacing that you u;;ed for the round buttons. Stitch these new parts to the original holes, adding points to the square holes as needed (see Figure 6.4).

The difficult portion of the faceplate is now done. Now simply tie the entire thing into a rectangular plate (see Figure 6.5).

At this point, you may also want to pull each hole in at the bottom to cover where the buttons will sit. This part will remain separate from the rest of the model, allowing a much less dense spline layout for the rest of the model. To make the transition into the main model more believable and to give the faceplate some depth, extrude the spline ring that makes up the outside edge of the faceplate, push it down, and scale it up slightly. This will make a bevel where the two parts meet.

Copy and paste the last spline ring from the faceplate to provide a starting point to model the top half of the remote. While the new spline is selected, lock the mesh. Now you can work without disturbing what you have already done. Delete the extra detail in the spline ring, make any needed gamma adjustments; when the shape is correct, extrude this spline up and scale it out to form the bevel that will inset the faceplate. The remainder of the top can simply be extruded out and splined together from this ring (see Figure 6.6).

The bottom of the remote is simply a duplicate of the top that has the face plate inset and unneeded detail deleted from it (see Figure 6.7).

The infrared (IR) lens is also exceptionally simple. A four-point spline is extruded with eaCh extrusion scaled and positioned to match the shape of the opening that you modeled into the handset (see Figure 6.8).

All that remains are the buttons. The round buttons are easy enough to build as a lathed shape. You can build in all the rounded bevels with a single S-shaped spline. Lathing the button with a cross section of 4 allows you to close the top with one additional spline. Take this button and place it in the first hole on the faceplate. As you did earlier, use the Duplicator Wizard to accurately place the buttons (see Figure 6.9).

The rectangle buttons are a perfect place to reuse a previously modeled object. Imporl the beveled cube from Chapter 2, and scale it to fit in the rectangular
holes (see Figure 6.10).

That's all there is to it. The concepts to model this remote are all variations on techniques already covered. An important thing to note here is that the various parts of the model do not have to be connected. Also, note how important modeling out from the holes is. If you had started this model and tried to put holes in later, the work would have been double that of planning and laying the holes down first.

Granted, remote controls are not typically the first things that come to mind when people think of mechanical modeling. A more expected example might be gears (see Figure 6.11).

While gears look complex, their construction is very simple. The secret to making them without excessive patch counts lies in building them in two pieces.

The teeth of the gears are built by determining how many teeth are needed and lathing at four times that number. For example, to make a gear with 20 teeth, lathe at a setting of 80. The teeth for the gear start with a C-shaped spline that you lathe, as shown in Figure 6.12.

When lathed at a cross section of 80, you have a very dense mesh that must still be shaped to give you the teeth on your gear (see Figure 6.13). Making the teeth is a simple, if time-consuming, process of grouping the points that will make up the valleys between the teeth-a process of select two CPs, skip two CPsuntil you have the entire set of valleys selected.

These points are scaled down to make the valleys of the teeth (see Figure 6.14).

Select the entire gear and change the magnitude of all the splines to 10, to tighten up the shape as needed. The center portion of the gear needs nowhere near this level of complexity, though. So simply lathe the centerpiece at 4 (see Figure 6.15).

In this section, you are going to build a very complex set based on a model originally created by James Poulakos for the storyboard sketch in Figure 6.16. This
sketch is a street scene with an old brownstone apartment building as the focus.

Before investing a lot of time in building models, you can create a simple mock-up of the set to determine how much of it will show in the camera view.
You can also use this time to block out the composition of the shot.

In a new project, create a new choreography. A:M will load in the default choreography, which includes a ground object and some very basic lighting. Leave these in place for now. The Choreography window, aside from being the place where animations are assembled, can also be used to do modeling tasks, as you learned in Character Modeling. You' can tweak existing models, or create new ones in the Choreography window. Switch to Modeling mode and change to a top view. Bring up the window's contextual menu and choose Model from the new heading. Build a simple cube shape. This is to be the stand-in for the apartment building. It is not intended to be a full model, merely a basic indication of what and where. Adjust the points on the model just as you would in the Modeling window.

Scale and place the cube in the choreography, and position the camera so that your shot loosely matches the layout of the building in the storyboard sketch. If you find a composition that works better than the storyboard, use that instead.

Given the position and scale of your cube, you can now start roughing in the other objects that will make up the set. Let's add the sidewalk first. Switch back to Choreography mode and make another new model. This time, rough in a sidewalk shape. Wrap it around the building in the chor. Because we can see both the building and the sidewalk in the choreography window, it makes it easy to model the sidewalk to the same scale and to match the shape without having to put both in the same model window. At this point you should have something like Figure 6.17.

Your shot also calls for a street lamp and a fire hydrant. Model two simple tubes to represent the lamp and hydrant based on the storyboard sketch. The storyboard artist didn't fill in all the background details in the sketch though, and the empty space behind the main building leaves the scene looking odd. Add a building across the street and another sidewalk. Instead of modeling a completely new building and sidewalk, simply use a second instance of the models you are currently working with. Drag and drop the building model under the objects folder in the PWS-which unless you have already changed its name is called Modellonto the Choreography window. You should now have a shortcut to Modell (2) listed under the choreography. Select this second shortcut, and move it into position across the street. Do the same for the sidewalk and streetlamp models. You should have something similar to Figure 6.18.

If the camera doesn't move, this shot now gives you all the information you need to create the set. The amount of each model that you can see is determined, and the proximity to the camera is set. The fire hydrant, for example, is far enough from the camera that it would not make sense to model individual chips of paint on its surface; details that small would simply be lost.

From here, move to the model windows for the individual elements, and work on the details that will m_ke them believable parts of your set. Due to space restrictions, detailed tutorials on each of the set pieces can't be placed in this book. Instead, we will focus on the largest piece, and the one with the most lessons: the brownstone apartment building.

At first glance, the brownstone looks to be a huge undertaking (see Figure 6.19), and if it were modeled in one piece, it would be. But a modular design can be used that reduces the amount of work that has to be done.

FIGURE 6.19 The level of detail in this building would make it a challenge to
build in a single piece.

Before any modeling, a great deal of research into the structure and design of brownstone apartment buildings was done. The Internet can provide a large number of images and references for almost any subject. The easiest way to get the basic building blocks into A:M is to use the Illustrator Wizard. If you have access to a vector graphics program such as Ulead PhotoImpact®, Adobe® Illustrator® or CorelDRAW® you can simply draw out the shapes for the bricks you will need and save the result as an Illustrator file (see Figure 6.20). If you do not have one of these programs, use the keystone.ai file from the course folder on the network.

Once the Illustrator file has been created, use the AI Wizard in A:M to produce a set of bricks. Create a new model and bring up the AI Wizard. Browse in the file that contains your brick shapes. Set up the Wizard to close the fronts and sides of the shapes, but not the backs. The patches on the backs of the bricks won't be seen so better to conserve them. Use flat bevels on the fronts of the objects and let the Wizard go to work. You should now have a set of brick shapes, as shown in Figure 6.2l.

Leave the bricks Model window open and create another model. Start by working on the front stoop of the apartment building. Copy and paste bricks into the new model and arrange them to form half of the top arch of the doorway. Once the bricks are in place, select all the bricks except the keystone, and duplicate them via copy and paste. Use the Flip comrnand from the contextual menu to flip the new bricks in the x-axis and move them to the other side of the model. You should have something similar to Figure 6.22.

The remainder of the bricks on the stoop are merely copy-and-paste versions of the rectangular brick. The rows by the door are scaled slightly up in the x-axis (see Figure 6.23).

The mortar can be modeled simply by placing a plane into the bricks. If you were doing a study of brickwork, you might model the mortar to bevel to each brick. but that is not needed. The only other consideration you need to make is to leave an opening for the doorway. You do this because the door has glass panels in it, and you will need to see through them. If it were a solid door and the script never called for it to be opened, a single patch would do. Extrude a four-point spline down from above the bricks to where the arch ends. Select the two points on one side, and extrude that down to the end of the bricks; "do the same for the opposite side. This leaves the doorway open (see Figure 6.24).

FIGURE 6.23 Copy and paste the rectangular brick to fill in the remainder of the wall.

FIGURE 6.24 The mortar is a simple plane,
set into the bricks.

The stairs are next. First, draw the steps and extrude them to the width of the doorway. Position this appropriately under the door. The handrails are extruded from a four-point spline with the two points toward the wall raised to the level of the second brick and the two points toward the street lowered. This shape is then extruded to give it thickness. Copy and paste a duplicate for the other side of the steps. You should have something like Figure 6.25. All that remains is to model the detail pieces on the handrail.
The end caps of the rails are made from two pieces. The base is a four-point patch that is extruded and shaped from bottom to top. Reposition and scale each extrusion to shape each cross section. Lathe a sphere and place it on top of this to finish the cap. For the planters on the tops of the rails, draw a spline in a rough inverted U to form the wall of the planter. Extrude this spline to form the walls of the planter. Seat the base in the handrail, and push the unclosed end into the wall. You should have a finished stoop, much like Figure 6.26.

This model looks very detailed and complex; but, as you can see, when broken down to its basic components and with the help of the AI Wizard, its construction is actually very simple. This is your first module for the building. You could continue the construction of the building in this model window, but this has some disadvantages that will become apparent. Check this model for scale in the choreography in which you started the set layout.

Drop the model onto the choreography and position it next to the proxybuilding cube that was modeled as a placeholder. Your model might be much larger or much smaller than the size of the building. If so, do not scale the model in the Choreography window. Scaling models up or down by a large amount in the Choreography window can cause problems, such as artifacts in the final renders and much longer than normal render times. Instead, scale the model down in the Model window until it fits the scale of the scene (see Figure 6.27).

FIGURE 6.25 The steps and handrails are made from simple extrusions.

FIGURE 6.26 The finished stoop.

FIGURE 6.27 The stoop had to be scaled down
to match the scale established for the shot.

You only need once instance of this model in the scene, which is why you do not build the entire building as one model. Since the foreground building covers over most of the background, much of the detail in the second instance of a large uniform model would be wasted. Creating small modules for the various sections of the model and assembling them in the choreography lets you use just the visible portions of each building.

The second module for the building you need to make is a window set into the wall of the apartment building (see Figure 6.28).

The bricks for the wall are simple rectangular bricks, which you already have modeled from the stoop. Use the Duplicator Wizard to place them in a grid. Delete the extra bricks from the center of the wall to allow room for the window (see Figure 6.29).

FIGURE 6.28 The next module
for building the apartment..

FIGURE 6.29 The Duplicator Wizard quickly builds the grid.

This is a double-hung window with a wooden frame. You could model it as one piece of glass, but allowing windows to open, and by opening several windows different amounts, lets you break up the regularity of the building. Using the techniques you already know, modeling the windows is a snap. The glass in each frame is made from a single four-point patch. The frame could be a single extruded piece around the glass or a manipulated lathe object, but the simpler solution is to extrude the shape of the wood once to form the board and then simply place a copy around each edge of the glass.

You can make this molding as complex as you like, but looking at the choreography for this shot tells you that any small details on these windows will not be seen. Rather than strive to model perfect replicas of the molding used on windows, set a higher priority on conserving patches. A simple four-point spline loop can be swept around a simple square path and have all the detail your windows will need. A copy of this frame can be scaled down to break the glass up into four separate panes (see Figure 6.30).

Once the first window is finished, the second frame is simply a copy and paste. The sill comes under the same considerations as the window frame, and the same simple Sweep can be used in modeling it. Window hardware and other fine details can be skipped over unless the camera gets close enough to one of the windows to require more. Place the completed window into the hole in the wall. The hole may be wider than the window. If so, a row of half bricks on each side of the window can be added to close the space. You should now have something similar to Figure 6.31.

FIGURE 6.30 The molding arond the window is a good place to conserve patches.

FIGURE 6.31 The completed window and wall.

In the same way that you did for the stoop, a layer of patches can be added as mortar for the wall. For this approach, you will also need a hole in the mortar where the window sits. The problem with having windows is that they allow the camera to see into the apartment building. You won't likely want to have to model the entire building, so a simple three-sided box can be built to give the room beyond some area. Later, you can texture this box to look like an apartment without having to model any of the interiors.

This finishes this module. Drop it into the choreography next to the stoop that you modeled, and make the scale match the rest of the scene. Once that is done, use it to stack the front of the building together (see Figure 6.32). Note that all of the background building that is visible is one corner; so a few of these modules give the impression of a much more complex scene without requiring the renderer to calculate the extra patches.

The remaining portions of the set are built in the same fashion. Remember: spend your patches wisely, don't waste detail on hidden or small objects, and build things modularly as much as possible.

FIGURE 6.32 Stacking the modules up
in the Choreography window quickly adds
definition to a set..

*(Save your work in your AM_ch6 folder)

BUILDING THE PERFECT ROBOT

The fun stuff isn't limited to organic character modeling, though. Take your knowledge of mechanical splining and build yourself the perfect robotic character! This is Polygozmo (see Figure 6.33).

FIGURE 6.33 Concept sketch for Polygozmo,
the evil (yet perfect) robot.

Polygozmo is an evil robot that will play counter to our beloved Captain Splines in a short animation (the focus of Chapter 10). He was built perfect-too perfect-and his own ego has led him to a life of crime! Good thing Captain Splines is out there to protect us.

This character is built from a number of parts that you have already looked at. If you look closely at the concept drawing, you may even find part of your remote control in there. Again, this is an exercise in modeling from your Morgue. Start with pieces you already have and go forward from there. There is no need to respine the wheel.

Start your model by laying out our rotoscopes. You will find a front and side drawing for Polygozmo on the network in the course images folder. Once the drawings are in place and lined up (refer back to MODELING BASICS and CHARACTER MODELING if you need a refresher), you can look over the design for parts that can be pulled out of other models. For instance, there is a button plate on the robot's chest that looks a lot like the top plate and buttons for the remote control you built. You will need the gears for the clockwork torso parts of the model. You can even go back to MODELING BASICS and pull in some of the simple models you made. The various fitting rings on the arms and legs of the character are calling out for some toruses. Go over the rest of the drawings and see if you have any models or parts of models that can be adapted. Make a list of the parts you want, and import them into your project (which should be a snap if you have maintained an organized asset library). Here is a list just from objects you have modeled so far in this course:

FIGURE 6.34 Two cubes and a sphere block in the body of your robot.

FIGURE 6.35 The head is lathed from this cross section

Once the smile is more or less represented, you can start to get some of the details modeled into the head. Begin by breaking all the splines that will be inside the smile area. This leaves a large hole in the front of the head. You could stitch a spline in around and make a clean ring for the mouth area, but because you aren't planning to animate this shape and most of it will be peaked later, that would be more work than is needed. To make some depth to the mouth shape, select all the points around the hole you just made and extrude. Move the resulting group back up and in line with the original points, and bring up the scale manipulator. Scale this group down in the y-axis and then down in the x-axis. The result will be similar to Figure 6.36.

You could stitch the mouth area as a complete unibody mesh from the mouth opening, but it is just as easy to extrude and shape a few patches to fill in without having to worry about continuing the splines (see Figure 6.37). The details seen in the drawings are accomplished with textures later.

FIGURE 6.36 The mouth is first broken
out then extruded for depth..

FIGURE 6.37 Three patches can
fill in the mouth area..

The eyes of the robot are actually just simple hollow cylinders. Lathe them with a U-shaped cross section and "jam" them inside the head mesh. The lenses? Your perfect sphere from MODELING BASICS scaled down will fit the bill nicely. Paste it into the Model window, and scale it so that it fits the diameter of the inside of the eye tube.

Now is a good time to add the details to the chest of the character. Cut two holes into the cube: one for the window that reveals the gears inside the robot and one that is filled with buttons and lights to make the robot look all sciencefictiony. Start by defining the area that will be the hole. This means layout the splines that will define the edge of the holes. These splines will tell you how you need to proceed and what density needs to be added. Both holes can be defined simply with an eight-point loop in a rough rectangle shape (see Figure 6.38). Go ahead and draw one of these now in about the area where you want the chest window to be located.

Position this spline loop in the chest and align it with the front of the torso. Now stitch the "hole" into the chest with the Add/Stitch toot and take the splines all the way around the torso to have them connect with the opposite side of the hole. This leaves you with something similar to Figure 6.39.

FIGURE 6.38 Start to set the details of the character by laying out an eight-point spline loop.

FIGURE 6.39 After stitching
the hole into the torso.

Select the loop that makes up the hole and extrude it. Scale and push this group back into the torso to give the cutout some depth. While the new ring is still selected, copy and paste it to make a new unattached loop. Move this one under the first, and scale it to match the button panel on the rotoscope. Stitch this loop in, just as you did the main chest cavity, until you have something similar to Figure 6.40.

Extrude this panel back into the torso, just as you did for the main chest panel.

The chest panel is covered by glass and filled with interlocking gears. The glass is made by simply covering the hole with a single four-point patch. Group and name this patch so that you can make it transparent later. The gears are simply instances of the gear model from earlier in this chapter. Copy in as many as you like, and position them inside the chest cavity.

The button panel starts with the top of the remote control that you modeled earlier in this chapter. Copy it, buttons and all, and paste it into Polygozmo's Model window. Position, rotate, and scale to fill most of the hole you made. When it is close, adjust the outer spline ring on the face to fill in the remainder of the space, leaving the buttons intact. You should wind up with a fairly detailed torso, similar to Figure 6.41.

All that remains for your character are the arms and hands. The arms are just tubes and are easily lathed. But you do need to make them fairly dense to give them the flexibility you need. Start with a straight spline with 20 CPs evenly distributed along its length.

FIGURE 6.40 Switch the second hole for the button panel.

FIGURE 6.41 With some clever reuse of previous models, you have added a good amount of detail to your character.

Lathe this spline to form a simple tube (see Figure 6.42), and position it abutting the torso of the character. You will want to hide the joint of the arm and torso, as indicated in the rotoscopes, and this is the perfect place for a torus. Paste a torus into the Model window, and position, rotate, and scale it to match both the surface of the robot's torso and the diameter of its arm. When you have this torus in place, duplicate it and move the copy to the wrist area (see Figure 6.43).

FIGURE 6.42 Start with a dense spline to
lathe this tube, which will give you
a lot of flexibility later.

FIGURE 6.43 The torus from Section 2 covers up the joints of the arm nicely.

The hand is actually a fairly complex shape. Each finger has three distinct segments that need to be smoothly jointed, and each finger needs to have a smooth joint into the hand. You could model this to be a unibody mesh, but that would look out of place with this character. Instead, you are going to build distinct segments. A good place to start might be with a pencil and paper to get the design of the hands correct. One possible design is shown in Figure 6.44, where a set of ball-and-socket-style joints are made from each finger segment to the next and from the fingers into the hand. The challenge here is in making the sockets fit correctly into the hand of your robot.

FIGURE 6.44 One possible solution
for the design of the hand.

Each finger segment can be broken down into one of two types: the fingertip where the end is closed, and the finger segment where the top is left open to form a joint with the next segment of the finger. Regardless of the part of the finger, you can create it with a single lathe operation. Simply draw the outline of the shape, perhaps using your design drawings as a rotoscope.

If you need additional rotoscopes in your model window, set them up in the top or bottom view where you can see them without disturbing the rotoscopes for the rest of the character.

Once you have the two basic segments lathed, simply copy and paste them to assemble a whole finger. Then copy and paste that finger to make three for each hand (see Figure 6.45).

Place the fingers first, as they will aid in constructing your hands. The most challenging part of the hands is getting the joints for the fingers to line up correctly, so that they appear to "house" the joints. This challenge is easily met by selecting the ball ends of each of the fingers and making a duplicate of them. Once duplicated, simply scale each up slightly to form a bowl where the finger can sit. Now spline the rest of the hand in place with the same techniques that you used for the Captain's hand in CHARACTER MODELING. Start by making a spline ring with enough points to tie the finger holes to, and then stitch the fingers together. The major differences between this and the Captain are that this hand will not need to flex at all, so you don't need to worry nearly as much about the layout of the splines. Any arrangement that produces a clean surface is acceptable.

Extrude the hand back, and tuck it inside the torus at the wrist to finish up the model (see Figure 6.46).

FIGURE 6.45 Paste and position the fingers for the hands according to the rotoscopes drawings.

FIGURE 6.46 The finished Polygozmo model.

*(Save your work in your AM_ch6 folder)

SUMMARY

You should now have a firm grasp on the techniques involved in modeling anything.

Each type of modeling has its own unique challenges. Sets require a lot of detail and an eye to making elements sit together properly. Characters require an eye for spline layout, and mechanical objects require knowing where patches can be spared and where it is best to work detail in.

Remember to model your sets to the camera so that you don't waste detail on things that will never be seen. Keep your surfaces simple, and use textures to fill in the tiny details as much as possible. The time you invest here, though, will be rewarded when you finally complete your game.

If you are not very interested in modeling sets and props, don't worry about it. You can either go simple with plain backgrounds, or you can look on the Internet for free or for-pay model collections that you can modify to your needs. The Web site http://www.eggprops.com has models of very high quality for sale, and A:M user sites such as http://www.hash.com/freemodels/ often have free model collections you can use. Don't forget the A:M CD-ROM. There are some very good models provided there for your use.

This is the last we will talk about modeling because the remainder of the book will discuss the other features of A:M. You should continue to practice modeling as you learn the rest of the software. Start building your own collection of set pieces and props.

*(Save your work in your AM_ch6 folder)

FIGURE 6.6 The top half of the remote is built using the last spline from the faceplate.	FIGURE 6.7 The bottom half is a simplified copy of the top.
FIGURE 6.8 The IR lens is simply an extruded four-point spline.	FIGURE 6.9 The buttons are siple lathe shapes placed with the Duplicator Wizard.

Animation: Master Inorganic Modeling