This was another model that was going to be seen clearly by the camera, so it was once again important for the model to look good close up.
I began by constructing the windmill. I built a standard rectangular plank and began trying to construct slats up the side of the windmill. However this was taking rather longer than I had expected it to and wasn’t looking that good. I wasn’t sure if the overall effect was going to be impressive and didn’t want to waste a lot of time on something I only hoped would look good in the end. To solve this problem a little faster I used the duplicate special tool. I began by using the tool to create many planks heading straight up then positioned them on the model. Then by moving the pivot point of the planks to the centre of the windmill I used the tool to duplicate the whole row around the windmill base model in one go. I could then see the overall effect.
Aside from looking like a massive Darlek, I liked the overall effect. However, there were clear flaws in the design- most definitely the planks of wood. Being exactly the same and not particularly stylised they made the model look bland and unrealistic. To resolve this issue I created 4 different stylised planks of wood and then duplicated them and mirrored them to create 8 planks of wood in total.
For the top slats of the windmill dome and the bottom ones surrounding the ride, I used a pattern of planks again but didn’t bother creating 8 separate models and instead applied them manually. I worked in this method this time as the dome and the bottom slats were much smaller models than the whole windmill and this way would be the most time efficient.
The roof, floor and wall panels were all made with separate objects as opposed to big block shapes with extruded indents. I had found with the construction of the carts that if a model is going to be clearly in shot, unless done really well, it is more effective to create the objects as they would be in real life. To save time, the ride is not panelled all the way around where the camera will not see and parts of my old proxy model can still be found in the scene.
I added fairy lights to the sails to complete them. I planned to extrude a polygon down a curve to create the wire, but drawing the wire itself was rather frustrating, trying to manoeuvre the points on the correct position of the sail. Just as I was starting to get irritated, I heard a quiet voice behind me say, ‘Why don’t you make the model live?’ Not knowing what he was talking about, Dan C showed me how to make an object live in order for you to draw straight onto it. Thanks Dan :) I used this method to create wires around the rest of the sails and the posts.
To make the lightbulbs, I made one and then converted it into a paint brush and then proceeded to paint lightbulbs onto the verts of the wire. I researched the following tutorial that instructed me on how to do this:
As the holidays were coming to a close, I didn’t want to spend much time on the creating of the bunting. However, when just adding a triangle to rope, I could see the effect was very flat. To solve this problem I created a cloth deformer, setting a key when I felt the bunting looked most realistic. This was a quick method of creating an object that looked as though it were actually dangling from rope, instead of trying to model this in manually.
Notice the rope that has broken and fallen to the floor. I included this as I felt the ride was looking too symmetrical. This was also the reason I added a ladder going up one side of the windmill, to help break this symmetrical appearance.
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