Okay, I've been modeling flowers here, and I can do enough that I'm fairly happy. However I'm having problems curving petals enough. I'm working with deformed spheres, because it's the easiest method I've found so far. And using bend and shear gets me only so far. This works fine on something like the Innula, where the petals are fairly small, so it doesn't really matter.


What I need to do is bring the edges of a petal around more. If you take a look at the poppy it's easiest to see what I mean.

Here's the Innula, I had issues uploading. I'll post the poppy next.

InnulaEnsifoli.jpg (61 Kb, 276 downloads) Flowers

Okay, so on the poppy here, the petals do a little S shape but only are bent in two planes, I need to bring the egdges around so they're more cupped. I've tried selecting an edge with the face selection tool, but that is highly imprecise when trying to just highlight an edge. I've got the Pro version, btw. If anyone has any ideas I appreciate it greatly. This is my first time using a 3D modeling program ever, so I'm learning slowly.

PapaverSom.jpg (17 Kb, 304 downloads) another flowre

If these are your first attempts at 3D modelling
I think we should all give up and take up writting crossword puzzles or something!!

I'm just trying to think back to my first attempts. Compared to this they were terrible!

Looks like there's 'a new kid on the block' guys, or should I say 'a new gal on the block.'

This really is nice work.

Looking at the poppy, the edges of the petals are a bit 'squared' and it could be that more faces will correct this and also allow you to adjust the petal shape better.
Try doing a divide operation on one of the petals and see if this helps.

Bazza

Heh, well I've been at this for about a month now. The really early stuff was terrible. And there's still so much to learn.

Hmm, dividing the faces does give me more control, I'll have to experiment more to see if it helps enough.

i would use the extrude tool and the warp operation instead of shearing and bending. also there is a great tutorial by kirk saavedra. this should help you out, and if not then i'll post a pic of what i am talking about. here is the link

leaf modeling tutorial

-korben

Thanks, I'm going to go try that out now. If I can get something that works, I can start doing really impressive flowers. I'm really not satisfied until they're close to botanically accurate.

Actually,if you could put up a pic, that would be great. I've tried, and I can extrude a leafshape, but it's very crude. Also I can't seem to get a handle on the bend function. It looks like the leaf tutorial had pictures at one point, but now they're gone.

Elizabeth,
Both of the flowers are excellent for just modeling one month. Nicely done!!

If you are not worried about high poly counts, then a flattened sphere might make a nice flower petal with some tapering, and bending or warping.

I would suggest tapering first to give the sphere some sort of orientation, top-bottom, etc, then if you use the bend or warp operations its a little easier to tell if you are bending/warping sides, top, or bottom of the petal.

The Deform Tool(Ride side toolbar) is also very handy for adding major or minor deformities to your object.

Good luck with your modeling and I hope we get to see lots more of your work here.

Les

Actually Les, what you described is pretty much exactly what I've been doing. And for these, no I don't have to worry about poly count or size of the image or anything, because 2D pics of them will be what's used.

What i'm trying to achieve somehow, it to bend the edges of the leaf/petal around, like someone had wrapped it around an imaginary cylinder. I need a wholistic sort of transfomation option to do this, but warp funtions on a center line of the figure so I don't think it's possible for it to give me what I need (having done much experimentation).

However I have found a very lengthy process that makes almost what I need. I say almost, because I haven't yet figured out how make one end have bifurcation (like a heart shaped leaf). This leaf was produced by making a cross section via extrude. Extruding it in many small sections, welding the tip and then tapering and warping it. There's also the problem that one step in the procedure requires selecting a number of tiny faces, which is a pain to do.

leaf_small.jpg (8 Kb, 196 downloads) Leaf

Oh and sorry I forgot to say so earlier, but thank you, for your help. I appreciate you two taking the time. Even if it doesn't get me an answer right away, I'm finding out more things the program can do and building my knowledge base.

Anyway. Most recent experiment. Couldnt get the end to bifurcate properly. This would make a nice tulip leaf though.

leaf_views.jpg (11 Kb, 218 downloads) two tulip leaf views

Lovely work on the flowers Elizabeth. I'd never thought about modeling flowers, but I think I'll have to give it a go now.

Thanks. Anyway thought I'd post my most recent progress. I can't get this new technique to do a split base petal, but I did get it to make a lovely lily.

Orange_Lily_web.jpg (20 Kb, 354 downloads) Orange Lily

Hello Elizabeth,

Those flowers your modeling are great

I started to model some grass and a tree a while ago, but I've not got back to them for while. I must try and finish these and post them up.

Waiting to see more of your work...

James

Very nice work!

Kirk Saavedra

Hmm, here's some more progress. Impatiens wallerana.

Impatiens_wallerana_350.jpg (16 Kb, 129 downloads)

Hi Elizabeth,

Very nice work, yet again.

I don't know if this will be of any use to you but the lightmapping program I'm using has a feature to allow a material to receive back light.

This works very well on thin objects, and can be used to produce all sorts of different effects. Japanese rice paper walls etc.

I needed a rest from my railway project so thought I'd see what sort of lighting effect I could get with a leaf in
Gile[s]. You will have to excuse my attempt at making a leaf but I didn't have a lot of time, plus I'm botanically ignorant!!
It looks a very interesting subject though so I may get back to it.

Anyway the model was produced with 3DC, lightmapped in Gile[s], screenshot from Gile[s].
I hope this may be of some help to you, if not now, maybe in the future.

Bazza

Leafy1.jpg (25 Kb, 122 downloads)

I've arrowed the effect in this shot.

Bazza

Leafy2.jpg (27 Kb, 112 downloads)

Hmm, I'm not quite yet to messing with lighting or rendering much. It's on the list of things to do though, so this should be very useful when I get to learning more about that.

If I could give petals and leaves a bit of translucency that would be great, since in real life light will go through them quite a bit unless the plant is a succulent.

As for botanical accuracy on your plant there, its form reminds me of eucalyptus.

Thanks for the help. I'll keep posting stuff as I progress.

"If I could give petals and leaves a bit of translucency that would be great, since in real life light will go through them quite a bit unless the plant is a succulent. "

I think to do this you will need to use some form of lightmapping.

If you look at the dark pattern on the underside of the leaf I arrowed, This is actually the top side of the leaf showing through. The light is passing through the leaf.

Bazza