My first model.

[DirectRevolt]

Hello, first I would like to say I have used a 3d in the past. However the last one that I used was Ray Dream and it was briefly in high school. At this point I don't remember much of anything so I'm trying to ease back in slowly. I would like to begin by explaining what I'm trying to do and then I'd like some comments from people. First let me let you know, I put in an order to purchase Carrara 3 Studio which I'm waiting to arrive in the mail, once I recieve that I'm going to order the Carrara 5 Pro upgrade directly from Eovia. So currently I'm using the Demo for Pro. I have started by trying to make a simple sword. I'm going about it using 3 pieces, Blade, Hilt and Handle. So far I have made the blade and the hilt however I'm having some issues trying to keep everything to the same scale... the first couple times it came out with the hilt way to high and the blade way to small... does anyone have any suggestions as to how to keep everything to scale with the rest of the models. Also I tried to preview the blade itself and it looked like crap with the shaders I was trying specificly steel... I'm trying to find one that would be similar to chrome with a nice shine. Any suggestions? I'm sure I will have more questions with this first endevor. Thanks again... I'm going home from work now

-Marc

[bwtr]

If you have made something in the Vertex or Spline modelling windows, when you go back to the Assembly room you can resize the item, relative to the other items, under the Motion/Transform--size/xyz etc dropdown. (have a pencil sketch of the whole thing with inches or whatever allocated to the size of each part as a reference!)

Some excellent standard steel and chrome shaders in C5Pro--surprised if not in the demo. (Metal Shaders).

C5Pro is great, have fun.

[Aunty Betty]

As far as creating good reflective metal is concerned all attempts will look awful unles you give the object something to reflect.

A quick and easy method is to use HDRI - there is a good example in the Carrara 5 Browser under > Global Illumination, using a a trumpet object.

From the manual.

HDRI Controls
The HDRI background uses a High Dynamic
Range Image (HDRI) as a background (Note
that there is no HDRI backdrop). Using the
HDRI background is especially useful if you
want to create realistic reflections on your
objects or simply create complex lighting
(using the sky light option of the renderer).
background. In this case, Carrara uses the
background for the reflection environment
and places the backdrop behind the objects.

Also look into using a background to create reflections. Reflected
backgrounds are also knows as environment
maps.

Remember also to look into modifying your relection channel in a shader to get the desired results.

[DirectRevolt]

I think my problem may be that I have no background or planes. I was going to try to create a wooden floor with a table to place the sword parts on however the only thing I've been able to create so far is a rocky plane with no level ground. How would you recommend doing a background? Model a floor and walls in the Spline modeler?

Originally Posted by Aunty Betty

As far as creating good reflective metal is concerned all attempts will look awful unles you give the object something to reflect.

A quick and easy method is to use HDRI - there is a good example in the Carrara 5 Browser under > Global Illumination, using a a trumpet object.

From the manual.


Also look into using a background to create reflections. Reflected
backgrounds are also knows as environment
maps.

Remember also to look into modifying your relection channel in a shader to get the desired results.