Dr. Suess' "The Lorax" Helmet 1st,2nd Pass, and 3rd Pass Texture Setup

 REFERENCE

From Helmet Mask Reference (Bird top-left)

Backside Pipe Reference (machine in background)

General Helmet Shape Reference

How I got my images...
This one was the easiest to find to images for, why? because I knew there was a helmet on the main character and it was very iconic for the character. This didnt make designing the helmet weasy though. I needed to make it my own. Simply copying the helmet over didn't make is my design, or oricinal in any way. So to go along with the milieu I continued to find images that went along with the mileiu of the concept. One of these things was the animals, so I began looking for images and parts of the animals that I could attach to the helmet.


CONCEPT 

                                       

                                                Concept Sketch (Side View/Right)

                                       

                                                   Concept Sketch (Front View)

                                                                                                        


      

              Concept Sketch (Top View)







RENDER (First Pass High Poly)




    

        3DS MAX Render (Side View Right)



    

             3DS MAX Render (Perspective)

       

                3DS MAX Render (Front View)

      

              3DS MAX Render (Top View)

Finding a unique design while still conforming to the concept of Dr Suess' the Lorax was difficult. What I ended up with is a helmet that keeps the designs found in the movie with the added element of the game's milieu. The added gas mask in the shape of the bird's bill/beak gives the sense of the setting conditions that all the trees are gone and the air is smoggy, but the added exhaust pipe shows that the setting still requires the use of machines that create smog. The hardest part to model was the bird's bill/beak. At first I tried to approach it using lathe and editing the edge loops by scaling the y axis down to give the broad skinny shape rather than circular, but using lathe created too many polys to work with in a timely manner so I started over using the box modeling while using a image plane for reference. This also created a time consuming problem and left me with too little poly's to use and adding planes by slicing created problems with the moved and scaled vertices. So for the final and most successful attempt I created circle shapes and spread them out. Using cross section to connect them I then scaled and moved the circles around until they had the basic shape of the bill. I then used the surface modifier to create the polys. Very little editing was needed after this to get the bills shape. LAST THOUGH: The shape of the bill is too boxy, but with the three different methods I still stuck to the cross section and surface modifier.

RENDER (Second Pass)

Helmet converted to water tight single mesh object

Front View (new duck mask using shapes and cross sections in 3DS MAX )

Left Side View (Second Pass)

Right side View (Second Pass)

Top View (Second Pass)

On the second pass the welding of vertices was an ugly endeavor. In the first pass it was unknown to me that the model needed to be a single mesh object when it was finalized for texturing. With the many primitives welding warped and flipped the polys, it created penetrating geometry, and got rid of many edge loops. I added the smooth modifier to smooth out the boxy polys on the bill mask.

RENDER (Third Pass/Texture Setup)

Water Tight Single Mesh

Low Poly(Left) and High Poly (Right) Left Side View

Low Poly(Left) and High Poly(Right) Top View

Low Poly(Left) and High Poly(Right) Front View

Low Poly(Left) and High Poly(Right) Right Side View

In the third pass instead of even attempting to save the second pass model for UV unwrapping I started over. Using the second pass as a reference I began the same way by cutting a sphere in half and moving half the vertices apart to created the helmet shape. I also took the original bill, copied its polys and detached the into a new object. I used the shell modifier to give it thickness and the smooth modifier to smooth out the boxy polys. I then selected polys on the under edge of the helmet (sphere) and beveled them out to create the straps. I also used hinge from an edge to give a better transition from the helmet to the angle the strap need to be. I attached the primitives and welded them together. As well instead of making strap rings from toruses and attaching them  I beveled them from the straps and chamfered the edges to make them appear smooth. Finally, instead of creating the exhause pipe from a cylinder on a path deform, I created it from and engon shape and extruded it down into it's shape. I then used turbo smooth to create a high poly from a low poly. The process was not as quick as the first pass since this object was made from 3 primitives rather than 16, but transforming it into an object ready for UV unwrapping is much easier. LAST THOUGHTS: Modeling from low poly to high poly in my personal opinion is more thorough and effective.

UV Low Poly Reduction
(reduced from over 1400 polys to under 500 polys)

Front View Render (3DS MAX)

Left View Render (3DS MAX)

Right View Render (3DS MAX)

Top View Render (3DS MAX)

From the third pass to the low poly reduction was not difficult. It was a matter of removing the edges and the vertices that were not required to maintain the general shape of the helmet. The most difficult part to reduce was the duck bill mask which contained half the polys of the entire object. I removed all internal shells of the bill mask and the helmet and removed all edges on the straps that were not needed to change its direction. No poly reduction was required of the exhaust pipe. Looking back on previous passes I would have used less circles on the cross section of the bill mask so there would be less tie spent on reduction. I would have also not used the shell modifier and only added it if it was absolutely neccesary for the high poly and texturing.

UVW UNWRAP SCHEME (before flattening)

FINAL THOUGHTS

The helmet was quite difficult to make. Partly because it is the first attempt at low poly modeling, and partly because of where the design comes from "The Lorax" and the design itself. It goes to prove that low poly/game modeling take alot of fore thought both during concept and the modeling process. Approaching the model with low poly modeling in mind before opening up any program on the computer creates a more empathetic process when modeling. This proves that modeling without endgons, triangles, and creating border edges, makes for easier unwrapping and easier manipulation.