Pot Progress

While

I am developing my game art project, I have been building various 3D assets to create a scene within the game engine Unity.

The scene I hope to create into a playable build, will be on the main working deck of the F/V Scully.

I aim to create a grey box build that showcases the fundamentals before polishing the environment and atmosphere to that of a high quality. 

One of the most significant models on the main deck will be the many crab pots that are used to catch the king crab.

I thought I would show my progress so far in the modelling stage (see image below), as in between other things (and life in general) it's taken a long time to model.

I began by creating the body of the pot, with a human skeleton rig as a size reference. I then built up the other parts around the frame, such as all the linked rope and buoys.

Again, like previous models, I had little reference to go by. There is plenty of footage of the crab pots from the television show Deadliest Catch. However, this is not ideal reference, due to the lack of detail from the multiple angles and perspectives needed to complete the modelling.

In order to fill the gaps, between what reference I had, I mainly used my imagination. Now this may not make parts (such as the type of knots used to link the rope to the pot) one hundred percent accurate, but with what knowledge I have (and without travelling to Alaska!), it is enough to get away with for the average viewer.

It is quite easy to get carried away with the smallest of details, when creating a realistic 3D model, and it takes a lot of practise (especially when working to a strict deadline or for a studio for example) to know when to stop. The parts of the model you've worked so long on could even get obscured, hidden from full view to the player, or scrapped in the development!

In the next post, I'll conclude the modelling with the texturing process and go into depth on how I tackled all that rope.


Thanks for reading :)