As part of my research assignment I started working on the Glock-19 tutorial from Eric McGinnis. I have learned a lot of new things, like workflows and how to use a variety of scripts to speed up my progress.
The part that has taken me the longest was setting up every reference to scale 1:1. Since I am doing a real life gun, there is documentation on how big everything should be. It all stems from the 9mm caliber! The bullet has to fit the magazine, and the magazine has to fit the frame. The bullet needs to fit the barrel, and the barrel needs to fit the slide. Everything has to fit correctly and that can only be achieved if the proportions of the gun and bullet are correct.
The first script I got was Smart Measure: https://d95design.com/product/smart-measure/
It can be used to measure common dimensions such as distance, total
length, area, angle and dimension of objects in the coordinate system.
This allowed me to confirm the measurements of the gun parts and make sure they are 1:1.
After a bunch of hours setting up my references here is how they look:
Throughout the tutorial, Eric kept making things see-through, in Blender you need 1 key to toggle it on and off, but in Max you have to go through 2 UI pages and it takes too long. Inspired by the "you have to get faster" mentality, I looked up another script to speed this up.
The Second Script I got was Visibility Controller: https://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/visibility-controller
A simple 0-1 slider has drastically changed my workflow and speed.
After 10 hours I finished the block out:
It was blocky but that's what it is! a block-out!
Continuing the videos, Eric used a script for Blender called MiraTools, it basically creates a spline on a selected group of vertexes and allows you to create smooth low poly curves. Finding a replacement for this script took me about 2 hours. There are a lot of scripts for Max but the vocabulary between software varies.
Eventually I found a Third Script, Miauu's Spline Deformer: https://miauu-maxscript.com/portfolio-item/miauu-spline-deformer/
This script was a game changer! It has helped me get smooth surfaces and nice low poly curves.
I put 10 more hours into the model and I am almost half way through the high poly.
I am really excited about this project since I am learning SO MUCH! Yipeeeee!
