Entering the 3D world

So I've spent the last few days absorbed into the wonderfully confusing world of 3Ds Max!
I find 3D abit of a hit and miss subject. I find getting into it very difficult, often putting off opening the program and getting started. But once I do I spend days sitting at the screen working on it till the wee hours of the morning when I can no longer comprehend what I'm seeing.

I was looking forward to the building project, I thought it would give me the chance to explore abit more of 3Ds max and really get to grips with some fundamentals. I put alot of thought into the building I was going to do as I didn't want to spend alot of time trying to make a boring building look interesting. Thankfully I'm originally from Derbyshire which has a wealth of interesting old buildings that I knew about. So I spent a day driving around from village to village seeking out that special building that was going to inspire me to spend hours trying to recreate it.

I ended up in Tutbury, one of the most haunted places in Europe and home to the pub ' Ye Olde Dog & Partridge'. The pub has a rich history and is part of the frequent 'ghost walks' that takes place in Tutbury due to its resident ghosts! I found the building's slightly quirky layout really interesting and thought it would be different to what everyone else was doing. It does have some modern extensions but in order to keep the project manageable and within theme I decided to just do the main part of the pub.

I didn't find modelling the basic geometry very difficult but spend quite a bit of time deciding what to include and making it look accurate.

Once happy with the structure I began the lengthy process of UV unwrapping and texturing. Having not done a project of this size before I didn't realise just how long it was going to take to make some sense out of the unwrap! I spent hours trying to sort the ID groups and UVs into something I personally found manageable. Texturing followed shortly after which was another very lengthy process of trying to carefully make a unique texture sheet and several tileable textures.

To try capture some realism I added bump maps to give height and texture to the bricks, windows and other details. I'm happy with my building and think it reflects the amount of time and effort I put into it. It could still be improved however with specular maps and some lighting effects.