Recommendation: Wings3D Tutorial for beginners

[Bikerdude]

I had a quick play with Wings3d and on the face of it looks quite useable from my perspective, so can anyone recomend a good 'wysiwyg' tuorial with pictures and accomaning explanations etc.

 

My first goal is simple enough in that I just want to mod and texture swap existing stock tdm models, for example - I had to ask Springheel to mod the 4 globe chandelier, and I would have liked to been able to do this myself.

 

On a Wings3D front, ist it able to use the existing stock tdm textures?

[Dragofer]

I've looked through the video tutorials available - what I was looking for was a user-friendly beginner's walkthrough for making a simple object as that would show many of the tools in action. The best bet imo is to follow the instructions in 'modelling a simple table'. Before starting it would be good to create a .txt file where you can record every shortcut mentioned.

 

From there I'd suggest to make a simple model from start to finish, like a cartwheel. That way you'd learn everything needed: how to manipulate a mesh, how to texture, how to export etc. Whenever you need to know how something is done in Wings3d, Youtube or Google will be handy for a quick tutorial.

[Bikerdude]

ta, video tuts can be usefull but always prefered picture and text - so will see how I get on.

[HMart]

Wings 3D was my first 3D modeling software so i have some experience with it, so i can give you some advice if needed, it has gained some new tools and functionality ever since i stopped using (i think more than 10 years ago) but i think the basics are still the same.

 

From my last time using it this is what i learned about it, so take this with a grain of salt.

 

1 - Wings 3D has one of the best Box modeling workflows in existence bar none, payed tools like Silo, Modo, and even free ones like Blender copied stuff wings3D add long ago.

 

2 - Wings 3D is very hotkey and right mouse button context based so has almost no buttons or visual aids in the modeling viewport, for example it lacks a translate/rotate/Scale 3D gismo.

 

3 - Wings 3D is not good has a high polygon modeler so no zbrush like million polys sculpting, it has sculpting functionality but is best used to massage the geometry than to sculpt small details.

 

4 - Wings 3D ALWAYS produces closed models (almost like brushes) so no single face planes or plane modeling (even tho it has a plane object but is a double face object with one face hidden using the "hole" material)

 

5 - If you want to give holes to your models or delete faces you need to assign the *hole material, it deletes the face only at export time and just hides it in wings3D viewport (if you want you can unhide it).

 

6 - Wings 3D has a very nice autoUV/unwrap tool (same one used on old 4.x versions of Blender) but lacks a pack uv function so prepare yourself to arrange the UV's in the 0-1 space by hand (if you want no overlap).

 

7 - Afaik Wings 3D can texture geometry like Darkradiant (using a special texturing mode) but is very cumbersome and not very user friendly like on DarkRadiant.

 

8 - Wings lacks a grid system like DarkRadiant (is not a level editor tho), but it can replicate it using its static grid and the hotkey based magnet system, with small and large steps.

 

9 - The wings 3D measuring system is based on its own unit the .wu one .wu can be one meter one feet or any arbitrary measurement you want.

 

And yes Wings can use the TDM textures but afaik only the diffuse the normal map and the specular map, aren't rendered in the real time viewport (you can use them if you render using YafaRay tho).

 

About tuts i recommend the Wings3D youtube channel and the next link for text tutorials. http://www.wings3d.com/paulthepuzzles/aardvarks.html

Edited October 19, 2015 by HMart

[Petike the Taffer]

As HMart elaborated, Wings3D is not bad, but it does have its limitations. It's the only modelling software I've tried to date, and I made that choice partly because I just wanted to learn some basics. I remember I successfully made a simple candlestick model, but that was already a few years ago. Afterward, I didn't follow up my older novice efforts, so it's been a long while since I've fiddled around with the thing. I never got to the texturing of that candlestick's mesh, so I'm not sure how flexible texturing is within this software, but I suppose it's more basic than in others. I suppose HMart could shed some additional light into this.

[Bikerdude]

I never got to the texturing of that candlestick's mesh, so I'm not sure how flexible texturing is within this software,

This will be a make or brake issue for me.

[HMart]

This will be a make or brake issue for me.

autoUV/unwrap is just like Blender you select some edges mark them for cutting and click unwrap, it automatically tries to unfold the UV the best it can. Here is a video that i did a long long time ago when first using Wings3D, is just basic uvmapping, no mark edges for uvmapping, that is a more advanced topic, but i will explain it below.

 

First the basic uvmap for rapid texturing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmayQDWYDGA

 

Second advanced uvmaping or unwrap

 

1 - import a mesh into wings or make one yourself

 

2 - start by looking to your model and think how to best cut your mesh, by cutting i mean where would the seams of the uv islands be (think of a unwrapped cube or the cut skin of a animal).

 

3 - Mark the edges for cut by selecting a edge right clicking and pick "hardness -> hard" they become orange.

 

4 - After marking the edges, select the full object by using the select body option in the top menu (the full red cube), right click and chose the "uv mapping" option at the bottom of the list.

 

5 - A new window appears right click select "continue" another window appears right click again and select unfolding, the mesh gets cut where you made the seams and gets put inside a 1 to 0 square with a colored checkerboard texture, this one is used to detect distortion on the uv map.

 

6 - on this new window you can edit your uvmap, you can relax the UV to minimize distortion, you can do normal scale, rotate and translate you can cut and stitch the uv islands if need (sometimes you need to do this to solve bad UV distortion)

 

7 - After editing your UV as desired right click on the UV window and select "Make Texture" a window appears where you can select your texture size and other options, like if you want to export only the silloet edges or also the interior edges, etc.

 

8 - Open the saved texture in your texture editing tool of choice (Gimp, photoshop, paint.net, etc) do what you want to it (don't change the aspect ratio tho and always paint a little outside the UV islands, without overlapping other islands, you do this to hide the black seams).

 

10 - Import the edited texture into Wings3D (just like on the video above) apply it to a material and voila a textured model with a non overlapped UV perfect for normal mapping and lightmapping if needed (btw wings3D unlike modo, blender, etc do not support more than one UV per model).

 

Hope this helps.

 

Found a video explaining advanced uvmapping for wings3D but uses a slight different workflow to mine, instead of using the "hardness -> hard" option that i proposed to mark the edges, he uses the extra window that appears to select the edges and use the "mark for cut" option, but imo is redundant and uses an extra step.

BTW the hardness option is just like maya hard/soft edges, used to also smooth a model without increasing the polycount (also akin to 3D max smoothing groups).

 

Here is his video

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSu4dI-R3g

Edited October 20, 2015 by HMart