Modelling a chess piece (Rook)

30/09/2015
Charlotte Bethany Henderson

Reference Image for Rook

100359031

During our first Introduction to 3D modelling lecture, we were assigned to practice our modelling skills by choosing an object and then recreating it in Maya. This was so that people that had either never modeled or had never used this particular programme before could get used to the tools that we will need to be using frequently during the course.

I chose to model a Rook, one of the pieces from a chess board, and started by finding an image that I could use to work from.

I then opened Maya and started working.

On my first attempt I began working from the base of the chess piece up, without giving much thought to how I was going to create the divisions at the top of the model. This caused me issues later on, and I ended up just creating a second model, rather than over complicating the original.

I started working from a primitive cylinder, which had 20 subdivisions on its two circular faces, which caused the issues later on, due to needing to have 24 subdivisions in order to have equal distances between the divisions at the top of the rook.

After having created the primitive cylinder I mostly used the extrude and bevel tools to create the ridges that run around the base of the chess piece, as well as the area just beneath the head of the rook.  I also used the 'Insert Edge Loop' tool to create three segments around the body of the rook in order to create the conical shape of this area.

First attempt  

It was at this point that I realised my error, and had to change my method of working.

After this I had to work instead from the top down, once again creating a primitive cylinder, but instead editing the presets so that it had 24 subdivisions on the circular faces, allowing for there to be an equal division by 6, (24/6=4) which meant that the head of the rook would have a pattern of 3 faces extruded, followed by one that was not, creating the divisions.

After this it was a simple matter of repeating the steps I had taken with the first model, just working from the top down, rather than from the bottom up.

Once I had completed the model I had to delete a number of the polygons that had been created, as while I had modeled it as a high poly model, as it was only a small object, the poly count should've been kept as low as possible. While close to the model this makes it look very squared off, at a distance it accounts for no lose of overall detail to the asset.

High/Low poly comparison

Completed model

Duplicated and textured