need some advice on architectural modeling

#1

Ok so I am no stranger to autodesk maya or zbrush but I am about to start a long term project and was hoping some people might have some advice for me.

My goal is that I want to model a cathedral type structure like the one in this link

http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/wallpaper/cathedral_notre_dame_desktop_3000x2000_wallpaper-319758.jpg

I’ve seen some tutorials where people actually do some of the detailed work in zbrush with alphas and so forth. I have also heard that 3ds studio max is a good program for modeling architecture, so I don’t know if I should get familiar with it. ( I do have the 2012 version).

So I guess ultimately I am just asking about the work flow process and if it’s common or not for people to do detailed structured work in zbrush or if it is all posible in a 3d application. Any feedback would be appreciated.

#2

The biggest thing is to think modularly. A cathedral is ultimately just ten or so shapes repeated a whole lot of times.

And yes, for many of the details you’re gonna want to use ZBrush or Mudbox. Doing it all in Max or Maya is theoretically possible, but not gonna be any fun at all.

#3

Thanks Meloncov for the advice. It’s funny you brought up dealing with the project modularly because I was also thinking of that and problems that might arise. Ultimately I am shooting for realism so this project will be high poly.

Would a good way to approach this is try to get the basic outlying shape of the structure. Then possibly start tacking on assets such as the triangular gable pieces on the structure. I mean, I would guess this thing would have to be made out of many different components. I doubt most of it could be one mesh, but I could be wrong. I don’t have the experience building something like this so I’m not really sure.

#4

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