No, really, this is almost certainly the final dedicated modelling blog post.
Despite starting this project with some of the building already complete, this has still been a monstrously time/mental-energy-consuming process for modelling. And this is only stage one of the project too.
Anyhow, cracking on – I was happy with the designs I came up with in my sketchbook for the grounds, so I got on and started modelling the area, starting off with the block forms below (rest of the post will be done in screenshots captions, as usual for modelling).
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The first pass at the ridge detail – strongly referencing similar forms in the building. Modelling was fiddly, but fairly straight forwqard – mainly starting with very basic arcs, then scaling and rotating the resulting forms until they flowed well with the petals
The test of the stairs between the rough petals – a height of 3 metres was chosen (15 steps, 200mm risers)
Beginning the curved stairs – created using arcs (as ever), then boundary tool to create the flat plane before adding divisions to make the step outlines
The finished stairs after extruding up the steps – the stairs intersect through the walls, but this isn’t an issue
Turns out when I made this detail at first I was a right idiot and made it as if it was 6m high, and not 3m – necissitating a remodel. Silly Stu.
Using curves to define the lotus pools – they were created using the usual Arcs -> Boundary -> Extrude Faces workflow that I used for much of the building
The floors of the petal platform showing…that it well, looks like it has petals. Job done I guess.
The main sections of the finished building grounds – showing the lotus pools, curved stairs, and petal platform
Top view – here the petal designs are even more evident
Topology of the finished area – the pools are ’empty’ at the moment as the water will be modelled in 3DS Max (there’s a really simple and effective workflow for that)
6 large, simple planes were added to form the main paved plaza area around the building to give plenty of coverage for when rendering later
…illustrated far better here.
Stuart McInnes 