3DVIA®

Video – Interview with Don Swavely

Most of our users know Don virtually, through his constant feedback and attention to the users on 3DVIA.  I interviewed Don to show you the other side of Don.  Many do not know about Don’s amazing career:  He has worked as a mechanical design engineer; from toys to neonatal blood pressure units - in advertising; both trade and [...]

3D Engines: Better than a Hemi!

Delving into the software that power our 3D interactive environments or Game Engines can get very technical and daunting.  Considering the number of solutions out there, and the different terminology used to describe them, it can also get very confusing.  In this article we will define what a Game Engine is, a few different types [...]

Immersion Techniques in 3D Environments

 
In games, 3D guided tours, games, environmental demos, games, architectural presentations, games; no matter the scene, the purpose is always to make the user feel like he’s actually in your demo.   To create the illusion of being part of the world, developers use various techniques to maintain the illusion throughout the experience. In this article [...]

Vehicle Design 102: Games

 
In my previous blog we talked about individual vehicle design.  In this blog we will explore vehicle design for games. There are a few considerations you must keep in mind when designing vehicles for games, today we’ll cover 3: Mobbing up, Flavor, and Balance.
Mobbing up
No man is an island, in games, no one vehicle can [...]

Vehicle Design 101

 
 Often once you build a vehicle, you want it to do everything well, to handle any obstacle and take on entire countries by itself!  What started out as a troop transport, is now an amphibious Monster Truck with 8 gun turrets, 18 missiles, 40 rocket launchers and 2 miles per gallon that has the seating [...]

Tips and Tricks for Staying on your Polygon Diet.

From graphics to persistent 3D worlds, there will come a time when you will have to model with a polygon limit.  I’m sure by now you’ve noticed how quickly and silently your polygon count rises as you model.  In today’s blog, I talk about a few ways to help stay under your polygon limit and still end [...]

Shape 101: Understanding What 3D Really Is

As we are thrown into an increasingly computer-savvy world, it seems the term “3D” comes up more and more. Whether it relates to the 3D you might see in the movies, the 3D in a brochure, or something entirely unexpected, 3D is everywhere. While you hear the term and see examples often enough, do you [...]

Spot the Fake! Walkthrough

I recently posted a 3D Model on 3DVIA that asked you to spot the fake crate from the “real” crate.  I am going to go through the process of how I made it in this blog.
Modeling the full detail Crate
This was fun to make! A nice simple crate that everyone can make at home.  I [...]

3D or not 3D, The world of UV editing.

That is the question isn’t it?  After you spend all this time making this wonderful 3D Model, you have to work in 2D space to create the UV’s.  Barbarism! you say?  But its true.  In today’s blog we’ll go into what UV’s are and why they are so important.
UV’s

UV’s are 2D representations of vertices on [...]

Poly Flow, The Way of the Modeler.

After my first 2 blogs (Not All 3D Content is Created Equal, Modeling for games, Why does it look so good?) covering the need for and the how to create great looking low polygon models, I thought we could get into some of the techniques used to create models effectively.  Lets look at the Letter D, as its [...]