Like the glass it was mainly down to materials and render settings, but the end result is far more than i wouldve imagined i could create.
Due the materials, most of the needle had to be created as separate objects and then in the end assembled together.
I worked from the vocal point outwards, but ill explain it bottom to top.
The syringe part is a line, lathed, it was inspired by a lathe gone wrong at the start f the project when i was making the tubes and jars, so its a good example of how everything happens for a reason.
The finger holders is a short and fat cylinder with very little fillet, and a thinner longer cylinder booleaned into it, and then copied to create the other. simple.
The base of the needle is an oil tank shaped to what you see in the horrible images below, the radioactive substance i made first, and set perfectly on the oil tank below, i then very carefully extruded and lathed a line around it, stretching it to be the designed height.
The cap was a simple circle extruded several times and the center vertexs lifted up into a very fine point, a task i under estimated.
Now thats the basic shape sorted, time for materials and textures.
I started by creating a very metalic material, tis was done by alot of experimentation, and it turned out exactly how id hoped. The glass around the substance was a glass i had already created but not used for the jars and test tubes, so that worked out handy.
The glowing green matter on the other hand was not as simple.
I started like i have done for most of this project, i froze everything but the object i wanted to work on. Then followed a tutorial i found online, i tried several but they didnt give the glow i wanted, so for a while i was really disappointed in the needles outcome, until i found a tutorial for the glow of a lightsaber (george lucas' star wars, wiki link and tutorial link below) Although the tutorial was for a red lightsaber, like i said before tutorials are just guides to me, so it was only a matter of tweaking a few colours and settings for the green.
This was a very long and sometimes confusing tutorial when put into practice, but very worth while in the end.
Im not going to go through the tutorial step by step, as ive linked it below and its easy enough to follow, so it would be a waste of time, time im quite short on.
So instead i will discuss my thoughts on the process and the outcome.
This is a good example of something you cant just experiment with and hope to get it right, you need tutorials for this to an extent, tweak it to become your own, but outside help in my opinion is essential in this case.
When i first finished this tutorial it didnt render out properly and there was no glow, just a green block, which i of course panicked at, and watched the tutorial twice again to realize i hadnt clicked on one simple box, reminding us all 3D Max is a confusing power tool and every tiny box and option should be read and checked properly, otherwise you will end up with the wrong outcome, ie. a green block and a wasted afternoon.
As far as i can remember i said this quite alot last year, how much i hated confusing programes with loads of options that a whole object/file/project could go wrong if you missed one step, or a step within a step, 3D Max needs to be somewhat understood before you can actually create anything properly, which means theres alot learning to get done before you can even start saying you can kinda of use the software. when someone tells me they know how to use 3D Max and they arent on a deans list or getting well paid to know how to use it, i tend to think 'you only think you know how to use 3D Max. if you really knew, you wouldnt be here or telling me how much you know) So my advice to all you 3D Max newbies, would be ignore anyone too ignorent to know they know very little about something like 3D software, and just keep building your own skills, they will eventually come.... at least im hoping they eventually come.
And always always double check what youve just done, nobody wants to end up with a basic green block and be left wondering why its not glowing.
And of course, always save your work, infact double save your work, who wants to be that person who has a great model, or glowing needle, and then loose it simply because they didnt click the little floppy disk.
I think ive mentioned before the needle, or its properties and rendering settings didnt export out properly, so always be careful and double check you are exporting with the right option, and if not, you will be stuck like myself, redoing it in a different file.
I still havent gotten the hang of the exporting and importing options, i was told what ive done wrong by a third year student, however even when he tried to fix it, it didnt work. to save time and energy ive just followed the tutorial and redone the glow, sometimes figuring out the problem isnt worth the time you put into it. I spent over an hour trying to figure out what went wrong, the third year student spent half an hour at least, thats an hour and a half that couldve got the glow redone in a different file.
So once again, time keeping is a major factor in any project, especially 3D,
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