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Emerald Guitar Project
- ailish haughey
- Apr 27, 2017
- 2 min read
The company
Emerald Guitars make custom made artisan guitars from carbon fibre. Their guitars are built to order.
I contacted Emerald Guitars to see if they would like a 3D model of one of their guitars. They were interested and very happy to have me do a project for them.
The Brief
I proposed modelling one guitar of their choice and creating an animated turntable/rotation and an Augmented Reality version of the model. They invited me to call out for a chat. I visited their workshop and spoke to Alister about modelling the x20 guitar, their most popular model. He lent it to me for a week and I took measurements and got a feel for the curves of it.
I began modelling the guitar in Maya.
I found the process quite difficult and time consuming. Rigid body modelling is less forgiving than organic modelling.
Unwrapping I want the unwrap on one uv map to enable Augmented reality version.
Texturing Emerald Guitars are carbon fibre guitars. This is a unique selling point and has a striking unique visual. I created a tillable carbon fibre texture in Photoshop.
I applied the textures in maya, then exported the model to mudbox in order to create a smoother model and extract specular maps and additional diffuse maps.
I closely followed the specularity on the guitar, making the edges glossy and the inside of the guitar matte,
note: the inside of the guitar is a matte carbon fibre texture, in contrast to the outside body which is glossy.
I also have to consider detailing such as the logo and inscriptions on the metal machine heads.
Running into problems When focusing on the more refined details I realised my UVs were not unwrapped perfectly so I spent a lot of time redoing them.
Eventually the X20 replica was modelled and textured.
Animated Turntable I set up lights and a turntable and rendered it out for Vimeo.
Interactive online 3D and VR I exported the model to sketchfab as a still piece and the turntable animation+++
Augmented Reality I also exported the files for an Augmented Reality version of the model to be viewed on smartphones with the App Augment
The model has a slant and is smaller than i would like when viewed through the AR app I will try and fix this at a later time.
Rotation
Here is a link to the turntable animation. It includes the animated lighting. The track is played on the X20 Opus.
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I conducted the work experience from College as the software and technology was available. I completed it one day per week for 8 weeks rather than over the Easter Break. I agreed with Emerald to have the completed files sent to them by May 19th.
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