3D Digital Workshop

The Crate

With this crate i started with the primitive shape of the cube. I changed the size and position of the cube, making it larger and putting it on top of the grid instead of half of the cube on top and half underneath it.

I then extruded the faces of the cube to create smaller and deeper squares on each face of the cube. In addition to that i extruded the internal geometry, so that the slats could sit inside the smaller squares on the cube.

For the slats i created another primitive for the slats, as i did with the cube, i scaled it into size and shape so the primitive then looked like a slat. For optimization, i deleted the polys on the slat that no one would be able to see. This helped to lower the amount of poly for the entire crate, saving space. Once i had done this i placed the slat into the position on the cube and began to duplicate onto each face of the cube.

Now that i had the shape of the crate i needed to unwrap it so that i can get a 2D representation of my 3D shape, allowing me to paint on each side easily. to do this i began by selecting the faces around the outside the cube. Furthermore, i used Planar-Cylindrical to create a projection of the outside faces around the cube.

I then had to use UV so i could relax the cube, using Smooth/ Unfold. I Selected UV shell and selected the net so i could then Unfold it. Because of this my net was now diagonal. So i then straightened it and straightened UV’s, so all lines on the net were straight.

For the top and bottom of the crate we needed to copy the steps we had already done. Use normal Planar to select the top of the crate only, then Unfold the net in UV editor and straightened the UV’s on the net. I did these steps again for the bottom of the crate so both sides were Unfolded and straightened.

To connect the top and bottom nets to the side net, i had to use the stitch and move tool. By selecting ‘Edges’ it automatically showed which two sides connected to each other on the cube, showing the top and bottom connected to the sides.

Lastly, to make everything that i had done work i needed to pack the entire net and the net for the slats into the grid, however we needed to put it in between 0 and 1, otherwise it simply would not work.

After unwrapping the entire object i hand painted it on Photoshop so i could practice and learn some techniques to bring a good result for my finished piece. Personal i think my drawing is a lot better than what i anticipated and it is quite a stylised crate as well.