Ark Commentary
History
Ever since I learned of the power behind 3D art, I have wanted to create the Ark of the Covenant. I do not know why this particular project was so appealing to me, but something about the Ark made it so captivating in thought that I had to try and build it. Early traces of my drive for this project can be seen in the magazine table of contents that I made here. This particular project was one of my first attempts at doing work in Maya, and required a great amount of assistance from my friend, Ryan, who is a great source of knowledge regarding this type of work. He basically modeled the cherubs with me, while I did the box (which was a large feat for me at the time). This first Ark that I modeled can be greatly contrasted with the latest rendition in many areas, including its proportion, material and cherub models. The first Ark was based on a few rough images that I found online, and a little customized design for the box from my own imagination. The second time around, though, I was sure to get exact dimensions, as well as the truest understanding of what exactly a Cherub is. I invite to you to read further as I describe the process behind creating the Ark of the Covenant in Maya 8.0.
Planning
Before I could even think about opening Maya, I had to first find out what Cherubim actually looked like. They only appear physically a few times in the Bible. All other mentions of these angelic beings take place in the form of decoration in the Tabernacle. In scouring the internet for trustworthy resources, I first came upon the fact that Cherubs have four wings. I quickly penciled that in my imaginary list of physical features. I then discovered that they are often thought of as a combination between an ox, lion, eagle and man. They are also related (in appearance) to Lammasu, or Shedu, which are creatures with animal bodies, wings, and human-like heads. With these general descriptions in mind, I then decided on a basic appearance for the Cherubs. (Note: I also discovered that Cherubs are often confused with the putto.)
The last step in this phase for me was to finally get the correct proportions for the box of the Ark itself, the portion below the mercy seat. After reading the NLT translation of the Bible, I was able to find out that the Ark was 115 centimeters long, 69 centimeters wide and 69 centimeters high. I quickly made a primitive polygon box, and then started all of the fun.
Modeling
One of the features of the Ark that the Bible describes is its gold moldings. Having just learned some basic NUBS modeling skills, I realized that this could easily be done by lofting some basic CV curves, which worked very well. I then copied the resulting lofted plane four times (rotating 90-degrees each) and created the molding. In order to create one piece of geometry, I detached the curves that were used to create the plane, then lofted the corners at such a small level that it is impossible to notice. I then converted the NUBS molding to polygons, smoothed it, and replicated it the necessary amount of times for the top and bottom. I then created another molding for the recessed portions of the Ark. With the basic box completed, I put on the finishing touches with the four gold rings and their respective poles. And then the project got difficult.
At this point in my modeling experience, the most organic shapes that I created were for some polygon lilies that I created for a dining table. I created the petals by subdividing a flattened out cylinder several times over and tweaking the verts to create the elliptical shape of the petal. This method worked, but was extremely high in the count of polygons. I needed to find a way to create an entirely custom shape, since I knew that I could not easily start with a primitive (like a cube or sphere) and get the Cherub that I wanted. I soon realized that creating the body out of SubDivs was a very wise and efficient option. I quickly studied some basic lion anatomy, and then got to work. The body only took about forty minutes to create, with about three hours of fine-tuning (such as creating a spine, getting the butt just right and creating shoulder bones. I then turned to one of the most intimidating feats: creating a head.
As I said before, I was not used to doing a lot of organic modeling and desperately needed assistance. My friend Ryan recommended this tutorial. I honestly did not think that I could do it, but the process described was very basic, and slowly-paced. I decided to give it a whirl. After five hours, the basic design was complete. I did another three hours of cleaning up the mesh and working particularly hard on the nose and mouth.
The next struggle to overcome was finding a way to attach the head to the body. I thought of just laying the head on top of the body, and creating some sort of necklace to hide the seam. I then thought that this decoration would not only be too fancy, but also unnecessary in the grand scheme of the project. It then occurred to me that I would have to get the polygon count on the body and head to be as low as possible in order for the merge to go smoothly (no pun intended). After about two hours of tweaking and merging both verts and edges, I had my basic Cherub form.
I then moved on to one of my favorite stages: creating the wings. The first wing that I began to model was extremely high-poly. The file of just one wing topped the 48MB file size. I knew that I needed to change my approach. I then found a picture of a basic angel wing online, which was different from the bird wing that I initially had in mind. I created feathers with NUBS, converted them to polygons and then searched for the best way to get a natural pose out of the wing. I told my professor that I wanted to use a lattice, but had trouble with the sharp corners that it was creating. He then showed me how to insert bones and skin them with the wing that I had created. I was amazed. Now, keep in mind that my experience with Maya to this point had been purely with modeling, and not with animation; hence my awe. I posed the wing just right, and was ready to finalize the piece.
With all of this behind me, I duplicated the wings eight times, scaled the Cherubs, placed them on the Ark’s cover, and combined all of the geometry. I was then fortunate enough to find a beautiful gold shader at www. highend3d.com. This was the perfect touch. After lighting and tweaking material, I created what you see on EG.
Special Thanks
This project could not have been possible without the grace of God. It was this that gave me the patience to endure the setbacks and the courage to tackle some completely new aspects of modeling. My friend Ryan was a great resource, and responded very selflessly to all of my requests for help. I would not have had the ambition to complete this project if not for my professor, Dr. Joseph Cancellaro, CEO of MX Foundry. His teaching style and high expectations really encouraged me to push my level of understanding. As always, my fried Kuo (who runs EG on his server) was a great help with giving his opinion on test renders and supported me through it all.
Thank you for taking the time to discover all of the work that went in to this project, and feel free to contact me at mark@explosivegraffix.com with any thoughts.
Peace,
Mark