Sofa 3d Model Production

During my time 3d modelling with a mix of visual styles I decided to create a realistic looking sofa, which is designed to look like it would fit into a PC game of the 'walking simulator' genre. I wanted to create a piece of household furniture with realistic proportions, and to do this I first collected various reference images which I could use to gage the size and scope of a sofa. I got a variety of different sofa images to compare the detail in them, and what elements remain consistent throughout different designs.

An image I used for reference which I imported into the scene. This was very useful for getting the proportions correctly. (Karakurt, 2015)

A sofa from a different company, still has the same base shape to all other sofas. (Crumpacker, 2014)

A reference for am armchair. It still follows similar proportions that a sofa would, despite only sitting one person. (Hilton, 2009)

For a guide to understand how you would generally go about creating a sofa, I looked up various videos on Youtube to create sofas in 3d modelling software. This one in particular stuck out to me as it showcased various new tools and techniques for me to learn (such as control points and using the spline tool), while also being a sped up at a fast speed showing them modelling at a frantic pace. This means I couldn't copy it directly like a tutorial, which is a good thing as I also wanted to put my own spin on it anyway so the video served as a good guide for the general tools and methods that are good for the job, without just going by a step-by-step process.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB4iBow1Y1Q

I started working towards the chair's arms, from a plain with a reference image in the background, which I then repositioned the different vertices to match, incetted three times and extruded the centre piece inwards to create a 3d shape. I used the cloth modifier to simulate cotton. Then I used a smoothing modifyer to make the sofa's arm appear more realistic, and lastly converted everything to an editable poly, with a backup model as an earlier copy in case something goes wrong.

At this point I decided to make my model into an armchair not sofa, following the longer sofa as a reference image, but the smaller armchair in the same image for the correct proportions. I chose this direction as I feel that a smaller armchair is nicer to look at, and it's easier to get the proportions just right with more precise tweaking on a chair that sits one person, not three.To do this I used the symmatry tool to duplicate  the other half of the chair's arm, and put them together as shown below.

Next I created two new boxes, one of which is a ChamferBox as found under the 'extended primitives' menu. The chamfered box is much more rounded around the edges, which is perfect for the shape of a soft cushion to sit on. The more rigid box serves as the base of the chair, to keep someone in place if they sit down. I then used more control points to smooth it out andadd an extra layer of detail.

To make the seem for around the cushion I selected a looped edge at the top and bottom of the cushion, then converted that selection into a spline. Afterwards I made that spline into a cylindrical shape, and lowered the size and number of sides.

Next I made the chair's legs. For this I used the line tool to draw half of the leg's outline against the reference image, and then used the 'lathe' tool to make the object cylindrical into the shape of a chair's leg, while also acting similarly to the symmetry modifier with creating the other half of the chair's leg too, making them identical it each other on both sides. Afterwards I simply made 4 duplicate copies which reference the main leg and placed them at the bottom four corners of the chair.

I then finally for the chair made a pillow. Starting with a simple box which was only 0.1 thick, I used the same cloth modifier from earlier with the puffy seat, only this time being applied to the part of the chair the person sitting on would rest their back towards it (the pillow in this case). Only this time instead of using the preset 'cotton', I'm using 'silk' to create a more natural and free flowing appearance. I also used the chair as a point of collision, so during the simulation of physics the pillow naturally gravitated towards the chair's shape and rested in that position, giving it a very realistic posture. Afterwards like I did with the set cushion I selected the outside edges of the pillow and created a seam which wraps around the model, giving it a tightly knit appearance.

After this I added an extra layer of mesh smooth to the arms to give the chair more of a curved appearance. This brings the model's poly count to around 9000, which may seem high, but it's a model designed for a high-end PC game in the walking-simulator genre, meaning that the models needs to look smooth.



Now that all the pieces of the chair are complete, it's time for it to be unwrapped and textured in both 3ds Max and Photoshop respectively.

Here are some before and after shots:








Next-up I decided to get some peer feedback for some improvements to be made to this chair. So I took to both our Uni Facebook group and the Polycount forums for advice, these are the results I received, first-up from fellow students:

Tom Fabry: "I'd probably try to change the hue of the pillow to appear less purple, and more deep blue like the rest of the model. Right now its looking a bit too indigo, and sticks out a bit too much, IMHO. It is a nicely done couch though, not gonna lie - it definitely looks quite smooth and comfortable! Just change the hue to a more blue shade and you'll be fiiine.  I especially like the linework on the Sofa."

Josh Long: "Looks really good mate! Perhaps apply some maps? Perhaps a bump map? (displacement I think its called) to make the fibres of the material stick out? Also a few rendering tricks or sticking it into a game engine such as UE4 could make some of those shadows less harsh to make it look more realistic."

Rob Morphew: "Adam the textures look a bit harsh and stretched, I feel you should use less pronounced texture work and more softer block colours instead to look less "real". Otherwise looking good."

I feel this criticism is valid so I went to change-up the texture work a bit and fix a few other quirks people had with the chair. To conclude though I feel that my sofa model turned out really well, the texturing is a bit tacky in areas due to that being the specialism in modelling I struggle the most with, but overall I've proud of the sofa and it has a very nice style to it which crosses realism and stylisation really well. The feedback made me realise that the texturing was a bit of a problem though, and people considered the model to look better untextured. I decided to make a fast fix, and gave the sofa a more stylised look to it with blocked-in colours instead of the crudely drawn-in fabrics. Here's the final sofa, which admittedly looks much better with less 'detailed' texture, fitting in with the theme of some of my other models (like the bird). Sometimes, less really is more.

The armchair has also been uploaded to Sketchfab allowing you to view the whole model online without loading 3ds Max. The url is here: https://skfb.ly/MVFY