However, here goes as to how I created my daffodil for the March Calendar image
Creating the Background
To create the background, I drew out a box that was big enough to fill the viewport. I rotated this until it was in the correct position. I then applied a material with a background image to this box. I found the image to use in the background on the internet. If I had more time, I would have created my own image. This finished the background for this image.
Creating the Daffodil
I started off by creating the stem for the daffodil. I drew out a long, thin cylinder, converted the shape to editable poly and applied a bend modifier with an angle of -35.5 in the Z axis. This gave me a realistic shape for the stem. I rotated the stem until it was in the position that I was happy with.
To create the petals, I drew out the petal shape with a line spline until I had my petal shape. When I was happy with the shape, I converted the shape to editable poly and extruded the image very slightly so the shape had some depth. On the reverse of the shape, I selected the border and capped the shape so it was a solid shape. I then applied another bend modifier to the petal to make it look even more realistic. I used roughly about 40/50 degrees angle and the same for direction in the Y axis. I then cloned this shape 3 times so I had 4 petals in total. I adjusted the bend modifier for each one so they were not the same. I then rotated and positioned the four petals so they were in a circle at the top of the stem.
I then had to create the centre part of the daffodil. To do this, I created another spline that outlined one side of the centre part of the flower. I then applied the lathe modifier to create the full bowl style shape that I was after. I then rotated and positioned this at the top of the step, sticking out in the middle of all of the petals.
I then created a small cylinder and applied a bend modifier to it. I cloned this two times and then placed these three inside the middle part of the daffodil.
Finally, I created the leaf at the bottom of the image with another line spline and converted this to editable poly. I then rotated this around until it was in a position I was happy with.
Applying Materials
The materials I used for the daffodil were all taken from images of daffodils that I found on the internet.
For the petals, I created a Blinn material and added a bitmap image of a daffodil petal. I then rotated the map by 90 degrees in the x axis. I increased the specular level to 13 and the glossiness to 16, just to pick out some highlights. I then applied this material to the four petals.
For the leaf, I created another material and applied a bitmap image of a daffodil leaf as a map. I increased the specular level to 50 and applied this material to the leaf.
I created another Blinn material with the centre of a daffodil as the image map to use on the centre lathed shape and the middle small cylinders. I changed the specular colour to a light orange and changed the level to 26. This just added some definition to the material. I applied this to the shapes but decided it didn’t look quite right on the two shapes so I created another material that was very similar but with different texture settings on the map. When I applied this new material to the centre cylinders, this looked much better.
Finally, I used a similar material to the leaf material for the stem of the daffodil. For this material I increased the specular level by about 15 and rotated the map 90 degrees. I then applied this to the stem of the daffodil.
Final Thoughts
As I have previously said, this was my least favourite image of the three I created. If I had spent some more time on this I could have made the daffodil look more realistic and applied some better materials to help with that.
However, everyone so far who I had shown this image to has said straightaway that it was a daffodil so at least people can tell what it is! Even if it isn’t quite realistic, it is a more abstract or modern looking flower!
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