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Let's talk about another important aspect of designing 3D. Functionality.

So now, only because you're designing some abstract piece, doesn't mean the whole design, that's a combination of multiple pieces, shouldn't be functional if you're creating something that should function.

For example, let's take this mech, alright? You can clearly see that he has, you know, legs and joints and the guns which can rotate and you can see how it functions, so it makes sense mechanically.

For example, if you look here in the feet, you can see that, you know, feet can rotate sideways and then there is another joint here which allows the feet to move forward and backwards.

There is a, you know, knee joint here and also there is a joint here, like a ball joint here, so the hip, the leg can move freely in the hip, right?

Then you got these guns which rotate up and down and left and right, so you can see all the mechanism here makes sense, right?

So when you're creating something, make sure that if it's something that's supposed to function and we kind of can envision as humans how this would function, that you're gonna create something that actually sells that idea.

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Otherwise, your model will not look believable and be rejected by the brain.

Now, the interesting part is that when you're creating something that mechanically works, for example, a leg of a mech, it doesn't have to be super accurate in terms of kinetics or mechanical engineering, it can just sell the idea.

So it can look as if it was working without actually working, unless, you know, you want to create a walking animation, whatever, okay? Then you do need to make sure that these legs are moving properly, etc, right?

So let's take, for example, you know, this piece here, and on its own, right, you would say that, well, this piece has no function because you don't know what it does, and it's kind of abstract, so you can create abstract geometry by modeling, but when you put these pieces together, in this case, they form a shin, right?

They form a, you know, lower part of the leg. So, in context of this entire design, this makes sense. It's a, you know, it's a hollow space here, you can route the cable through, and it's structurally sound, which means it can support the weight of the mech, which is quite large.

Look how the weight is distributed in here, okay? It's not a thing. So when you create something that, for example, is walking, make sure that the center of gravity makes sense, so, you know, visually, this mech will not collapse backwards, okay? It's slightly, the chassis itself is slightly moved past the feet, okay? So if you look at the Z axis here, this element here is kind of, you know, moved past the feet to the right side, so it's, you know, right heavy, but then again, on the left-hand side, you've got massive guns.

You know, they're gonna be counterbalancing the back here. So this mech seems to be perfectly balanced, so when you're gonna look for, you know, at it from different angles, you will think that, okay, well, that makes sure it looks very stable, it's bipedal, so it could probably move very quickly, and all the joints, everything makes sense, you know, the center of gravity makes sense, and also the design, you know, looks pretty, pretty cool.

So when you're designing something, make sure that the functionality element is there. This is a good example of mechanical design that kind of makes sense when you look at it, but to be honest, it doesn't really work in, I mean, if you put it in real life, it wouldn't work, because if you look at these, you know, connections here, they just go nowhere, right? There's just no way this could work, but when you look at this model from this angle, right, you can't tell that this couldn't work.

It looks as if it was working. So you don't have to always go to the length that, you know, you're gonna create everything realistically, it just has to sell the idea of it working, and that's enough for the brain to think, oh, shit, that's pretty cool, that makes sense, do you see what I mean?

Even if you create a game asset, or you create something that's gonna be used in games, or, you know, in animations, whatever, it doesn't have to be perfectly designed mechanically object or model, because as long as it makes sense to the brain, and you cannot really tell that it just doesn't make any sense in terms of functionality, that's gonna be accepted by our mind, and, you know, by our brains, and it's gonna be okay.

But remember, this is a very important step when you're designing something that we can relate to in real life. So let's say like a truck, or a gun, or, you know, something that we can understand how it works, like this mech I showed you before, because we know how, for example, bipedal, let's say birds or other animals walk, so we can kind of look at it and think, well, this is working, that's fine.

So this is a very important thing to remember when you're designing your 3D models. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.