Continuing on from my Master Sword render in January, I decided to continue with a Zelda theme for my next project. I thought the Ocarina of Time was going to be fairly simple to create, but to be honest it was a real struggle. My main issue was topology, specifically trying to handle the holes and the Triforce.

My original plan was to make the Triforce part of the same mesh as the Ocarina, except that it was embossed into the material. It took me a few evenings and I just couldn’t figure out the topology for it, which is a shame.

I also decided to use the subdivision surface modifier for this render as practice. I didn’t really enjoy it. I found playing around with the mesh to make the subdivided render look correct was very tedious. Also it doesn’t really match what I want to do with 3D modelling, which is to be able to make simple game meshes. I did use the subdivision surface for this project, but in the future I’m going to just do standard modelling.

After scrapping the original project after a few days, I made a simpler version where the Triforce was simply a different object on top of the Ocarina. It doesn’t have the effect I wanted, but it still looks okay.

Trying to model the holes was frustrating too, but I at least learned about using Loop Tools in Blender. These are a set of extra tools that includes a way to turn a vertex into a circle. I used this to create the circles where the holes should be, then I extruded them in, scaled them and transformed them to give the illusion that you’re looking inside the Ocarina. In reality, it’s just a cylinder.

I made some very simple materials, and added an animation. And here we are!

I really did want this project to turn out better. I was just stretched for time this month and ran into so many weird topology issues that I couldn’t quite hit the bar I wanted. I haven’t even started prototyping the game I want to make, so I’m going to take a break from Blender until after I release my game. Hopefully that means I’ll finish the remaining 9 renders after October, and I’ll have gained more Blender experience by making the simpler assets for my game.

If you’re reading this and you have any advice or comments on how I could have made this render better, please let me know! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!