Building Alliances - Modelling the Newton Building

  Building Alliances - Modelling the Newton Building

Following on from my last post, I wanted to make a landmark building to fulfil my own requirements for 3D modelling. Since I live in Nottingham, I really only had to think about what stands out to me the most that is within reason to model in time for the final pitch presentation. The Newton Building, a part of Nottingham Trent University stood out to me as an obvious choice, so I went with that. Before any 3D modelling though, I needed to decide on some things, including researching the building itself.

Firstly, I decided on not sketching or using my own orthographic drawings for this model. This project has definitely changed my workflow in terms of 3D work, since this is the first time I've attempted modelling a real, existing building. The reason I decided to do this is because overall it takes less time, and I feel it is unneeded if I am modelling a real building, with a real reference that exists. This all links in with my responsibilities as a director, since I make decisions like this for the benefit and efficiency of the team.

Next I researched the building itself, as well as gathered images I will use as reference.

I looked at the official NTU website, where its stated that "The Newton building was added in 1956-8 as part of the expansion of what by then was the Nottingham and District Technical College. A magnificent example of mid-20th Century architecture, it is one of the tallest buildings in Nottingham and boasts a striking art-deco style. Officially opened by HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent in June 1958, it wins instant recognition today as one of the flagship buildings of Nottingham Trent University." Judging from this and how it is a flagship building of a well known institution, this is reason enough to believe that it is a well known building, and a good pick for me. Below are the images that I will use for reference whilst modelling the building. These are all from David Edge (Historic England 2023)

Next it's important to discuss the fact that this model is most likely not going to be completely 1:1 accurate. It is also important that I find an example of what I want to try and do, which is to capture the overall shape of the building so it's recognizable. The example of this in an existing game is Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games 2013), where the game mimics the city of Los Angeles with the in game counterpart Los Santos.

In the game, the buildings within the city and the city structure itself is not close to being completely accurate, but it is accurate enough to be recognizable. This is what I want to emulate with this model. I was going to use Blender (Blender Foundation 2025) for this model, just like with the harpoon gun, as I find it the easiest to implement my workflow in.

Moving onto the modelling phase, using tools previously used in the harpoon gun modelling, I ended up with this. This was a combination of starting with a cube, then changing its size. I then used a combination of the multi-cut, extrude tools along with the mirror modifier to end up with this.

To create the entrance part of the building, I did the same thing here, using a mirror modifier so I could be more efficient by modelling one side. In terms of the actual entrance, I didn't plan on modelling it as the original idea was to have a whale carcass blocking it. As the director, one of my previous decisions was to cut down on my workload outside of research, so whereas I won't be modelling it, it was the original intention, and I plan to do concept work around the building too.

This is what I left the entrance looking like. The doors to the Newton Building look very detailed, and to avoid having too much unnecessary polygons, I will not make it. Going back to Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games 2013), they design the entrances to buildings as a part of the texture, and they do the same with the interior, texturing it into the windows. This is because as an open world game, it massively cuts down on the memory and graphical load.

After modelling the basics of the windows, this is what it looked like. As previously mentioned, I want to cut down on the amount of detail, but I still want the building to be recognisable as the Newton Building.

Here I used another mirror modifier to alter the windows on both sides. in hindsight, I should've used clipping in the mirror menu, as there was a big issue later on with the polygons in the centre line clipping over to the other side.

Here I applied the mirror modifier, so both sides up to this point looked identical. I applied it here so that I could start modelling the lower layer, which would be impossible to do with the mirror modifier still on.

Here I started to extrude the lower parts of the building, and used the multi-cut tool to create the doorways at the bottom.

After finishing the entrance, this is what the building looked like.

I added a doorway on the rooftop, and a generator on top. Since it was still untextured, the next phase was to begin UV unwrapping everything. Once again in hindsight, I should've done this over the duration of modelling with a model at this scale so that

I used the projection method here to project the polygons on the model from the view to speed up the unwrapping process. Looking back I shouldn't have done this, instead I should've used the seam method, since it would be better for a model like this with a lot of faces hidden inside of window frames etc.

After exporting the files to Adobe Substance Painter (Adobe 2025), I began to apply textures to the model. I used masking to add textures to specific parts of the building.

As I went along with the texturing process, I was testing it out with the internal renderer to see how it looked in-engine. I think this worked out very well for myself, as it allowed me to get a perspective that I would normally only see when I get to the in-game stage. Therefore, this makes the efficiency of the workflow much better.

After finishing the the base materials, this is what the model looked like.

Now for the finishing touch, I made an NTU logo stencil, which I just made black and white to allow the program to read it as a stencil. (Basically functions as a mask, where only whatever is white can be drawn in.)

This is what it looked like when applied to the building.

Below are some of the final renders of the model.

I also uploaded this model to view online which can be found here. Overall, I was content with the model, but I don't think the workflow was as efficient or as successful as how it was with the harpoon gun.

References:

Adobe, 2025. Adobe Substance Painter [Application]. Steam. Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2718190/Substance_3D_Painter_2024/(Accessed 25/01/25)

Blender Foundation, 2025. Blender [Application]. Steam. Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/365670/Blender/ (Accessed 25/01/25)

Rockstar Games, 2013. Grand Theft Auto V [Video Game]. New York City, USA. Available at: https://www.rockstargames.com/gta-v [Accessed 29 January 2025].

David Edge, 2023. NTU Newton Building. [Image] Historic England. Available at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1323704. [Accessed 29 January 2025].

2025. Newton and Arkwright [online]. Ntu.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/study-and-courses/courses/our-facilities/newton-arkwright [Accessed 29 January 2025].