Renaissance Lute Model

Someone wrote to me, and asked for a model of a Lute; so here it is. It's all textured, using UV maps. (This is the front, and you can also look at the back, and a detail of the rose. The excellent pictures I used for the woodgrains are courtesy of Certainly Wood, which has a large selection of wonderful wood veneers, and are used with permission. (If I ever do something with real wood, that's where I'll be going.)

This model is low resolution, for using in non-closeup situations. If I get the time, I'll be making a high-resolution Lute to sell; but that's really on the back burner for now. No subpatches were used, but you can use them if you want to. (I'll warn you, though, that it makes the map pretty funky if you aren't willing to do quite a bit of work.) However, because it's low res, the strings and rose are really just transparency maps. This makes it easy to change the rose, if you feel so inclined; and also makes it possible to make the 11 strings in this six course Lute with just 2 polygons.

I learned a lot about lutes while doing this project; for instance, the frets on a lute are simply fret-gut tied around the neck, and the number of strings, ribs in the back and so on varies depending on the lute. This one is a six course lute with 11 ribs, which means it has 11 pieces of wood that form the back, or bowl, and five sets of double strings with one lone treble string. (The treble can be paired, too, but it's not.)

It's available in three formats; Lightwave .lwo with 2115 polys, Wavefront .obj with 2115 polys (some non-planer,) and Wavefront .obj with 2268 polys, no non-planer (LuteLR2.) It's not available in .3ds, because I discovered that the UV maps were not translating smoothly to that format. Until I can figure out why not, there's really not much point in going there for a model that's as mapping dependent as this one. The Image Maps (Color, Bump, and Transparency .jpgs) are a separate download, to keep the size reasonable. If you want, you can also download the uncolored UV Map.

As always, feel free to use any rendering of the model in work that is not for sale. I retain the copyright, and you may not sell or give away the mesh or the texture files. If you want to render the model in a picture or animation that you expect be paid for, please contact me for permission. Thank you.

This and all other work on this site is copyright © Robin Wood; all rights reserved. Please do not use it without permission. To get permission, write to Robin, and explain what you intend to use it for.