Saturday, 10 May 2014

Putting it altogether

Whilst I was working on my character, I was able to finish off the rest of my animal cutlery set for the first project. I started by working on my giraffe fork by using the same technique as I did on my frog spoon with starting off with box, extruding, rotating and manipulating the vectors on a plane with a sketch of my design on it. Whenever trying to create the curviness of the points on the fork, it took a lot of time adjusting the shape and vectors so as it didn't look out of proportion. But whenever I decided that section was finished I then moved onto adding the final details which was applying the giraffes spots with turbosmoothing boxes and copying them around the body which includes doing the same for the eyes and nostrils and using the slate material editor to bring out the detail and color of the fork with the metallic paint.

The alligator knife was the simplest of the 3 utensils. With the same technique as the other two I formed the shape by using boxes, turbosmooth, extrude and vectors. I decided to add some simple detail by creating thin extruded boxes on the face of the alligator, applying the nostril and then the eyes. The points of the knife were pulling out the vectors at the side so as they would form a curved point of a knife and then scaled the entire model to a more slimmer shape so as it would be more efficient for smaller hands holding it. The finishing touches were just applying the metallic paint material onto the knife so as it would make it look more glossy and bring out the detail and colour of the model.

Over all I feel I could have done better whenever it came to creating the knife because I spent more time constructing the spoon and the fork. I could have been more precise in creating a more jagged effect for the cutting part of the knife and with making the detail of the alligator design more realistic and defining the shape of the fork more correctly but with the time given in finishing two projects I am happy with what I have produced on 3D Max.





Thursday, 8 May 2014

Construction of Character over!

After working through my character for the past 2 weeks, I have finally been able to finish the style, shape and rendering of my gryphon character. Using the layer templates and character proportion boxes, it was difficult trying to construct within a limit. While constructing the body, I started by using a cube in the middle box, used extrude to form the arms and then turning it to turbosmooth to test it out. It took a lot of time fixing the vectors of the arms to as it looked more like a body instead of being out of tact and whenever I felt I did all that I could with it I then moved onto the legs. One leg was easy to form by extruding the bottom of the body but whenever it came to the other leg it was forming properly which left me to copying the part of the body with of the body to as it would be symmetrical but made the body itself overlap but I had to make do. Next was constructing the feet which I did by using a cube as well and using extrude, rotate and vectors to form the toes and shape of the foot so as it would look more like a gryphon’s talons. But placing them exactly in the template was hard to do so I tried to scale them as accurately as I could.

Next was the wings which I created by using a plane with a sketches that I drew of the back of my character so that it would be easier to shape around. Once again I used box and extrude to shape around the outline of the feathers and using the vectors it helped to form the shape more accurately. When finished I rotated them vertically and placed the wing onto the back of my character and mirrored it so as it would be symmetrical. The head was just using sphere and scaling it to the right size for the top box, put I would work more on it after I finished the other features. The eyes and beak I created by using box, but instead I turned it into turbosmooth and put it under editable poly so as it would be capable to use the vectors to shape the eye and the features to apply on top of it. But whenever finished, it was hard to place on the head because the eyes and beak needed to be curved which I wasn't familiar on how to do. So I placed each vector on the top and bottom into the head so as it would connect better. I also tried put on a hair and fur modifier on the whole body but trying to shape the hair was difficult to do so I cut it out but I used the modifier to put on the top of the tail that I form of the back of my character by selecting near the bottom of the back view and using extrude, rotate and scale and placing a small sphere to use the hair and fur modifier on.

The last details to my character were turning the turbosmooth on the body too editable poly and manipulating the vectors on the chest to engrave the Japanese air symbol. This was by pushing the vectors that I needed back. Next was also turning the turbosmooth on the head into editable poly and using the vectors to make curved grooves at the side of the head to make it look like it had some form of feathers because it looked to plain while it was round. I did the same for the top of the head to extrude them further for the detail of the feathered eyebrows which I thought turned out quite well. I also created a staff for my character by using cylinder, turned it to editable poly and making it looked curved like an old wooden stick and also by placing a small sphere around the staff making it look more authentic. Placing 3 planes around the character helped it lighting when I applied a target spot and omni light to help bring out the reflection and detail in my character and especially whenever I added metallic paint to my character and the planes.


I am really happy with the outcome of my character because I did not follow any kind of tutorial for creating such a 3D model, so it was all from scratch. Even though the body shape of my character does not entirely fit the templates for which it was meant to and the other changes that I left out from my sketches was the feathers rotating around the body and the colour, I think I still did the best that I could from constructing my first character model on 3D Max. If I was to make any changes it would be to have shaped the body more like it was requested, to have been more accurate with the features of what I designed in my sketches and to have more time to use different material settings to see which would have been best suited for my character. But over all I am very pleased with my 3D model.

Here are a few screenshots:










Monday, 14 April 2014

Finalizing Ideas


In our final class, we began working on our characters in more definition and bringing are of our designs t life through working with it in 3D. Our group brought all of the final designs for the characters and we began discussing on how to construct it on 3D Max. We tried to get all the techniques we needed since it was our last class and demonstrated it on how to would look in 3D Max. In the tutorials we changed the rendering settings to mental ray so as we would get more material options to connect to our 3D shapes. It also changed how it would appear whenever it would be rendering on screen. We tried this by rendering the shapes in different view points to see how the outcome will look. By testing out different materials on the mental ray selection, the metallic paint material caught my eye when rendering it because I liked the glossiness of how to shape appeared and the shadow effect. When applying the white chrome to the plane and shapes and using a red chrome to the bottom plane the reflection made it stand out more. This would benefit me for whenever I would be finishing off the coating to my 3D character model for rendering.

Here are some screenshots:















Monday, 7 April 2014

Closer look into better ideas

Today our class had to present another presentation. It was basically the same as the previous one but only we had to include a profile about each individual character. I described my character as being the wisest one of the group, having a calming nature, bringing peace to the other elements and begin fearless. It was interesting seeing the other groups themes, there design sketches of their characters and group profiles and because it helped give me ideas on how to present my character, what to expect when making it my own design and how to make it the right proportion for placing it into the box sectors. This session helped finalized any final designs that our group needed to start working on our characters and then decided on the codes to which of our characters needed to construct on 3D max.

In our second class we continued working on our lighting for 3D models and seeing which angle would be best suited when rendering but with using 3 different planes as panels so as the spot light would be stronger and more accurate. We then started testing on different materials for 3D models by using the slate material editor. To start off we used the ink and paint material and connected it to one of the teapots. When rendered the teapots turned into a silhouette of green, yellow and black when faced against one plane for a background but whenever using shadow techniques and placing the rendering view against 2 planes as panels it shows up as a animated style which I found to be interesting and useful.


Here are some screenshots:












Monday, 31 March 2014

Character Building

Today each group had to do a quick presentation on their family of characters. We had to give a description on the theme, the profile of which character was, developed sketches on what we want our character to look like and then followed up by a photo-shopped version of it. Our group described each of their characters with the elements of fire, earth, space, air, water and time. Since my character was based on the element of air, I decided to design mine around a mythical creature, a gryphon. After the presentations we started working more on our sketches, discussing ideas on how to improve our designs and began working on character profiles.

In our second class we started working on lighting on 3D objects by using target spots and omni lighting. The target spots helps direct the light and create highlights and shadows by using the four view portals as guidance. The further you place the target spot light the more light is directed onto the shapes and with the omni light you are able to put more light on from different angles. This tutorials came to be very helpful because it would not leave a 3D model as standard whenever it came to rendering and it also helps show more definition in the detail and shape.

Here are some screenshots: