My 3D Model Truck

I began my truck model off with placing reference images on planes, containing the front, back and side view of the truck. I began the truck with a plane and slowly worked my way up to a full model. After this step, I began to use my cut tool to cut out the placement of the doors and windows.

I first finished the body structure of my truck, then I moved onto the wheels. The wheels were not too hard to model, but they did take time. What took up most of the time was the tiling pattern on the tires, than having to copy and attach it to each and every other piece.

After I finished with modeling I moved onto unwrapping. Unwrapping is something I underestimated. It takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a lot of effort. What unwrapping is, is taking the 3 dimensional object you have created and pretty much unfold it so that it becomes a 2 dimensional image. What unwrapping is used for is texturing, which is also hard.

Texturing is adding a texture layer to our 3D model. For example, in animated movies you would look at cloth, this cloth is in fact a polygon model that has probably been textured, colored, to look like it has been made of material.

After texturing was finally over, then came the lighting, the turn-table, the camera angle, and the rendering. The lighting we were assigned to use for this project was three-point lighting. Meaning there are three lights, two in front of the model and one coming from the back. These lights have different intensities. The reason behind this being is the key light (main source of light) would have the strongest intensity and is placed in front of the model, then the second light is at a slightly lower intensity to that of the key light, and is also placed in front, then finally comes the back light which is also a lower intensity than the key light, and as you guessed the back light is placed in the back. Now, the key light being the main source of light, the second light in front is so that there are no black shadows covering up or hiding the model, and the backlight is so the model does not blend in with the background. Camera angles, I will not be going into much detail about the camera angels seeing as in we only had one camera showing the entire model. Now, the turn-table. The turn-table is what the model is placed on, if you get an action figure it is what the main object lies on, a flat surface that may include environment textures. This was pretty easy to make, it only required a flattened box and some props. Finally comes the rendering, probably the easiest of steps. But just because it is easy doesn’t mean it may take more than a few days to be complete. Thankfully mine only took 17 minutes to render but other models with more polygons take up days, maybe even weeks to render. Rendering is the final component to modelling. It is when you are done with editing the polygon model you have created and now what to clean it up, adding whatever animations you would like to add to the model. 

Production Pipeline of My Bouncing Ball

Model:

The object I decided to model and use for this production is a ball. I decided on a ball that resembles a small bouncing ball,since my animation would consist of the ball bouncing several times. I chose a ball because a ball was a simple model to begin animating in terms of my first animation.

Texture:

I chose a red colored dodge-ball texture for the ball, a marble floor, and a wooden wall. For the ball, I chose a dodge-ball surface because I felt it would appropriate for a ball that bounced. For the floor, I chose marble because of how solid a marble floor is, if it were to be a wooden floor, it may have some shifting weight. I chose the wooden wall because I felt it was both appealing to the eyes and because I felt it was appropriate.

 

Lighting:

For my lighting I used an Omni light. I chose the Omni light because I felt it would illuminate the entire area that I wanted to focus on without the complications of a spotlight where I would have to adjust the focus and the source.
 

Animation:

For the animation I made the ball bounce twice, roll on the floor to hit the wooden wall and roll back to a complete stop. I chose this motion because this is my first animation on 3DS Max and I thought that it would be the easiest to animate.
 

Rendering:

Rendering took 15 minutes for me. Rendering the image changed the view. I found that my background was set to white, and that the model was much smoother that before rendering. I also found rendering extremely frightening in the case that I set up the camera in the wrong angle or any flaws like my computer crashing or 3DS Max crashing.

Is Social Media That Important In The Industry?

What I find interesting in the creative industry is how social media can have a huge affect. What I gathered from the blog and lecture about social media in the industry is how it expands your horizons; meaning, that it helps you grow and branch out, as well as you can gain a lot out of social media as an artist. What we discussed in class about the blog was how setting goals can help you narrow down what platform you use. It is also determined by what you do for a living, for example, a filmmaker would probably go towards YouTube and Vimeo whereas an animator would use YouTube and Deviant Art. Narrowing down what platform you use is also based on your target audience.
For me as an animator, I would drift towards Deviant Art, Instagram, Blogspot, Twitter, Vimeo, and YouTube. In class we discussed whether we would be making these accounts to get recognized as freelancers or individuals, or making the accounts to benefit the project that we're trying to promote. Social media has a large influence within every industry.
I now understand why so many television series and feature films have twitter and YouTube accounts. They use them to gain a larger audience, to promote.
I can definitely say that this lecture has benefited me a lot and will definitely benefit me in the near future. I would make several social media accounts and I would promote myself as a freelancer till I find a well and steady job that I enjoy.

Data...?

This week we were given a link discussing data. Whether the data was helpful or not is what we discussed in class, as well as what we would do when shown the data. This data that was discussed was the feedback of our viewers. I think reading and talking about data helped me as an artist. I now understand how data works and how I should go about dealing with it. 

Data is the feedback but is also what allows you to know how many people of what age group are attracted by your work. In that sense it helps you narrow down who you're trying to attract. I think and feel that this was something worth learning, for young artists it is very important to learn that just because this data exists, it is only a support, does not mean that we must follow it. It is a guideline that we can choose to follow or not to follow. This was also the last website we were given to read and I wish there were more because I feel like I've learned so muh out of them and it would have been great to learn more.

Week 4 - Textures and Shaders, Simply.

Texture and shaders can be used in different combinations. Some will result in a flossy surface, shiny surface, matte surface, rough surface, and soft surface. Depending on the combination, you will end up with a different surface. In class we talked about these "different" combinations and went slightly in depth about how the combinations can go, and about what types of shading models there were. We only discussed a few. We also discussed how much the software has developed since the start of 3D modelling.

Shaders:

J., (2011). Components of a 3D Model, Retrieved from http://www.3dvia.com/blog/components-of-a-3d-model/

Textures:

J., (2011). Components of a 3D Model, Retrieved from http://www.3dvia.com/blog/components-of-a-3d-model/

Without textures and shaders, models would look dull. There would not be any substance to the polygon. It would be a plain surface with plane colors. There would not be depth, there would not be texturing, and there would not be lighting and shadows. Textures and shaders are what make 3D models so lifelike and fascinatingly realistic.

As said by Slick, J. 3D Modelling Terms - Vertices, Edges, Polygons & Shaders, Retrieved from http://3d.about.com/od/3d-101-The-Basics/a/Anatomy-Of-A-3d-Model.htm, "A shader is a set of instructions applied to a 3D model that lets the computer know how it should be displayed" as well as "Textures also contribute greatly to a model's visual appearance." Summed up, this means that a shader is a kind of command, or set instructions, that the computer will understand to know how to apply and display a texture. As for a texture, a texture is the physical appearance of the model. Whether it is a rough surface, or a cracked surface, a sandy plane or a bed of water, the shader and texture go hand in hand. Without the shader, there is no texture; without a texture, the shader is useless.

Week 3 - The Gist of 3D Modelling

In class this week we discussed some pioneers of 3D modelling as well as different aspects. One of the pioneers that we learned about in class was Jim Blinn, and how he created the Blinn-Phong shader model which is a specular surface, it has a certain shine to it, and he also created the Bump Map, which was when you apply a 2D image of texture to a 3D object resulting in the object's texture appearing 3D. The second pioneer we learned and talked about was Lambert and his shading model which was a more matte surface. Another pioneer we spoke of was Phong and his flossy shading model which could be used for jewellery and cans, even.
Some of the highlights in 3D Modelling history were UVW Mapping, "U" stood for horizontal, "V" stood for vertical, and "W" stood for depth. So each shading model would have several mapping attributes, such as, color/diffuse, transparency/opacity, ambient color, incandesce, specularity, bump, and translucence. Here are some examples:

(2009). Методическое руководство по Maya, Retrieved from http://www.3dmir.ru/s_tutor/tutor/563.html

WebGL Materials, Retrieved from https://clara.io/learn/user-guide/lighting_shading/materials/material_types/webgl_materials

(2014). Phong Reflection Model, Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phong_reflection_model

Moving to a different topic, democratization in 3D graphics. The current generation is full of wonders now with talks of virtual reality, starting us off with the Oculus Rift. There are so many possibilities and doors to open. Technology is advancing for the better. Interface will soon be more user friendly and the possibilities are endless. This will help widely in the industry for entertainment, for designing houses, and furniture.

Ptex. As said by (http://ptex.us) "Ptex is a texture mapping system developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios for production-quality rendering. No UV assignment is required! Tex now applies a separate texture to each face of a subdivision or polygon mesh. The Ptex file format can efficiently store hundreds of thousands of texture images in a single file. The Ptex API provides cached file I/O and high-quality filtering everything that is needed to easily add Ptex support to a production-quality renderer or texture authoring application." quote on quote. I think in the long run this will help widely, making texture mapping easier, faster, and cleaner.

Is My Art Appealing?

It is week 4 of University and we currently discussed the similarities and differences between reviewers and critiques. Our entire class mostly consisted of us discussing the two. I honestly thought I knew the difference between them. The difference between them is that a critique of a film, art work, or song would be more in depth and would be from a much more professional perspective. As for a review, a review is a brief breakdown of the movie, song, or art work; in the sense that, it would not be in depth and it would not be from a professional point of view. It would simply be a few lines dictating whether or not the individual enjoyed the movie, song, or art work. It took a while of explaining this for me to understand, rather, for the whole class to understand. As always we, as a class, were put into groups for classwork. We were asked by our professors to pick a movie and search for essays, academic writing, and reviews on that movie and to differentiate between them. We were asked to tell the difference between essays, academic writing, and reviews. I understood the difference, quite hard to grasp at firs but I eventually understood.

The blog we were directed to read this time spoke about critics, reviewers, and journalists. It was mostly history facts but also very beneficial to me as an animation student. My work, later on in the industry, will be criticized, and I found it very informative. I feel like it was best that we, as students of art, learn about this now for future reference rather than not learn what it is and be stunned in the future. I learned that we shouldn't take criticism to heart, but rather take it as feedback to grow as an artist.

Paying The Bills

This week's class started off and ended very well. I learned about planning my business model. The class was presented with a sheet where we would try to write our own business model, after we were taught how to of course. I found it very tricky to go about, I was unsure of what I was asked to write at times but I managed with some help. I found it very interesting how effective the business model was. As I was writing I was really forced to think and I gave it my best effort. I feel as though it was a great significance to the field I'm working towards, as well as many other fields. Next time when presented with an in class worksheet to have done by the end of class I'll be sure to ask my professor for more help rather than trying to go about the sheet alone and only asking my friends for assistance.

Another thing we were provided to do for this week was read a blog, Dena, C. (2015) Your Income & Your Art, Retrieved from https://medium.com/self-directed-practitioners/week-3-your-income-your-art-133fe7b09488. In summary it talks about the different jobs in the creative field and how income is. I understood it clearly and after reading it I felt much more "in the loop" in the sense that I had a better understanding of how the industry worked, to an extent. Like the previous blog we had to read, I really enjoyed reading this one and I found it to be very insightful. I'm looking forward to next week's blog read, and writing another blog. I feel like I'm getting to know more and more about the industry I'm studying to work in.

Week 2 - Current Trends for 3D Modelling in Games and Films

In last week's 3D Modelling class we discussed 3D modelling, we went slightly in depth, and also discussed the 3D modelling pipeline in games and film.

Currently in the gaming and filming industry 3D modelling is becoming more and more demanded due to the fact that they provide a more realistic result. In games 3D modelling is used for the characters and the environment surrounding the character, whereas in film, 3D modelling is used for special effects. Technology is developing rapidly, and has been in the past few years. The amounts of realism we can now achieve with these developed technologies were unimaginable in the past. The 3D modelling business has been growing and becoming more popular in film and games. Softwares such as Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3D Studio Max have had a great impact and have provided us with a simple way to achieve wonders.

Current 3D pipelines for games are structured together, with 8 aspects. "Concept Drawings", "Low Polygon Base Mesh", "High Polygon Sculpt", "Polygon Cruncher", "Unwrap", "Render to Texture", "Texture Paint", and "Engine Import". Those are all 8 aspects in order.

Here are some example images of what these aspects look like;

Concept Drawings:

Laurinavicius, T. (2009). 50 Stunning Video Game Concept Art, Retrieved from http://sixrevisions.com/digital-art/50-stunning-video-game-concept-art/

Low Polygon Base Mesh: 

Themelios, D. (2009). Game Character Creation, Retrieved from http://blogs.gscept.com/2008/ip6/

High Polygon Sculpt: 

Wilkinson, L. Vor, Guardian of Fern-0, Retrieved from http://lancewilkinson.weebly.com/vor.html

Week 1 - 3D Pipeline?

In my 3D class we took a little insight to 3D Studio Max as well, we learned basic skills and applied them, we also discussed and learned about the 3D Production Pipeline. There are several aspects to 3D Production Pipeline. The first being "Pre-Production and Blocking". What that is, is the pre-production, meaning where you discuss ideas and share opinions on how you want the production to be, pre-planning. The second is "3D Modelling of Required Assets". This is where you begin modelling the characters and the setting. After that comes "UV Mapping". UV Mapping is pretty much where you draw your models in 2D as a representation of the 3D model. Next is "Texturing". It is a straightforward concept, and speaks for itself. It is the process of applying texturing to your models, such as cloth, or concrete, marble, glass, etc... "Rigging" is next in line. Rigging is when you apply bones or joints to your model so it is able to move and bend, in order to preform simple body movements. After rigging comes "Animation", the process in which you begin to animate your models to make your short film or movie. "Scene Assembly" come after that. It speaks for itself, it is the process where you make up the background, setting up the scene around the model/character. After that is "Lighting". Applying a light source, like the sun if outdoors, or a light bulb if indoors, maybe even several lightbulbs. "Rendering", nearing the end, is where a 3D scene is transferred or translated into a 2D image. Second last is "Compositing". Compositing is where you add different images to a single picture to form the entire scene. Last, but certainly not least, comes "Video Editing". Video editing is a straightforward term, it is where you edit all the images you have managed to get to make your short film or movie. You edit them in the order you prefer, and you may cut scenes or feel as though another shot is needed. Those are all the steps you need to make a 3D animation.

3D Animation Over 2D Animation?

Recently, at University, I have been taking a course about 3D modelling. It has been around two weeks, meaning two classes of this course and I am loving the class so far. 3D modelling is hard, in class we covered the basics of a 3D modelling software and it is complicated but after our professor assigned the class to construct a room, and also after getting to know the software a bit better, I really have enjoyed myself. The software itself looks highly intimidating and at first I was a bit worried that I would be horrible at it, but when our professor helped us learn the basics it was like a walk in the park. There is still a lot I need to learn about 3D modelling. There are a lot of aspects to 3D modelling that we discussed in class, such as rigging, lighting, rendering and more. They are still a bit confusing to me and I think I would need to research a bit more on all the aspects so I can understand it better.
I feel like I would really enjoy rigging. After the lesson on the aspects I went home and I got on YouTube and searched for videos on 3D modelling on the software that we are being taught on, 3D Studio Max. I looked up on rigging and simple tutorials, and rigging is something I can see myself getting into. I'm really excited to learn more about 3D modelling. I always thought that I would go straight for 2D animation, but this class is making me reconsider. I love drawing on paper, but 3D modelling is a lot of fun. What I am most looking forward to is learning how to create a character on 3D Studio Max, as well as learning how to animate it. It will be a ton of hard work and long hours but the end result will be worth it.

First Lecture, My Future?

In the past 2 weeks, I have taken two classes of Overview of the Industry. The class was told that this course is extremely beneficial and very important. We, as a class, have been told that this course will help our future. It will prepare us for life after University. We were assigned to read a blog, Dena, C.(2015). How Are We The Same. Retrieved from https://medium.com/self-directed-practitioners/week-2-how-are-we-the-same-d12edb71b5e8, that our professor gave us. After reading the blog I saw things differently. The blog was about the work life of an artist. By artist I mean anyone who works in the creative field. It told us about how we had to view ourselves in the industry. What inspired me most about the blog was a video that was linked at the end of it. The video had animators talk about the industry and themselves in it. My favorite part was how we had to trust in ourselves and to not fear ourselves. From that I understood that we had to trust in our work. We had to not be afraid of presenting our work. This was beneficial to me because I often am afraid of what others will think of my work and also that I don't trust my skills, but I have to learn to not fear the judgment of others because their critiques are only to help push me to my full potential, as well as that I have to trust in my work. This is clear to me because to be successful I must be confident in my work, I must trust that my work is the best I could do and I should be proud of that.

Aside from the blog, we also had a talk in class. We talked mostly about what we saw ourselves doing in the near future, 2 years later, 5 years later and, 10 years later. Our professor told us that it is okay if we didn't know what we wanted to be, I think it's because people tend to change their minds and gain new interests, so that made a lot of sense to me. Overall I really enjoyed this week's class and I am looking forward to the classes to come and all the things I will be learning in the course.