Last Post?

As the title suggests this might be my last post for a while, on this blog anyways. I am back, however, from my 3 month summer vacation and will continue to be posting weekly update for my class. The only difference is that I am currently taking two separate classes and as a result I decided to make two new separate blogs. So, if you look at the top of this page you will see three tabs: 3DS MAX, AutoCAD,  and Former Years.
The 3DS MAX and AutoCAD tabs will bring you to my new blogs which contain my most recent posts from this coming year.

Fun with Texturing

This week in Maya, I worked towards texturing my character and terrain. I learned how to unwrap models in Maya (much easier in max). The first image above is of the rendered out template that I brought into Photoshop. The second image is the finished texture map that was placed on Jack. The finished texture was made partly in Photoshop and partly in Maya because I spotted a handy little tool called the 3d paint tool.

Rigging Fiasco

This week in Maya, I spent a great deal of time working on getting Jack rigged, with little success. From the screen shots above you can see that I was able to complete the skeleton, but I had trouble getting the weights on the bones just right. I kept running into situations where he twists his wrist or bends his knee and part of his chest bulges out. So, my next step will be to simply move on and complete other aspects of the come presentation.

Rigging 101

This week in Maya I learned how to rig a fish. During the rigging process I learned the basics of how to make a bone structure in Maya and bind it to a mesh. Sadly, I have to admit that I did find the rigging process to be slightly easier in Maya compared to rigging in 3ds Max.

Yellow Submarine

This week in Maya I learned how to make and edit nurbs objects. They are great to work with because they have fewer segmentation to work with, compared to polygonal objects, to obtain a smooth look with your model. The first thing that I tried making was a cartoon style submarine. The hull of the sub. was made from a sphere which was edited using the hull tool, which is equivalent to selecting edge loops for polygonal objects. The red and yellow rings were cylinders that had there vertices pulled in to fit the curve of the hull.

Propulsion Gel

This week Max I modeled a space ship that is propelled through space by ejecting out bio waste. The space ship's hull started out as a simple box which I then modeled as an editable poly. The star field and propulsion gel are made particle systems.

Mystical Meadow

This week in Maya I learned the basics, well I learned how to transition from 3ds Max to Maya. It's not to much different but the way that everything is laid out is going to take some getting used to, plus I kept trying to use 3ds Max hotkeys in Maya which for the most part did nothing. The above image is a Mystical Meadow with nice green grass, multi colored crystals, and a little fog moving through the grass. To make this scene I used the paint brushes from the PaintEffects shelf in Maya which has a handful of 3d objects that you can paint onto your scene.

Deep Space Expedition

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!                                              !(Do you get it? It is a big space)

This week was the week I have been waiting for, I got to see what everyone else has been working on and I got to present my video. The main goal that I had set, other than teaching someone about black holes  was for me to try and learn all sort of ways to use particle systems. I used the Super Spray, PF Source, and PArray particle systems to make all the visible components, that interact with the black hole. More importantly, this week signifies the end of 3ds Max and the beginning of Maya. Starting next week and continuing on into the near future will be the posting of work done in Maya, another Autodesk product that is similar to 3ds Max.

Render Render Render

This week in max the science animation has finally come to its closing. The finished video will be shown in next weeks post after the class presentations. Over the course of this past week, I attempted to polish up the animation for final rendering; however, my least favorite thing in max happened a little more than 10 times which is the crashing of the program (shown in the screen shot above). The image below, on the other hand, is what I was able to make in 3ds max while it was cooperating with me. When I was satisfied with the supernova part of my animation (the lower image), I spent the rest of the week simply rendering out the scenes and compiling them into the final video.