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.

Planet Destruction

This week in max I tried to learn how to make the vortex tool work with meshes, i.e. planets, and what I found out was that it can't because the vortex only works with particle systems. I figured that there would be some way to make it work though because there are a seemingly endless amount of things you can create with max. What I found was the PArray particle system which can be used to copy the shape of any mesh. Then using the bind to space warps I bound the PArray to the vortex and was able to achieve whatis shown in the video above.

Space Fun

This week in 3ds max I started a new project in which I will be showing the journey of black holes though our universe. The image above shows one of the last frames of a black hole (the black sphere) consuming a galaxy of stars (the blue particles). Black holes themselves are relatively simple to make considering that there are basically nothingness, so I just used a sphere with a flat black non-reflective material. In order to add something to the scene that you can actually look at I used four super spray particle systems (the blue stars), and bound them to a vortex space warp, which makes the particles get pulled in towards the black hole.

Finished Character and Fun with Physics

In spite of the title I do not actually have a video that can go up on my blog as of today because when I went to upload for this weeks post the file size was too large. Some time next week I will compress the file and upload the video of my finished character in addition to my week 12 post.

This week I made a wrecking ball that swings by a chain into a brick wall causing it to break apart and topple over. This was achieved by using the same MassFX tool that I used to make the mirror shatter from a few weeks back.

Something new that I learned this week was how to use the cloth modifier. In the picture above, the table was set up as a collision object for a plane that had a cloth modifier applied to it.

Mesh and Bones

The first thing I did this week was make some arms for my character. Then I put some new materials on the objects in the scene so that it wasn't just purple everywhere. Using the bone tool I made a custom skeleton for my character so that I could start animating him. The actual animating part never happened because I spent the last two days of this week having some trouble with both the Physique and Skin modifiers.

Eye See You

This week I worked on designing a character, and this is what I came up with, so far. I started with a simple sphere with an eye ball texture applied to it and then I modeled an eyelid around it so that it did not look as creepy as it did. Then using the reference image above I modeled a pair of legs for my character. Next week I will either make him a four legged creature or I will model a pair of arms. Which ever I choose I will then start rigging him up for animating.

I had another little side project that I worked on at the beginning of this week, while I thought of different character ideas. I messed around with MassFX, a rigid body physics tool new to 3ds Max 2012. I create a shattering mirror effect in which a ball is thrown at a mirror. The mirror then proceds to breaks and falls to pieces and the ball bounces away.

Rigging and More

This week I learned some basic biped character rigging, which was used in the top video. The stick figure man was made in about 5 minute just as a means of having something to rig up. Then I spent some time using the Skin modifier to connect to the biped bones to the stick figure mesh. When I got that setup how I wanted it I started animating him and putting him into different poses. Finally I choose to render out the scene of him walking across a floor and then up some stairs.

The second video, of a liquid being poured into a glass cup, was a little side project of mine this week. The glass cup is a simple cylinder with the center cut out of it. The liquid was made using the super spray particle system. In order to get the liquid to interact with and fill up the cup I used the Gravity tool and several UDeflectors.

MineCastle is Finished

This week I spent my time finalizing my castle presentation. I rendered out all the videos in 3ds max and then spent some time putting it all together in Adobe Premier. This is the first of many projects, and I had an abundance of fun make it, and I am looking forward to the next one.

Terrain Modeling

Last week I remodeled my castle’s terrain in 3ds Max using a combination of the noise modifier and the soft selection tool, in the editable poly modifier. After I made the terrain I used Photoshop to make a custom texture for it. Slight additions were made to the main tower, and some trees and lamp posts were added to the scene. My last addition to the scene was a plane that i modified to look like rolling waves, and then I made a custom water texture in 3ds Max. I incorporated the use of Adobe Premier in the making of the video for this week’s post. So, unlike last week’s video this one has some still images, video, sound, and video transitions.

MineCastle

This week in Max I worked on my castle project. So far, I have made the entrance and a little bridge that stretches out to the central tower. I also spent some time texturing the castle with some bricks, stone slabs, and wooden flooring. I had started on modeling out a terrain for the castle to rest on but the program crashed on me so I was unable to present it in this weeks post, hence the hastily made cylinder currently in the scene. Over the next week I will add to the central tower and make some rooms branching off the it, and model a new terrain with some foliage scatted around it.

Strange Science

           This weeks post is of a nerve cell, and its various organelles, that I am making for an AP Biology project. I used many of the different tools that were covered in Animation class these paste four weeks. I used splines and the compound object tool, Boolean, in order to make the mitochondria (the yellow capsule). The chromatin (blue lines in the bottom picture) was made using the Loft tool. Some lights,with various intensities and colors, were also added to the scene. Finally, the newest technique as of this week is the use of poly modeling to make the nerve cell membrane.

Dinning Room Table

This week in max I mad a lovely little dinning room table. The candles and plate were mad using the Lathe modifier and I applied a chrome and a ceramic material. The table top is a simple box but the legs of it were made with splines and lofts. A super spray particle system was used to create a fire effect and a red and yellow noise material was applied to that. Finally in the video render a camera was confined to a path in order to acheive a smooth wipe around.