Opening up 3ds max this summer was the best thing I have ever done.
I think that the evidence about the progress I have made over summer deserves its own post.
I am going to show a few things I have made in order so that I can more easily show the progress.
Character design
These are the first things I made That I started to feel passionate about. I spent along time practicing Modelling characters and rigging characters and unwrapping characters and looking at how I could increase the aesthetic value of my work. I admit this is not the best work in the world but it was the start of the passion and I feel it is an important peice of work for that reason.
I was determined to get rigging right because I sucked at that big time back in year one. During the practice I finally realised it was down to the mesh. I studied anatomy to help with the visual accuracy. I made many characters most of them didnt work but as I carried on spending time making meshes that could be rigged and animated well my confidence increased and the more I did the faster I became. The faster I became the quicker I messed up, so I made more mistakes within the time and was able to learn from them and progress at a greater rate.
Here are a few of the attempts at this particular character after studying anatomy. I found the characters easier to texture when unwrapped properly. So I went and found a new way to unwrap that worked better. I have progressed in this area I can now make better more accurate models than before and I have gotten so much quicker at unwrapping, modelling and texturing.
This is the final version of this character. One thing I have achieved is learning to give the characters more mesh structure. I really put alot of effort into increasing the aesthetics of my work as I have stated and I researched colour theory to help with this and find out what worked and what didnt.
I reviewed my character from last year and saw that it was just a cylinder man that looked drab. So this is an improvment in the visual appeal and the mesh structure and the texturing also.
Also not too much detail, we will talk about that some more.
Too much Detail
One important thing I remebered from year one is how much detail to include and what detail could be seen? I made this carousel for fun and practice. Upon reflection I realised that there was too much detail and it really couldnt be seen.
Close up maybe. you can see the detail on the horses, but as part of the main object? No you cant. It is a waste of time to even do this. Thats why the concepting is so important it needs to be considered early on in the project.
This made me think genuinly about what to include what detail is important. If it cant be seen there is no point.
I needed to see it from a new angle less detail. Is visual appeal still achievable.
I made a quick character that didnt have that much detail in the same black and white style.
I didnt include that much detail in this a few colour accents. Blue to go with the orange a hint of red, several green hues. It looked better than before. I admit that it is still not quite right yet. I dont expect it to be not right now. I feel the direction I am going in is a good one. It needs to be maintained.
This one with the same ideas applied kind of looks ok. I feel however that the way in which the colour seems to overtake the model dosent quite work. Its almost as if the carousel horse had more breadth of value to it letting it breath so to speak and highlighting the small amount of detail it had. I went backwards here and also forwards because although this model was lacking ,making this I realised why the carousel horse worked.I did however like how the complimentary colours worked on this as well as the contrasting. They were not very apparent though.
Again I decided to apply this knowledge to another model.
The hotdog stand. I experimented with values in the complementary colours and found that I could make the colours highlight each other when positioned next to each other like the yellow and orange in this example. The lighter values brought out the oranges at the side, contrast.
This model is an important one because I feel its starting to look cool. I put it in an environment. Would it work when not close up?
On reflection I think yes, its starting to work. I think it even looks better. not sure about the leaves on the tree that needs some work.
I was interested if the models I made work together as part of an environment The carousel horse and hotdog stand did, the coaster car didnt quite cut it though. For the reasons I have stated.
I attempted to set myself a time and see what I could do for fun mostly but also to get faster. A skill that will serve me well in the future.
Here are a few quick things I made and several attempt to make buildings and spiral staircases. I now know many ways of making houses and have found 7 different ways to make spiral staircases, some of which worked better than others.
On reflection these are only some of the most important things I feel I did over the summer. I gained knowledge alot of important knowledge that I feel I can carry on to the next project. I learnt also how to purposefully set out to learn things and I believe that should be the minset of a 2nd year
I think that the evidence about the progress I have made over summer deserves its own post.
I am going to show a few things I have made in order so that I can more easily show the progress.
Character design
These are the first things I made That I started to feel passionate about. I spent along time practicing Modelling characters and rigging characters and unwrapping characters and looking at how I could increase the aesthetic value of my work. I admit this is not the best work in the world but it was the start of the passion and I feel it is an important peice of work for that reason.
I was determined to get rigging right because I sucked at that big time back in year one. During the practice I finally realised it was down to the mesh. I studied anatomy to help with the visual accuracy. I made many characters most of them didnt work but as I carried on spending time making meshes that could be rigged and animated well my confidence increased and the more I did the faster I became. The faster I became the quicker I messed up, so I made more mistakes within the time and was able to learn from them and progress at a greater rate.
Here are a few of the attempts at this particular character after studying anatomy. I found the characters easier to texture when unwrapped properly. So I went and found a new way to unwrap that worked better. I have progressed in this area I can now make better more accurate models than before and I have gotten so much quicker at unwrapping, modelling and texturing.
This is the final version of this character. One thing I have achieved is learning to give the characters more mesh structure. I really put alot of effort into increasing the aesthetics of my work as I have stated and I researched colour theory to help with this and find out what worked and what didnt.
I reviewed my character from last year and saw that it was just a cylinder man that looked drab. So this is an improvment in the visual appeal and the mesh structure and the texturing also.
Also not too much detail, we will talk about that some more.
Too much Detail
One important thing I remebered from year one is how much detail to include and what detail could be seen? I made this carousel for fun and practice. Upon reflection I realised that there was too much detail and it really couldnt be seen.
This made me think genuinly about what to include what detail is important. If it cant be seen there is no point.
I needed to see it from a new angle less detail. Is visual appeal still achievable.
I made a quick character that didnt have that much detail in the same black and white style.
Upon reflection I maybe could have reduced the detail even more on the wrists, neck and skirt detail. Its simple and I believe it works alot better than the previous. Even far away I think the character works. Its a step forward anyway. That was the purpose of this character to get a sense of what could be achieved simply. There are other areas in which It fails but I have gained some knowledge from this and I will use it in future projects. It was also a lot quicker to texture.
I started to combine the colour theory and the level of detail knowledge to some other 3D. What colours worked together? it wasnt a straight and narrow path it never is. These models are all part of the same environment I was making for fun/practice.
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This one with the same ideas applied kind of looks ok. I feel however that the way in which the colour seems to overtake the model dosent quite work. Its almost as if the carousel horse had more breadth of value to it letting it breath so to speak and highlighting the small amount of detail it had. I went backwards here and also forwards because although this model was lacking ,making this I realised why the carousel horse worked.I did however like how the complimentary colours worked on this as well as the contrasting. They were not very apparent though.
Again I decided to apply this knowledge to another model.
The hotdog stand. I experimented with values in the complementary colours and found that I could make the colours highlight each other when positioned next to each other like the yellow and orange in this example. The lighter values brought out the oranges at the side, contrast.
This model is an important one because I feel its starting to look cool. I put it in an environment. Would it work when not close up?
On reflection I think yes, its starting to work. I think it even looks better. not sure about the leaves on the tree that needs some work.
I was interested if the models I made work together as part of an environment The carousel horse and hotdog stand did, the coaster car didnt quite cut it though. For the reasons I have stated.
Detail, colour what about speed?
I attempted to set myself a time and see what I could do for fun mostly but also to get faster. A skill that will serve me well in the future.
Here are a few quick things I made and several attempt to make buildings and spiral staircases. I now know many ways of making houses and have found 7 different ways to make spiral staircases, some of which worked better than others.
Applying it all, I made a speed model of a jack in a box whilst applying the skills I have learnt and talked about in this post. This is really simple but I feel it works. It just looks right. I cannot emphasis that enough.
One thing I would appreciate is some constructive critism. My models are not going to win any competions but I have progressed so much and learned so many important things. I didnt ever think I could.
The best thing about this is that I now love making things in 3d I have PASSION for this and that makes it a whole lot easier to do. Yes I am into 3D, I dont want to stop making things now.
I am going to talk about my 3d and progress so much this year. I was too ashamed to show my 3d last year but reflecting on it and looking through it I was able to improve and start to gain the knowledge of how to make things look cool and interesting,
I am getting somewhere with this and this has improved my confidence in this area so much and last year my confidence was rock bottom. I cant wait for game production tommorow. Cant wait.
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