The Three models have come out well and I am now looking forward
to producing these in a full blown animation!!!
Friday, 8 March 2013
Conclusion
In
conclusion to this assignment, I have to admit that despite the stresses of
animation it has been extremely entertaining creating all the different models
and learning about materials and textures. Although I have looked around and
seen some very professional looking models, and also ones that look like the
real things, I can still say I am proud of the three models I have created. I
believe they are all completely different and use a wide range of skills at 3Ds
Max to achieve the goals. I believe they have all come out a lot better than
expected and there isn’t a lot more I can do to them to make them much better.
Obviously if there was more time I would have loved to have put in a few more
extra details on the Millennium Falcon, like I had originally intended on my
sketches, such as the 6 circle disks on the back, the escape pods and the blue
light at the back of the ship. Also with the Space Slug, I would have liked to
have been able to create an even more realistic texture for the creatures skin
as I believe the one that I currently have can be a lot better and I’m sure,
like I said before, if I had the time I would create an even better texture.
Other Peoples Work
Influences
While I have been working at my own work, I have talked
to others about how their own work is getting on. Some of the work is
fascinating and has even influenced me and inspired me to carry on adding the
little details into my own models.
Katherine Mason
While taking the unusual path of building everything from
scratch (including ships, scene, textures, materials etc) the end products have
looked very promising. We have spoken many times asking each other how we could
improve our work. Her pieces are very interesting and have made me engrossed in
the idea of one day creating my own models from my imagination.
Jonathan
Normally I don’t like watching Jon at work, mainly
because he puts the rest of us to shame! However, his work has been truly
magnificent although I have only seen a little of it. I am very interested in
Jon’s work as he too has created the Millennium Falcon as part of his project,
and seeing how our two space craft compare gives me ideas and also inspires me
to (try as I might) create a better Falcon!
Problems
What did I endure?
There’s no getting away from the fact that you are always
going to encounter problems and struggle when it comes to creating models for
animation. I had a fair share of them during my time creating these models. I
have encountered problems with my Millennium Falcon while it is rendering, as
the two Line shapes I have created do not seem to render with the material I
have put on them correctly. I don’t believe it is too much of an inconvenience
but it is still rather irritating especially as I have tried hard to make it as
realistic as possible. To counter this problem, I have simply made the colour
of the fins as similar to the body as possible. Another problem I seemed to
have trouble with was trying to find the correct material texture for my space
slug. I do believe this could be better than what it actually is, however, with
time against me and having to finish creating the other models as well as
designs for the animation, I have decided to leave the texture as it is.
The Asteroid
Step by Step
Finally I have created the Asteroid in which the Space
Slug lives. I left this until last as I felt this would be a fairly simple
model to create, and it pleasantly proved to be just that. In the screenshots
taken of my project I will explain how I came to make the model.
1. First
things first, I create a sphere shape. This will be the only shape I will use
for this model, believe it or not!
2. Secondly,
I made the shape an editable Polly and stretched it out; making a sort of 3D
rounded rectangle shape.
3. I
kept moving the sections of the sphere about, trying to make it look as rocky
and rough as possible.
4. Once
I had done that I began to create the crater, in which the space slug will come
out of. I simply made the back of the asteroid a sort of cliff, while the front
lower down. This will be the view in which we will see my animation.
5. Now
I am happy with the shape, all I have to do is find a suitable material to use.
6. Using
ideas from both of my other two models materials, I decided to gain an image
from the internet and then edit it myself. I found this image of a rocky
texture; however it was not the right colour, so I copied this image into Photoshop.
7. Over
the image I drew a large box and colour it in a sort of brownish mad/rock
colour. I then put the opacity down to 51%, so you can see clearly through the
box but still get the brownish quality, as shown in the image below.
8. Now
all there is to do is add the texture to the modal. I used the same effect as I
did with the space slug, using bump, to pick out the highlights and make it
look even more rough and rocky.
The Millennium Falcon Part 2
Step by Step
1. I
saw many different design of the Millennium Falcon on the internet, some showed
at sort of beige colour and other a metal like grey. I decided to try both out
to see which on looked the best of the two. First, I opened up Photoshop and
simply placed the beige like colour on the background. I then saved the image
as a Bitmap and went back into 3Ds Max.
2. Going
on the material editor, I found my shade of beige.
3. I
then placed the beige onto my model. Despite being this colour, I still wanted
to make the ship look as metallic as possible. I did this by adjusting the
reflection and, as the image shows, the ‘Specular’ levels.
4. It
doesn’t always show the image on the editing screen, so by selecting Render at
the top of the screen it should show the model.
5. This
message always came up while rendering my model, I believe it’s for the two Fin
shapes I created earlier (using the line tool). However, by simply selecting
continue the model rendered out perfectly.
6. This
is how the model looked with the beige colour material. I personally did not
like this colour, and felt it didn’t look metallic at all, no matter how I
seemed to edit the Specular levels. I decided in the end to find a Metallic
material online instead.
7. On
Google I found this image of a metal sheet which I felt was perfect for my
model.
8. Just
placing this material on the roof of the Millennium Falcon I could already
notice the difference and enjoy the sight of my model really coming to
life.
9. After
placing it on all the other shapes on the model, it finally looked the finished
article. However, there was one slight change I wanted to make with the
cockpit.
10. Going
on Photoshop, I created this myself to use on the cockpit, adding a window to
the metal material.
11. After
a lot of rotating and adjusting, the cockpit was complete.
12. Before
I finished, I wanted to add yet another little detail in (I seemed to want to
do this a lot). This time it was with the lights at the front of the ship.
Using a white colour for the material, I then went on to Environment and
Effects, selecting a lens effect, then a glow. This allowed me to create lights
that glow out, and not actually place lights into the scene. I felt this added
a little extra realism to the model.
13. The
model is finish. Now to add a background and it’s complete!
The Millennium Falcon
Step By Step
Next I created my space ship, The Millennium Falcon.
Despite its quite iconic shape, it was fairly straightforward to create. In the
screenshots taken of my project I will explain how I came to make the model.
1. Building
the body of the ship was the most important part of this model, as all the
other shapes attach themselves to it eventually. To do this I created a thin
cylinder. At the back of the cylinder I had tried to make a space for the blue
lights that go at the back of the spaceship, but after it reshaped my model
completely I went back to the normal shape I had before.
2. This
next step is a little bit trickier. After creating the body, I then had to
create the fins at the front of the ship. The thing about these fins was that
there was no pre-set shape to create them like the body, so I had to create
them myself. Using the Line Tool in shapes I created a sort of four sided
triangle shape, before making it 3D. To make sure the other fin was exactly the
same shape, I then ‘cloned’ the original shape and mirrored it to fit on the
other side of the ship. It took some time to get it in perfectly, but by using
the squares on drawing board I was able to put them both exactly in line with
each other.
3. The
Cockpit and walkway was the next shape (or shapes) I created. This was fairly
simple to make but painfully annoying to fit together. I used two different
cylinders to create the walkway before adding a cone shape at the front of them
for the cockpit. Getting them all to fit together and be exactly the same shape
and size was a challenge, especially as I wanted them to look like they were
just one shape. I feel I pulled this off quite well.
4. Building
the roof was probably the easiest part of creating the Falcon. All I had to do
was create a Cone shape, which was the same width of the cylinder body, and
make it incredibly thin. I had to make sure I didn’t make the top end too
pointy as I planned to use that for later. At this stage I could really see my
ship has taken shape. Now all I had to do was had a little bit of detail.
5. One
of these bits of detail I wanted to add was the satellite dish at the top of
the ship. I felt this was a classic part of the ship and something I couldn’t
miss out. I simpley created another sphere before flatening the shape to make a dish.
6. The
next part of my model was the turret at the top, which goes at the very point
of the cone (roof) that I had created earlier. It was again very simple to do,
just creating a box shape, rotating it into place, before adding a tube shape
for the gun. I again cloned the gun a further 3 times to make sure they were
all the same size. I then moved it into place inside the box to complete my
turret.
7. There
was only one more detail I wanted to add onto my ship. These were the lights at
the front of the ship, which were fairly straightforward to make. First of all
I created a sphere which I then shaped to be smaller and placed inside the
fins. I then cloned this shape 3 times for the other lights. (See Below)
8. So
that is the Shape completed, next I will show how I ended up with the material
for the ship.
Space Slug Part Two
Step by Step
8. The
finished Antenna after the edit.
9. As
I wanted to make the other antenna to look exactly the same as the one I
created, I decided to Clone the shape (in other words, copy and paste). This
technique ensured me I only had to edit one shape that I was using more than
one of. After this I simply placed it on the other side of the head.
10. Now
I just had to delete the old antenna that I had created earlier and the model is
complete. All I have to do now is create the teeth and change the colour of the
slug.
11. I changed the colour of the slug to a fleshy
sort of colour; however I didn’t feel that it looked right or realistic. I
decided after this I will find a material for the skin or create one myself.
13. Back on 3Ds Max, next I selected Material editor at the top of the screen. Once I did that I had the simple task of uploading my image from Photoshop, then dragging over to my model and rendering. However, what it came out with did not impress me much at all.
14. I
really did not like the effect it came out with, as I felt the colours and
spots did not look natural at all, as I had expected the image to have been stretched
out more. I decided to go back to Photoshop and redo it again.
15. This
time I made a simpler image, only using three colours, and decided to look at
how this effect would work. This has worked well I felt, and I then decided to
add a little extra detail using the Bump tool on the material editor. This pinpointed
the spotty texture and stood it out, giving a more realistic and natural feel
to the Space Slug.
18. Finally, I changed the colour of the teeth and the Space slug was finished.
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