Crawler EGD235 - 3D modeling: Assignment three. Spring 2009 – Second Semester, sophomore year
This final project was something we could choose to make with everything we’ve learned during our time as an Art and Animation student. I really wanted to create a cool looking walker/mech/spider type machine. What you see is actually nothing like my original concept. You know when you picture something in your head that you really think is cool, and you think “I can get that done in no time! It’ll be wicked easy!” Well apparently that doesn’t apply with me, and I completely ignored scope and had to change a few things here and there in order to complete the project. Actually, I didn’t even complete this project in time. I was able to model and UV unwrap everything for the deadline, and textured it slightly. During presentations the next day my teacher noticed the lack of a quality texture and was kind enough to give me a couple days to finish the texture and get it to him before grades had to be turned in.
Environmental Game Asset EGD235 - 3D modeling: Assignment two. Spring 2009 – Second Semester, sophomore year
This assignment was pretty cool, and really tested our artistic abilities. This assignment challenged us to re-create an Unreal Tournament 3 modular asset. We had to find two modular assets in unreal, like a wall and a wall with a door. We had to study the model and its wireframe in Unreal, and then re-model its basic shape in maya. The teacher really wanted us to put a different texture on the model, so it wouldn’t match exactly, and I thought it would be cool to make an Art Deco styled asset (was thinking about Bioshock at the time). Unfortunately for me, I didn’t take advantage of Xnormal. For some stupid reason, I assumed Xnormal was meant for organic styled models, I don’t know why. Also, you’ll notice that the texture looks like crap. Again, out of my stupidity I decided not to use royalty free textures, like the ones on CGTextures.com. I used my own and edited the crap out of them in photoshop. The yellow-orange color is supposed to be gold. I should have studied the models in unreal that had a gold material applied to them and see if I could duplicate it in mine, I’m sure it would have made my project a tad bit better.
Re-topo EGD235 - 3D modeling: Assignment one. Spring 2009 – Second Semester, sophomore year
This was fun; this was the first time we got to mess around in Pixologic’s Zbrush. We didn’t do any sculpting, but messed with the re-topologizing feature Zbrush has. We used Zbrush’s DemoHead as a high poly model, and re-topologized it trying to get it under our target triangle count. I don’t have the original paper, so I can’t think of the max count, but my grade sheet says I got under that amount with 1,192 triangles. It was an interesting project, trying to figure out how to get the polygons to follow the form of the head and not have messy geometry. After we created a low polygon version of the head, we were then shown the UV unwrapping program called RoadKill. This allowed us to easily unwrap our head model and clearly see any stretched or compressed UV coordinates. Once we were happy with that, our teacher gave us a nice high resolution front, side, and top view of a human face to use as a texture. Everyone had different ways of creating the texture. My way was to just edit the face in photoshop on my UV texture as a reference. Then I went into Zbrush and fixed the seam in the back of the head using Projection Master and ZApplink. As you can see by the freaky looking stare he’s giving, I didn’t really pay attention to the eye placement. I tried as much as I could to change the low poly model’s eye lids without the texture getting too distorted.
Robo Roy EGD215 - Introduction to 3D modeling: Assignment four. Fall 2008 – First Semester, sophomore year
For our final projects, we were to create something using everything we learned during the semester. It had to be animated at 30 frames per second and play for at least 15 seconds. It also had to be textured with a diffuse, normal, and secular with all textures not going above 1024x1024. The only difference between this and the other projects was that we actually had to render our animation, and then go into Adobe After Effects to create a QuickTime Movie. Since I’m a really stupid person and didn’t manage my time in a wise way, my project was animated in less than 4 hours the night before it was due (That night I could sense Walt Disney’s ghost trying to kick me in the nuts for that). I was reminded that again when I showed it to the class and my teacher said in a confused tone “It doesn’t make sense.” It makes me cringe that I actually have to explain what he’s trying to do (and cringe every time I watch it), since all animations should clearly tell the viewer what’s going on. Basically, the robot wakes up noticing that his leg is no longer attached to his body, however he can’t reach it. He then pounds his fist on the ground in anger and gives up. I could already understand what was going on when working on the project because I could view it from all angles in Maya, but the poor camera placement screwed it up for the rendered scene.
The only difference between this video and the one i submitted is that this one has a bigger resolution and was rendered using mental ray.
Fire Extinguisher EGD215 - Introduction to 3D modeling: Assignment three. Fall 2008 First Semester, sophomore year
This assignment centered on animation. We were required to make a model that would only have one point of contact with the ground when moving (Pretty much like a pogo stick or someone in a sack race.). It also had to interact with something in some way. We were restricted to only using five joints which I didnt really enjoy, but I was able to pull it off only using five. I dont have the assignment sheet for this either, but I think the specs said the animation had to be at least 10 seconds long, running at 30 frames per second.
This video isn't the original one i handed in, it was graded from the perspective viewport in Maya.
Crate and Barrel EGD215 - Introduction to 3D modeling: Assignment two. Fall 2008 – First Semester, sophomore year This assignment required us to create a barrel and crate. The barrel had to be less than 250 triangles and the crate less than 120 triangles. Both the barrel and the crate had to share the same 1024x1024 diffuse, normal, and secular texture map. Unfortunately for us, we weren’t aware of the technique of building a high poly model and a low poly model to bring into a program that would create a normal map and an ambient occlusion map of the high poly model on the low poly model. The barrel and crate’s normal map was created using Nvidia’s Normal map Filter for Photoshop. Also, all sides of the crate had to have legible text on it.
Just like the other shots, I added a background, lights, and rendered it in mental ray for this shot. The assignment didn't require us to render it out, it was graded from within Maya.
Headphones EGD215 - Introduction to 3D modeling: Assignment one. Fall 2008 – First Semester, sophomore year For this assignment we had to create a complex object . I went with my headphones (I think it’s called the SONY MDR-V150 Studio Monitor Series Headphones). I can’t remember what the triangle count was (I can’t find the assignment sheet), but it was probably around the 4000 to 6000 mark. I got confused and actually smoothed this one out so what you see is actually 23,680 Triangles.
In this revised image, I added a background, some lights, and rendered it in mental ray.
Leon EGD215 - Introduction to 3D modeling: Learning Autodesk Maya 2008. Fall 2008 – First Semester, sophomore year
This is the Leon character model (his body at least) that we created from the Learning Autodesk Maya 2008 The Modeling & Animation Handbook. They actually based this character off of the Leon from Laika Entertainment’s Moongirl. This basically taught us the gist of modeling a character, and how to model something off of a reference image. Later on, we went and unwrapped the body we made and unwrapped the pre-made head to texture it.
There was five minutes left in class but we finished what we needed to do, so I made a pumpkin and put it on his neck.
Wow, I wanted to start adding things to this like two months ago, my bad. There's also something i should mention. I'm not a writer and I pretty much suck at it. So this journal might be filled with a crap ton of grammatical errors and wording that sounds confusing. Enjoy!
Anyway, here's the first assignment we were given:
Getting Started EGD215 - Introduction to 3D modeling: Maya Help Tutorial. Fall 2008 – First Semester, sophomore year A temple we created from a Maya tutorial in order to understand how to use the program. I can’t say this is the first thing I created in a 3D art program. Before this I took a CAD class in high school, messed around a lot in Valve Hammer Editor for Half-Life and later for HL2, and even got a Noesis DVD to help me understand Softimage XSI before I started school.
This picture actually isn't the original, i added lights, a background, and rendered it using mental ray. Doesn't hurt to make something simple more presentable does it?
