3D animation 2nd semester

Hi,

today I was taught the ground rules of animation. I learned how to use the timeline, how to use key frames, auto key and set key.

Then I was taught about the Mini Curve editor and curve editor. I played around in that by creating a bouncing ball and manipulating it movements in the editors.

Then I learned how to use a dummy. That will probably be a tool that I will use alot this semester :)

Finally I was to make a little animation and post it here on the blog, so here it is.

Final thoughts and evaluation

So here is for my final thoughts about this module. In the past I have always been afraid of 3d modeling thinking this is probably so hard to learn. After being in the first classes this semester I realized that with good teaching of the basic this isn´t that hard at all. All you need is time and dedication.

What I liked the most about this module is that you know right from the beginning what the final project is going to be and you are always working towards that. I believe that helps student keep focused and not get "lost" in this module.

I was a total newbie in the beginning of 3d modeling and I thought I would never learn this but now I firmly believe that with help of google and some tutorials I have the knowledge to become better 3d modeler.

One thing that I wasn´t good at this semester was filling in my blog. But I think this is a good idea to have a blog like this to write down thoughts ant stuff to share with fellow students. I am just not used to blogging but that is something I definitely have to work on as a multimedia designer :)

I know of course that my final 3 images aren´t the most professional in the world but these are only my first of hopefully many. I will probably spend my christmas holiday playing around in 3d max to get even better at it.

I am looking forward to starting 3d animation and character animation next semester.

Thank you all for the semester :) And merry Christmas

Signing off,
Baldvin Olafsson
SID: 0815818

Third and Final picture

For the third picture I chose July as one of my favorite months. July is the only month in Iceland we can go to our specially made beach. On a sunny day the beach is crowded with people from 8 in the morning til 7 in the evening.

I wanted to create a simple scenario of beach and the ocean.

This might be to simple for being in the project but I wanted to do something totally from scratch without any help :) I made 2 planes. One for the Ocean and one for the sand. I extruded the sand one to get a nice landscape feeling on it. Then i found some sand map to put on it.

For the sky i made a sphere and covered the whole scenario with it and then I added UV mapping to it and added a ready made background on it from 3d studio max.

Easy and basic but reflects my month. I wanted to have some people on the beach but that will all come when I do 3d character animation next semester.

Here is the final outcome

Going for December

Well after my first 3d picture I was full of confident for my next one. In that one I wanted to create a room with a dining table and a christmas tree. First I wanted to create everything in this scene. Dishes, glasses, forks, knifes, cloth over the table a whole lot of little things. Then I started thinking and decided to do just what I was comfortable doing. Simple stuff or so I thought.

I started out creating a plane. Then I went on and created The Dining table. That was pretty simple. Just made a box and then use extrude and inherit on it. And of course like always change it to a polygon to manipulate it. When it was finished I added a wooden material on it. I did the same with the chairs.

Then we go to the hard part The Christmas tree.

First I created the base of the tree. For that I used a helix and a circle. Then I changed the parameters so it would round up like a christmas tree. Then I chose the circle and added it as a loft to the helix now I had the base of the tree ready.

Then my problem began when I added a hair and fur thingie to the tree. I didn´t seem to get my tree like I wanted to. And when I got close to it then my computer couldn´t handle it. so I just decided to go for it and try to make it as good as I could.

Then I just added some christmas balls on it by creating a lot of spheres :)
Now i needed to finish the room so I just added the walls that are build in 3d studio max. In the end I tried to play around with some lighting but I never seemed to get it any good. But practise makes perfect.

I added a wooden material to the plane for flooring

Moving on

Alright,
after the first few weeks I started to think back to my favorite months and what I really wanted to create with my 3d knowledge.

I decided to start out with august. What I wanted to make was a Tent, gras and a tree.

I started out creating the tent. That was relatively easy. Since it was my first I kept it really simple. I started by creating a plane where everything should be standing on. Then I created a sphere and dragged it halfway through the plane and deleted the bottom then I had a half sphere. I deleted a part from it and that was going to be my door to the tent. Then I added a box to it and deleted the sides of it until it ended up as a "hallway" to the tent.

Then the tent was ready. Let´s go to the hard part - Trees

Basically I had the Idea in my mind what kind of tree I wanted to do but I didn´t have the knowledge. I found this tutorial http://www.evermotion.org/index.php?unfold_exclusive=109&unfold=exclusive
And tried to do that but with my ideas.
The biggest trouble I had was when I was putting the leaves and branches on with the Scatter tool. But in the end I made maybe not a great looking tree but good enough for me as a first time 3d modeler :)

For the ground i just added a grass map I had in the library of my 3d studio max. And for the environment I created a sphere around the whole thing and added a sky map on it. August DONE :)

First weeks

Well in the first weeks of this Module I decided to try to get the basics of modeling. I have never tried 3d modeling before and have always thought that this is a tricky business :)

I went on and did a lot of tutorials on Youtube, www.tutorialized.com, www.3dnuts.com and just everywhere where I could find simple tutorials to follow.

For example my favorite tutorial was this one here http://www.escalight.com/tutorials/3dsmax-tutorials/modeling-a-cartoon-pig.html

Creating a cartoon pig. That tutorial opened up for me how easy 3d max could be with a little dedication.

August

Second of my favorite months is august. August is a month where a lot of people go on their last camping trip before the fall in Iceland. We call that weekend Verslunarmannahelgin or weekend for people who work in shops :)

People can choose if they go for a quiet camping trip or go to a place where bands are playing and alot of stuff has been planned for the whole family.


Research board


Well my research board is made up of what august is really about....a tent, tree and a cold beer.

Mood board

Here is the mood board for august. It shows alot of happy people together having a good time and relaxing. That´s why I love august.