So then What?

The process of the next few weeks was spent unwrapping all of the objects in the scene and the scene itself. I created beam textures, wall textures, floor textures, all with bump maps to match and enhance their appearance. This was the most time consuming part of the process during the entire four weeks. However, since I had placed so much emphasis on it in my brief I felt it was justified. However. I had to consider other aspects of my brief such as animation. I had agreed to rig and animate a character. It was at this point that the scene no longer just existed as a still rendered image but became an animation. I decided from that point onwards that I would try to animate the bear in the attic.

I therefore undertook a few experiments of rigging and animating bipeds. Initiallly I wanted to make my own rig. However, I was unable to learn how to before the time to get animating was upon me. I therefore chose to use the knowledge I had obtained through my experiments to rig the bear with the standard biped in 3DS Max. I hope in future to be able to learn how to make my own rigs so that they may better suit the character I have created.

Once the entire scene was mapped and lit we took still renders. This is one of the results.



We used a combination of Global illumination and final gather to light and render the scene. I feel the resuts are quite effective.

From this point on it was animation all the way. I had rigged the bear to perform basic movements and was able to have him doing a few movements in an animation about 30 seconds or so.

Sooo there's a time lapse

You may notice its been a while since my last post. This is because I have discovered something. I am Awful at keeping a blog. In future I will try my best to update it daily. However, this is where I am now, the end of the project but there has been a great deal of change and I shall try my best to docuent what it is that has happened since the last post.

Firstly Myself and Anthony decided that our process of learning would be better spent if we strived to create a final piece, this is because we feel that to have something to show for our efforts will encourage us to work harder to achieve a finished piece. Therefore It was decided that we would create a scene of some kind. We decided upon an attic scene, something atmospheric. Below is an image of the kind of environment we wished to create.



We also wanted to fill the scene with several items which may be found in an attic, we decided upon a bear, a chest of drawes, a trunk, a mirror, a globe, a lamp and a grammophone. Due to our seperate learinig agreements we decided that Anthony would light the scene and I would texture it. We decided that we would share the responsibility of modeling the scene and its contents.

From this point on we continues to test the fields we had chosen exploring different ways of texturing and lighting the scene. I played around with brick textures for the wall using an image I had taken into photoshop and tiled to create a larger expanse of wall. I tested bump maps and dispacement maps to see which gave better effects. These are the results.



Wall texture one, take from a small sample of brickwork, I used the clone tool to create a lareger proportio of the wall.



This is the same bitmap with a bumpmap applied to it in 3DS Max in order to give the wall the appearance of the cement receeding and the bricks protruding.



This is once again the same map but this time it has a displacement map too. The displacement map is applied as a modifier and like the bump map gives the appearance that the bricks are 3 dimentional. However the way that it works is it pulls vertices out or inwards depending on the black or white colour assigned to it in photoshop. This gives the brickwall a very different kind of appearance. However, the issue here is that in order to do this the wall has to be extrememly high poly. It is simply not worth creating that many polygons for a plane, it will only increase rendering time. I therefore decided only to use a bump map to represent the 3 dimensional form of the wall.



This last image is of the same wall as before. However, I used photoshop to give the wall a semi plastered finish. I was attempting to recreate something similar to the old attic picture below. I also assigned all of this area to be white so it protruded from the wall in the bump map. I feel that it is quite effective.

From these experiments I became more confident that I would beable to apply ,maps to the entire scene, as before this point I was extremely nervous about my abilities to do so. I had only ever assigned basic materials to objects so this was a big step forward in both my application and knowledge. I would not have been able to do it, had I not mapped the bear previously however, It was mapping these two objects which enabled me to map the rest of the scene.

Z Brush

ZBrush....Hmmm yes Z-Brush. I feel as though I may have bitten off more than I can chew here... Z-Brush is a brilliant program with endless possibilities. However, I feel now that I have attempted to learn its interface and tried to add detail to a model I created in max, that far more time needs to be solely dedicated to this one subject alone. I have no doubt that in future this could be a brilliant tool for finishing. However, for now I feel it is far more important to learn the basics of one modelling program than to become too bogged down with trying to learn lots of f=different kinds. Nonetheless here are the results of my attempts.




I also attempted sculpting in Z-brush. However the rate at which I was trying to learn to do it was not enough for me to do a decent job. Despite following a tutorial I got hopelessly lost and gave up. I would like to return to Z-Brush in the future but for now will concentrate on 3DS Max.

Soldiering on with Mapping

After my first mishap with mapping I leaned a valuable lesson. Position all the UV's sensibly so that I can locate all of the correct parts. Having thought it through I began to make a new texture for the bear. Below are some jpegs of the textures I created.




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Teddy Muzzle

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Teddy Left ear

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Teddy left Leg

The textures were created in photoshop. I first found a texture I though may be quite nice for representing an old worn and dirty bear. I then placed the UV renders onto the texture so that I could tell where to place contrasting colours or textures to represent the parts of the bear. For example, for the paws I used a much thicker fabric texture image. I then used the burn tools to give them a dirty appearance.

I mainly used the dodge and burn tools to represent dirty and worn patches. I also used a woolen material for his nose and drew on the stitches on his paws.

This is the final result.

The mapping process

The process of Mapping. I have attempted to make textures for the bear in photoshop. However, the results however, did not turn out as i had hoped. When I had rendered the UV's I had not taken into account that i may have to remember the positioning of the limbs. Therefore when I came to make the textures in photoshop I found myself guessing where certain parts like the paws and nose should be present. The result was a bear which had its paws, noses and seams all in the wrong places about its body. I meant to place a picture of that particular mistake but i can't seem to locate it. Reminder to self...always back up work!

Texture Mapping

Over the past two days I have been attempting to get to grips with Mapping textures. I have so far been able to unwrap the various limbs of a teddy bear model. However, my next challenge will be to Create a texture from it in photoshop.
Below are some rendered UV maps from 3DS Max.


Leg UV render

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Muzzle UV render

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Teddy Boddy UV render

Week two

Today I continued to modify my model of Nefertiti for the virtual modelling unit. And whilst doing this I began to learn the basic principles of texture mapping. I feel that this therefore would be the perfect opportunity to further my knowledge on the subject. So for the next few days I shall be reading up on texture mapping and putting what I have learned to use hopefully. I decided that to better learn how to texture objects I should attempt to map something in particular. I chose to model and texture a teddy bear because I wanted to map something organic. I also felt that it could be nice to create a worn object as a challenge. However, after doing a search on the internet for suitable reference images I found nothing good enough to model from. I therefore decided to look at some existing examples of teddy bears and draw my own. I therefore spent the rest of the day drawing a turn around sketch of a teddy bear.







Above are a few images i used as influences for my own teddy sketch. And below are the front and side reference images of a basic teddy bear I drew to model from in 3DS Max.

Temporary post

This post has been made to keep my blog in cronological order. I Shall post videos and pictures of my cloth experiments here when I am able to do so.

The Beginning

My work over the first two days of this project has mainly consisted of research and experimentation. I began to explore the cloth modifier yesterday. To begin with I looked at its application in industry. I discovered its possible use in various films and games, although in reality it is impossible to say for sure. The Cloth modifier was introduced as an extension for 3DS Max 7 in 2004. From then, users of 3DS Max have been able to use this modifier to:

· Use clothing patterns as the basis for real-world clothing that reflects both fabric type and clothing pattern.
· Define the type of cloth either by setting up its properties or selecting from a list of cloth types, including like silk, cotton, and wool: Clothing will behave as it would in the real world depending on the material.
· Build real, tailor-made clothes, not just baggy, draped cloth! You can even create inner seam lines for pleats and vents.
· Save and share cloth preset types to drive artist productivity and ensure that clothing is consistent when using the same fabrics on different cloths, characters, etc.
· Access most Cloth functions with Maxscript: TDs will be able to script tools to enhance their production pipelines.

Three games which used 3ds Max in its production are "Assassins Creed", "Tomb Raider Legend" and the "Prince of Persia The Two Thrones".

I have chosen these particular games because they were all produced after the cloth modifier was made available in the program and because they all include what appears to be CG cloth.



Assassins Creed, Ubisoft 2008



Tomb Raider Legend, Eidos 2006



Prince of Persia, Ubisoft 2005

Although I cannot proove that these effects were created by the cloth modifier in Max, From my experimentations I now know that I could create these effects with it.

I hope to Post the results of my experiments when I have figured out how to take videos of live animation from 3DS Max.

Modifiers

I have already begun to learn the process of basic polygon modelling in 3DS Max. I have undergone tutorials to create various objects and characters. However, to follow a tutorial isn’t always the process by which we learn best. I shall therefore take the time to undertake independent studies in the various modelling processes involved in 3ds Max. I am keen to understand further the uses of modifiers in 3Ds Max 9 and shall begin by researching some of them and their application in the creation of a digital modelmaking in industry.

The point

Commercial Exploration is a project enabling me to "explore and evaluate focused commercial aspects of the proffesional modelmaking arena." The areas I have decided to explore are the digital aspects of modelmaking. I am interested in the fields of animation and gaming. I shall therefore take the opportunity within this project to further my knowledge and skills required in these industries. The programs I shall explore are 3DS Max and ZBrush, and the techniques I intend to learn are Modelling, texturing, 3D scanning, rigging, animation, and rendering.