Recently in class we've been working with modular design, which is modeling each part of a whole, of which is repeated within that whole, as individual pieces that are later put together. For example, walls, windows, and staircases are often repeated within the design of buildings, so when modeling buildings it would be helpful to model each once and reuse the same model whenever they need to be placed in another area. The same can be said for game development, if an asset is used in various places throughout a game, it can save a lot of time to model it or pieces of it then assemble it when needed. Having individual parts modeled allows for unique combinations to generate separate structures without having to actually model an entirely new structure. Prior to working with modular design I've always wondered how open world RPGs created all of the buildings and cities to be seen without spending an absurd amount of time on them, because after all there are usually hundreds in these games. Now however, when I play these games I can see the use of modular design in order to create buildings and reuse pieces in a different order all around the city, to make it appear as though the player is surrounded by numerous unique buildings, when in reality it is the same pieces arranged differently. I greatly appreciate the amount of time that can be saved with the use of modular design, and now I'm not so worried about modeling the assets my team needs for our game, as I'll likely be able to use this new knowledge to save dozens of hours of modeling. I look forward to working with modular design more in the future, especially when it comes to texturing, which has always been a hassle for me.
Main Points
0 Comments
This year I'm most excited about the fact that we will finally be making our own 3D games, prior to now I've only made a few 2D games (in software that did coding for me) and attempted creating one 3D game before I was even familiar with coding. Of course my first 3D game was never finished because I got frustrated by all of the errors in my code and could no longer bear watching tutorial after tutorial just to create my own game. However, now that I've become more familiar with coding as well as 3D modeling I have the resources to create my own 3D game. I'm rather certain that the creative aspect of our games will be driven by our own ideas so I'm excited to finally be able to apply all of my game development ideas that I've thought of either while playing games or in my free time. I know for sure that not all of my ideas will work out and some will definitely give me more trouble than others but I'm excited to at least try to incorporate all of the ideas I've come up with. Even if I can't use all of my ideas I'm still excited about the process of fully producing a 3D game anyways. Maybe for once this year I'll realize what it's actually like to be a game developer and why not all games are perfect due to limits placed on the developers. Above all though I hope that whether or not I consider the game I create to be a success that the process I go through to make it will help me to create more games in the future that I will run into less mistakes making and will certainly be better than this first game I will be making.
Main Points
From what I've heard in the news recently it seems that some or all of this year is going to be online, so in preparation for working from home I've decided to make sure I am able to model, code, and render if needed for anything we will do this year. Since I'm at home I'm using Blender instead of 3DS Max so it is slightly different but still gets the job done, though I've never rendered an animation with it. In order to become more familiar with rendering animations and get a feel of where all of the required options were to do so I made an animation of rolling dice with the help of a tutorial as I have still not mastered Blender. I ensured to watch and then do in order to retain as much knowledge as possible so that I would be able to do this if needed in the future and it helps to work with a sense of independence rather than hand holding the entire way through. Once I got the hang of the keyboard shortcuts and processes required to create the animation it was much simpler, so though it took some time initially I feel that if need be I could repeat the process with ease. I'm not entirely sure what this year will entail though I'm rather sure we will be doing a lot of coding to develop 3D games but who knows rendering may come in handy at some point as well. Even if I end up not needing to create any 3D animations this year I feel it still helps to keep myself up to date on all the different skills I've learned so that I don't put perfectly good skills that took time and effort to learn to waste. Main Points
Resources used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhN3X3MvD4 Having so many days off we have been learning so much new material so quickly, but for the most part I've been able to understand all of it without any problems and finish my assignments. However, the most difficult skill to learn so far has been the curve editor. It didn't seem like it would be difficult at first, but I didn't understand much of the material. The very first assignment for the curve editor took me four of five days to complete due to poor planning. For the first two days I followed the tutorial then realized it didn't really get me anywhere, so I restarted having a better idea of what to do but not knowing how to make the ball turn around correctly. I got the wall to bounce off of the first wall easily, editing the curve to make it look smooth and natural, but the second bounce was extremely hard for some reason and took me two days to perfect. The ball lost so much energy to the point where I wasn't sure if it would make more sense for the ball to bounce or to just roll off the wall. I decided it should bounce, but the ball always moved slowly towards the wall and awkwardly to the ground afterwards. It seemed no matter what I did it would not cooperate and I was about to give up when I discovered that I could choose to only affect the start or end of a curve with an operation. I combined that with moving where on the timeline the bounce occurred and finally got the bounce I was looking for, afterwards the ball just rolled on the floor then bounced off of the sofa. Main Points
This week we learned about how to use lights in 3ds Max as well as why certain lights are used for certain scenarios. The unit was pretty simple which is probably why we were only given a week to do all of the assignments. That said though, I didn't even finish all of the assignments within that week. I spent most of my time working on the first assignment which required images showing examples of lights being used in games as well as a paragraph describing each image. All of the assignments after that have been quick 15 minute assignments though so I should be done with the rest by Tuesday or Wednesday. Of all of the types of lights omni and spotlight are my favorite because they are the simplest to work with. Omni quickly lights an area with a nice decay which makes it look good while free and target spotlights are useful in just about any scenario. I'm not a fan of directional lights because their use is much more limited and generally lights up a smaller area than what other lights are capable of. In all of the assignments I have done so far I've only used spotlights because of how useful they are. All in all though I liked the lighting unit even though it was extremely quick which got me a little bit behind and I got a bad quiz grade. I'll have to make sure to review all of the material before the next quiz, not just what I'm using for the current assignment I'm working on.
Main Points
This quarter in digital art has been different from all other quarters in digital art. There is no longer a late penalty for any assignment, however assignments take very long to complete. With these new assignments it is very important to follow the instructions, especially because the rubric is just there to split up the grade into three sections. It is also important to turn in your pre-production work before your actual production work, or you will get a zero for the pre-production portion. All in all I think the new layout of assignments is fair because even though they take longer they have no late penalty. They also require more work and attention to detail, which helps to grasp the material better. In order to still complete my assignments in a timely manner I make an end goal for each day's work, which is usually just the next step in the assignment. Sometimes I don't finish the entire pre-production or especially the production within one class period, but I also have a plan for working with each individual step of the assignment. I make checkpoints that I'd like to reach by the end of class each day so that I can work efficiently and stay on track, and for the most part they have worked so far. The box assignment was the only assignment where some of my checkpoints didn't work so well because I hadn't planned the amount of time it'd take to make an orthographic sketch of the Yahtzee box. Everything turned out fine though because now with no late penalty I have nothing to stress about and can focus on quality over just turning the assignment in.
Main Points
So far I have enjoyed UVW mapping much more than working with textures and shaders because it allows for much more realistic models of real life objects. Textures and shaders were nice, but they could take a while to render, whereas I haven't had any problems with UVW mapping so far. The most difficult part about working with them is actually applying the images to each material and showing each material in the viewport. It isn't really a difficult process, but it is tedious and used a lot of my time for the box assignment. Each time I wanted to add a new image to a side I would have to add a standard material then add a bitmap for that material and show it in the viewport as I backed out to the parent material. Of course because there are six sides to a box I had to do this six times, as well as readjust the image if it was rotated incorrectly each time. I was most surprised with how realistic the final result was when rendered because it is shown as quite blurry in the viewport, but the render sharpens the images. It was also interesting to use the composite material editor instead of the slate, but it wasn't hard to adjust to. The main difference was that the material previews were displayed on top and editing was done below. So all in all I didn't find the transition to UVW mapping all that difficult, besides the huge amount of time it has taken me to complete a single assignment.
Main Points
Recently we've been learning new techniques to make more complex 3D models and scenes. Many of these new techniques make models look or act much more realistic than they really are. For example, using mental ray caused our objects to look very realistic with textures and shading we had never used before. We've also learned how to use MassFX, which creates a realistic simulation of physics. In the next few months we will probably be making much more realistic 3D models and scenes now that we know how to do so. I hope to use MassFX more often in future assignments because it was fun to work with and never caused any problems for me. We also used it to make animations rather than scenes, which allow for much more creative work to be done. Whenever we make animations I like to add small extra details wherever I can just for the fun of it. Mental ray was interesting, but it was removed in the new version of 3DS Max and took a while to render a single image, so I don't think we'd be using it in animations anyways. The cloth modifier generally did not work for me so I hope we don't use it much in the future, it always found some way to mess up a perfectly normal simulation. Working on our current project has been fun so far because it includes most of the new modeling techniques we have learned about. Hopefully they all come together to make an interesting and active simulation, but it will take some time to make them do so. It would be interesting if other assignments in the future also included several modeling techniques, just as long as they aren't as complicated as this one.
Main Points
Recently we have started to work with creating simulations in 3ds Max, and so far it has been quite a volatile experience. I've only made it to the flag so far, but I haven't finished it because sometimes my simulation will work and other times it will cause my flag to explode, with no changes to the simulation. The most difficult part of making simulations has been attempting to keep my flag wave in the wind, it either falls straight down or goes directly backwards when the simulation starts before it actually waves in the wind. I was looking forward to enjoying watching a nation's flag wave in the wind, but even when I get my flag to work I can't see the material I applied to the flag unless the render preview is open. Another part I've been struggling with is the tablecloth, it seems the table always tears the cloth no matter how smooth I make it or how many times I chamfer it. I've tried a variety of materials for the cloth going over the table and a variety of different table shapes, but nothing has worked. So far I do not enjoy working with simulations because just about everything goes wrong and does not work on the first try, unlike everything else I've done in 3ds Max. I've reviewed the tutorial given with the assignment several times and attempted to research online how not to tear a cloth when it lands on a box, but only tutorials for how to tear something pop up. Hopefully I figure out how to fix my tablecloth and make my flags work soon, but as of right now it has been quite annoying to work with simulations.
Main Points
We have been working with surface and parametric modeling for the past few weeks, and so far I like parametric modeling better than surface modeling. I prefer parametric modeling because I enjoy working with precise and exact parameters so that what I am modeling is proportionate. Surface modeling is better to use when making a flat image into a three dimensional object, while parametric modeling is better to use when creating an object that has specific measurements required to be accurate. This could apply to following a tutorial, in which the tutorial maker creates an object and has set specific parameters for that object, so in order to closely follow the tutorial the object you create must have those same parameters. Having the same parameters as the tutorial would make other objects created in that tutorial work with the original object, and you'd be able to change it after you're done with the tutorial by adding modifiers that make change it by variable amounts. Surface modeling is good for creating less exact objects quicker without the use of specific parameters. This allows for the creation of multiple objects in a scene without exact modifications applied to them. It is hard to do parametric modeling at home using Blender because I don't understand why changing certain parameters of my objects does not have the outcome I would expect. Sometimes changing the size or adding a modifier does the exact opposite of what I thought it would do, but it is still my preferred modeling technique.
Main Points
|
AuthorMy name is Andrew Prichard and the this is my first digital arts class, I look forward to a good year with lots of hard work. Archives
May 2021
Categories
All
Last updated 5/14/21
|