Rigging might be the main reason for why I don't want to become a 3D modeler for my job. It is a painful and frustrating process that requires patience and lots of trial and error to get correct. Making the bones is only the first part, which in itself can be frustrating, then you have to move on to hierarchy and envelopes, both not only are very complicated and difficult to get used to on their own, but they are both required to get a model that will be easy to animate. The one thing I can say about this process is when the rigging is finished it is immensely satisfying just to mess with. Then there comes the part that I immensely love about 3D modeling and that is animation. 3D Animation is possibly the best thing about 3D and if Disney has anything to say about it they would agree. You see animating in 3D is the opposite of rigging, It is way faster than stop motion 2D animation and much easier to create realistic perspective. Which is probably something I could turn into a career which is 3D animation. So its fitting that for the end of the year we are doing both.
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This previous quarter has been a whirlwind of events that has caused us to lose a lot of class time this quarter. During this time our class has worked on lighting and cameras. Lighting was much easier for me because I had some experience with that during an internship last summer. The most difficult thing this quarter has been rotating a camera around an object. After messing with pivot for two whole class periods, I found out that my 3Ds max was bugged so the pivot function wasn't working properly. I had to redo the whole thing. The reason it was so difficult was partially because it was a new tool that I had to figure out and mainly because pivot would stop working when I turned on auto key, making the whole process incredibly frustrating. Ultimately I just decided to scrap the pivot system and decided to animate it manually which did not turn out very well. The end product is below and I'm not proud of it. The camera itself is zooming in and out during the shots which created a dolly zoom. I feel like I could become more effective with pivot if I had more time, but I needed to complete the project.
Over the Easter brake I went down to Florida to visit my grandparents and during that three and a half day trip I had one very crappy laptop to play games on. In my head I figured that this was a perfect opportunity to play some random steam games that I still needed to play. I picked up this game randomly on the first night and finished it the night before my flight home. To put it simply the game is really great and surprisingly short (which i didn't mind). In Momodora you are a priestess that is trying to dispel a curse that has befallen your land. with your trusty bow and leaf you go out to break the curse. One of the things I adore about this game is the main character's design and more specifically your weapons you see like I said earlier you do have a bow and arrow but for close range encounters you use a leaf like it was a blade, and there are a lot of subtle unique concepts like this in Momodora way too much to cover. The game is a 2D metroidvainia which is pretty short and sweet, so if you love games like Hollow Knight, or Metroid I strongly suggest you check out this game, it's on steam for only ten dollars.
Last week we did the entire lights unit. Which sounds like a lot of work but it was pretty manageable, especially considering I've worked a lot with lights before. That being said I'm still slow to get back into the swing of things since the end of spring break so I'm a bit behind. I did have a lot of fun learning the different types of light sources in 3Ds max and then looking for them in Destiny 2 on the earth patrol it was pretty fun.
This Is part two of modeling the largest sword in history the zweihander. This time around I've applied what I've learned making UVW maps to create texture for my sword. This was a super fast process know that I know how to implement it and the end result looks pretty good for a first attempt at 12:00 am. The UVW work itself I could have done more smoothly though instead of having the sword blade split up into different sections I should have just had completed on the UVW map.
Recently I just finished UV mapping a robot by creating an image on Photoshop and then transferring it to 3DS Max, which was actually really fun to do. During this process though it was a bit tedious to transfer the TIF file on to the image and then Unwrap it to make it look correct. So that got me thinking are there any 3D modeling software that can allow you to directly paint on your 3D model and it turns out there is! Blender a free 3D modeling software has this functionality. I found a tutorial where Grant Abbitt demonstrates this process. Its a really interesting video just to see the object get painted, but I do want to try this in the future.
Abbitt, Grant, director. Texture Painting Tutorial. YouTube, YouTube, 6 Dec. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcCQKuWPhXk. So I'm not sure if you have realized this by now but the creators of Hypixel a large minecraft server are creating a game called fittingly enough Hytale. Now to a lot of people when first seeing Hytale just categorized it as another minecraft clone, which it may well end up being but there is one thing that separates Hytale from all the other minecraft clones and even minecraft itself, the thing is Hytale has not only an in game 3D editing software but also in game C# coding. This is all for making the game super accessible for creators who want to make their own block like creations from code, possibly including for those who want to teach C# and 3D modeling to others like, I dunno at a specific game course. Who knows the point is that I think Hytale is going to be super interesting and that you should give it a look.
https://hytale.com/ This last week in game design our class has gone from adding materials to surfaces (painting) to UVW mapping or (wrapping). The switch has been admittedly slow I ran into a weird issue with the multi sub object modifier where instead of putting standard materials in the sub object material it instead ether replaced the material or put it within another sub object, at one point I had five sub object materials within one another. It was such a mess that I had to restart a few times. Long story short is don't use the compact material editor even when a tutorial uses it. Otherwise UVW has been fairly straightforward, I am still a bit behind unfortunately.
Since my last personal update I have made a lot of 3D models from chess to neighborhoods, but there has been one thing that I really wanted to make and that was a zweihander. You know that big two handed German great-sword that is my favorite thing ever. Anyway I made a test model for one in 3Ds max which I'm proud to show off. It's actually a really simple model where I basically only used the edit poly modifier to make but I’m really proud of the end results.
Where do I even begin. Minecraft is one of those games that is a permanent staple of my childhood so there is no way I can traditionally review this game, all I can do is relive fond memories of the game. Speaking of which the only reason I’m reviewing Minecraft in the first place is because I just spent a large majority of the last MLK weekend playing the game with some friends. Which has reminded me why it is one of my favorite games and the best game to play with friends. For me that's the heart of why this game is so great for me. Its building a world for myself with my friends all on our own. There is a genuine satisfaction I get from working as a team to build a place that I can call my own and then thrive with my friends all laughing and building together. It's a really human experience that I can easily lose hours too. You can feel yourself progressing and when your done with the game you can always come back to the game and reminisce about the good old days when you just started playing. It's almost like living a mini life experience. The main drawback to this is all of these experiences will become muted without friends to enjoy them with you. I have a challenge to those who think they can handle it, get some friends together and try playing the bedrock edition of the game (which is the one you can play on your phone and is way easier for a group of friends to pick up and play) then just play it for an hour or so. Who knows you just might enjoy it.
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Miles RomanHi, I am a student at Durham School of the Arts, and this blog will be documenting my experiences with my Game Design class. Categories
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