Quarter 1

Why I chose 3D modeling&Animation

I chose 3D Modeling and Animation due to the passion I have in the gaming field, and I enjoy doing activities that could help me get a better and more clear understanding of probably most of how it would look like behind the games I usually play and I wanna dig deeper into it myself, and more is about how I enjoy gaming myself and I am impressed by the Models and Animation during the games I played so I wanna see if I could learn more about it and get to do it myself and see if i could probably one day to get as skilled as them and create game models and animation that I like too. What I expected to get out from this class is probably the skills and ability that I get to learn about 3D modeling and animations and how I could get at least a decent mastery towards both skills, because I do wanted to try and be part of a team in any games that I enjoy so I could contribute towards the game and make any good models and animations to satisfy myself and community for the game, because I genuinely like gaming and wanna to something to help toward creating a better game environment for others and myself, not only I can enjoy the game better but others can too  with the skills I learn from this class.

Module 1 Reflection

During the learning through module 1 I learned a lot of techniques that I had never tried or seen before which really surprised me and impressed me, things that I learned in module includes the Viewport, Array, clone, grid and snap setting, modify, parameters,  and much more that helped me create projects such as the snowman, pencil, and even the temple of primitives which in my opinion was very difficult to get stuff together and go through all the editing and scaling things into one. How I would use all these skills in the future can  vary depending on my free time due to I might not use these skills for any particular jobs because of I have different career plans that is out of the gaming field but I do love playing games and wanna have skills related to it, and I will more than likely use these skills in my free time to work for a team to fulfill my passion toward gaming so this is mainly a free time skill I will likely use like for example all of the following projects I can use for different games I played like the Snowman can be in any games with the Christmas event as a environment design or even mobs that can move but needing animations, and the pencil can also be a environment for a school themed games, and the temple can also be a environment for any related games that requires and all of them can be very important.

Module 2 Reflection

In Module 2 I've learned plenty of new tools and worked on two main project; Alfie Hitch Cat and the 4 Corner Scene, some tools that I find useful and helpful during this project can be the import merge which allows you to select other projects and merge/combine it with the one that your currently in, another can be the snap toggle that allows you to snap a certain angle of your model with another one letting them align perfectly and combine, some more example can be; groups, link, Autoback up, Unit setup/System unit setup, Keyboard Entry, render. etc. which all is very useful and important that is used in this assignment and project like in the 4 corner Scene I used the tool called render and Keyboard Entry which allows me to put a certain coordinate and length/width/height to automatically create the shape and size and location of it for me. In the project of Alfie Hitch Cat allows me to use more tools like grouping and the import merge allowing me to combine different projects. These skilled I learned can be used very widely across all gaming field which I will need if I wanted to join a certain game develop team and the most obvious ones can be import merge and rendering as many and most games requires a rendering and import merge helps them move different projects into one allowing them to make different parts of the project into one like if one of my colleague made the lower body of a monster and I made the top I can use import merge and combine them into one or environment and structures and another very important one is like Autoback up which can save my life If for example my power went off my Autoback will automatedly save my project in that situation or else I will lose all my hard work that I've done after opening up the project or the work after the last time saved, and group/link can help me organize stuff together and making sure they won't accidently be made apart of each other like component's and all of these skills are very useful for me to know and acknowledge for future usage. 

Module 3 Reflection

In Module 3, tools that made my works and project be done easier and more effective is tools like Array, ProBoolean, Soft Selection, Noise, Taper, Bevel, Bridge, Connect, Loft ,  and all the selections in Edit Poly and many more but those are some main tools that really effectively increased my work speed and helped me in projects such as Screwdriver which I mainly rely on loft where I can basically trace out the shape of the item and use loft to get the actual shape and projects that also uses the Loft is Video Game Prop and chess pawn, and Field scene requires me to use noise and taper and those also apply to Video game prop as they can give me a shape of a object and it lets me change the shape and stuff, tools like connect, bridge, ProBlooean are used in the Lego Minifigure and it allows me to bridge two different shape with another shape in between, works like submarine requires array where we can arrange where we can copy a certain shape and let it be duplicated in another location, and space shapes are mainly vertices with edit poly selection and bevel and extrude. These skills are going to help me build more detailed projects better and not only that it also will make my work speed way much more efficient which I can definitely improve on and the video game prop is one the ways how those skills and tools are important because it can help shows my ability to build and model stuff on my own and it definitely have way much more stuff to improve on such as the throne itself I am able to make most of the details like the throne itself I needed to make loft, extrude, bevel, and vertices and polys from the edit poly, for the details on the back needed loft from the images and the sword needed me to build upon a box itself using many tools like bevel, extrude, edit poly, loft, and connect, target weld, and loop which is very helpful during this project.

Module 4 Reflection

During Module 4, I've began using a newly set of tools especially this is completely new to me and I was excited to learn about it, It revolves around two main tools, Lights and Camera, the two tools that build up this whole entire module, within this module there are many different kinds of lights and cameras like free camera, target camera, and physical camera, and lights like free/target spotlight and direct light, omni light, and skylight which is not used, these lights and camera helped me understand how lights can affect a scene by the lighting and the shadowing and the camera help traced the shadowing and lighting too with the modifiers, projects like the citizen kane relied on the lighting and camera within the scene by putting a light through the window which creates a shadowing effect when hitting on the people, and the camera also helps with the lighting when render. These skills can be very helpful and useful for many different kinds of projects whether its in games or movies which can really rely on them, like horror games and or any type of move scene but mainly horror movies in my opinion, and I can use this in many ways when I need to, like In game projects when creating a scary scene and how these are crucial to games and movie scenes because without them it wouldn't create a vibe within the scene like the scariness and the emotions and the feelings that it can create, and these helped a lot showing the type of environments and the feelings in citizen kanes and the table lamp and I find them very useful but may be hard to use but Definity something that will be very important.

Module 5 Reflection

During Module 5 I have learned many new skills, such as rendering and inside rendering is, Antialiasing, Ray Depth, and Slate Material editor, Compact Material editor, and PBR and Physical Materials., these material are very interesting and fun to play around/work with, but mainly when working on still life it was very important as it brings the whole prop's model realistic, but we work on them one by one and then added them together so first we started with the one ring, which that was the first one I work on and first time got in touch with material editor and used the slate material editor, I put a golden shade onto it and made the reflection noticeable which made it realistic, and then the heart of the diamond which was the same concept but made it show more reflection towards the dark blue material which is all done with the physical material, and then the bowling ball which this time we use a material that contains two map's and creating one and this wasn't as confusing but quite interesting making the colors and the patterns, and then making the plant which just allows us use bit map and carve the plant away from the plane the picture was copied on, and then placed in the background and use ray trace shadow to get it's shadow,  and the Maltese falcon was already preset made and inputted in,  and then came the PBR that created the background, floor, and the pillar color which made it feel very realistic by adding many materials like normal reflection, roughness, map, and more into one material, and must put down the displacement so it would actually work. These skills are very useful for any short of game projects or movie props as it contain realistic towards them which is one crucial part for many projects and these skills are useful for me too as if I will be working in any game projects these are definitely will be needed to help me works towards that and the best examples are the still life as all the props inside looks like it's very realistic with the reflections and coloring of them so this module is definitely one of the most important ones.

Quarter 1 Reflection

In the beginning of quarter 1, it's when I know nothing about 3D modeling as I had never touched any program related to it so everything is completely brand new to me, so I'm going to talk about all the modules I've went through and all the new skills and techniques I've learned in each module and how I improved them towards the end of each module and how the next module may require the previous and how I use them again to see my mastery on each skill such as basic primitives, edit poly, Proboolean from module 1-3 and camera, lights from module 4, and rendering from module 5 is all the skills that shows up more than once and are usually used frequently in modeling depending on varies different projects and modules. 

So during module 1 is when I firstly got in touch with any modeling programs so I was nervous and excited at the same time and the first model that was assigned to me was the snowman, it was simple as I had to just follow the instructions and build a snowman with basic primitives like a few spheres and few boxes and changes it's shape and color and copy and paste the sphere with crtl+v and build upon them gave me the snowman, and the came the more difficult one, the temple of primitives making us having more access to more skills and tools such as the Array tool letting up copy multiple of the same item and changing the directions it goes, building upon with simple blocking but this time we got introduced to edit poly allowing us to make the details and shape for the pillars.

module 2 we work upon the base of temple of primitives, we created Alfie the Hitchcat and uses tools like snap Align to create him, and placed him using import merge setting and placed him inside the temple, in Module 3 the main project out of all projects such as the garden field, Lego Mini Figure, spaceship, submarine, chess pawn, screwdriver which for me is the Video game Prop, all of the following included edit poly and many different tools like Proboolean for Toy submarine, and edit poly, and using tools like Loft for Chess pawn allowing us to trace out the shape of the image and get it's shape, and more array for garden field, but in Video Game prop we used all of the following tools(beside array) for making the main prop(Throne) such as the edit poly we used many tools such as symmetry and extrude, and bevel and for the details of the throne and using loft for harder details on the back of the throne such as the sword, and one thing I wanted to point out is the Lego Mini figure was it's leg when I was creating it due to many issues such as when I was bridging the upper thigh of it to the feet I faced the poly count problem where it wouldn't fit exactly right and have many slope in it, and then how I wasn't very good at the tools im using(Not enough mastery) so that made me faced many difficult problems and made the whole project taken longer than it had should.

 Module 4 and 5 makes us use different tools such as camera, lights, render, and material editor and working on projects like Citizen Kane, 3 Point lighting, table lamp, and still life, Citizen allowed me to discover a brand new side of 3ds max due to I've never interacted with camera and lights so it was my first experience, I quickly learned how to use it but some of it confused me due to the many modifiers they possessed, but I still got the hang of it and did Citizen Kane where my mastery on both like and camera improve as the video teach me more and more like the target lights allowing me to target where the camera can rotate on, and then moving onto 3 point lighting making me use 3 different angle of light on one prop making it look more realistic and not as bland, then module 5, it combines the use of lights and camera but it was already preset for us, but we get to use slate material editor where we got in touch with PBR and physical material letting us make the props way more realistic by adding them onto them and configuring the modifiers with it like the roughness and transparency and the color, and IQR and such. 

In conclusion 3D modeling is a very fun time for me for a very long time in school and it is something I enjoy and love about and all these skills I've learned throughout the module brought many fun to and my future goal in this class is to make a more detailed, realistic models but also wanting to master the skills and techniques I've learned to further more help me reaching that goal and this whole journey in this quarter was amazing as I went through problems and difficulties and solving them and then just enjoying the process of modeling, I hope the next quarter would be just as amazing as this one is.

Quarter 2

Module 6 Reflection

In Module 6, the main tools that built up this module was the uvw's, there is two main uvw I learned which is the uvw mapping and the unwrap uvw and another tool is Multi/Sub-Object material, but this module also combines tools from the last module which is module 5, we used bitmap, slate editor, materials to add texture's to our models for example Indiana Jones required his texture's for his face, body, pelvis, and legs but those are given to us to use, unlike Indiana Jones, the simple texture tank requires us to find the texture's ourselves and use bitmap and slate material editor, we had to use the Poly ID from the model to allow us to connect different textures to each and different parts of the model(Ex. Texture 1 will connect to ID 1, and whichever poly have the ID 1 will gain the texture), this allowed me to use multiple different textures within one tanks which is needed as for each and different parts of the tank is different, like the wheel's and the upper parts of the tank where it shoots. These skills are incredibly important as they allow us to add a 2D image on a 3D, these skills and tools can be very useful and effective when making a realistic 3D model that requires realistic textures and how it's differ than just basic material textures, these skills can help me make models that can have better looking textures applied to them, makes it more realistic and help me improve my skills on uvw overtime, like the simple texture tank, which i used the texture's myself to create it's realistic and texture, this can help me create characters and objects in the real life that would looks similar and as realistic as them, helping me in game projects in the future or industries that may require this field of skills.

Module 7 Reflection

In Model 7 I've learned many new tools such a as Biped, Bones, Path constraints, Position constraints, Link constraints, orientation constraints, Inverse kinematic, skin modifier, weight tool,  spline Ik solver etc. In module 7, where we get to add Bones/Biped into the golem that they gave us, giving us the ability to animate and rotate the golem by it's body parts and not as a whole, by adding either Bones/Biped into the golem and skinning it with the skin modifiers, and by using weight tools we can allow that one certain bone wouldn't affect the other by decreasing the weight of the other bones, then we also used constraints onto the Doctor Frankenstein, allowing us to make a controller that moves the body when we move the controller, by using link, position and orientation constraints onto the head of doctor Frankenstein, then we posed the golem and doctor Frankenstein into positions and the way we did it was by moving the Biped that works like the bones but a premade skeleton into the golem and skin it , and we can move the hands, legs and body into positions and same as doctor Frankenstein but without the bones/biped. These skills are very important to me as they can help me animate/position characters that I modeled for any short of projects and this can be crucial as they are not gonna just be blocky positions but instead looking like a real character with different poses, and these skills can help me make any character that can be alive and that requires movement or a pose like the golem can be a character that can move and be alive in any games/movies that I can be part of in the future making these very important.

4 Corners Path Constraints Reflection

One way I use to organize my folders and projects is by adding them into different sections in my folders, one for max files, and one for rendered images or videos, this allowed me to know specifically where to go when I need either one of them, and keeping backup folders or files in google drives allow me to redownload them if I somehow loses the files i downloaded, the backup would be helpful in recovering the lost file incase anything happens.  Adding Path constraints allow the car to follow that one line/path its selected, in this situation it's the road, it made the car go follow it around, and we also needed to change how the car would follow the path in path parameter, and select follow so the car would face the road and follow it instead of being in the same position while moving, and flip it's axis so it moves forward and not backwards, then we select on bank so it would turn realistically, and we would add the frames to 720 so the car wouldn't seem to go as fast, and it would only take up 24 seconds to finish the whole run through. Making the frame rate to 30 fps was important than the original 29.97(NTSC) due to those small frames would add up eventually, and affecting the overall time it would take for the animation to end, and picking the right amount of frames per second and the total frames allows you to choose exactly when will the animation ends and that is important as it dedicates how long it would last and the rendering time it would take.

4 Corners Lights and Cameras

During the modeling, adding cameras and lights helps me improve how the scene turns out to be, by adding different kind of lights help it creates a theme of day and night, example like the headlights will turn on night time and turn off during day time, creating a scene of it traveling throughout day and night, and camera helps us look at different perspectives at different views, like as a by passer and a person who's on the car, I didn't face much of a challenge when creating them aside from getting confused on the headlights. Adding links onto the headlight and aligning it helps with placing lights accurately on the headlights and making it move with the car. And the overall day and night transition help with the atmosphere by showcasing that it's been driving for days and nights due to it turning so quickly, and some adjustment such as shadows, and certain lighting when turning days and nights have to make the lights color fade away so it looks realistic. Adding shadows allow us to know when it turns night or day it would move around, and making it looks like it is really having the transition between day and night. Lastly cameras played a important role as it shows the different perspective for us, like the one on the car shows us how it feels like moving with the car throughout the animation, experiencing as if were driving, and the second one is as if were looking at the car in a by passer perspective, just watching it go across the place.

Module 8 Reflection

In Module 8 we learned about animation, but on top of that we also used camera and lights for some projects too such as 4 corners path constraints and lights and camera, but the main things/tools I have learn in this module is Auto Key, Add key, K key, Render, safe frames, Biped Footsteps, walkthrough assistant, curve editor, Preview animation, and banking and more, but the main one is the big premier, where it mainly focuses on animation of the Lego figure, I uses all the auto key, add key, k key, render, safe frames, Biped footstep, walkthrough assistant, curve editor, preview animation and more for it as it requires me to animate it and let a camera follows it and takes shots of it, and combine of other different shots to make a whole animation that we can watch. These skills allow me to create animation for characters for any industries as long as I'm good at it or master the skills for required fields which can help me find jobs related to this field and create projects for hobbies that requires animation, overall these skills are pretty necessary for job looking and are important as it plays a crucial role for most projects.

Quarter 2 Reflection

1/15/2026

In  this quarter I've learned many new skills on top of the previous skills in quarter 1, but in this quarter, it's more than just modeling but also includes Material, UVW, rigging, and animations, and within each different modules there's are plenty of tools that works efficiently within their own ways, and module 6 allowed me to add texture's and materials onto models and also unwrapping models into 2D surface, and how module 5 helps with rendering, making rendered images, and module 7 and 8 helps with rigging and animations, allowing me to make different movements with models and characters and also helping with animated movements.

In Module 6, Module 7, Module 8 we learned about Materials and UVW's and this allowed me to unwrap a 3D models surface to a 2D surface using the UVW mapping tool and Unwrap UVW tool, and within this module what challenged I've faced was the Unwrap UVW as it was hard for me to understand on how to correctly make them smaller and make them the shape that would fit into the 2D surface. The way i solve it is by just relaxing it over and over again till the shape looks similar to the surface's shape, then i can align it to the shape, and for Module 7 we learned about rigging characters, by adding bones or biped onto the model/character then we use the skin modifier to connect the model to the bones, allowing us to then fore rig it and make the character's body part move with the bone, we can also use heatmap to see the bone's affected areas, and module 7 helps a lot in this quarter due to module 8 needed a rigged character and also for my PBM rigging was a necessary part for the artifact 4 where I rigged my character for my animation.. In Module, we learned about animation where we can used the rigged characters or any models and set key frames with set key or auto key to make them move to a different place by setting a key frame in one location and move the character to another and set a different key frame at a different frame, and last Module helped a lot due to using rigged character's can also help with me posing or moving my characters in this animation such as the hands, arms, legs and body parts.

In conclusion Module 7 and 8 felt the most helpful in this quarter as it allowed me to know how to rig a character and move their body parts and how it can help with animations as well which combo's together as a whole and would also allow me to gain future experiences with rigging characters, and also allows me to animate them. And some goals I would have in the future would be probably model or animate characters as a hobby or a fun project to play around with as these skills are still fun to use ad play with.