3D Modeling & Animation Reflections
2025-Present
2025-Present
I took 3D art and animation to better understand art as a whole, and learn how to make models and animations for game creation. I hope to take the Game Design class in my 10th grade year, so I can create my dream games I have been thinking about for so long. and while 3D art and animation is only a portion of my game creation journey, I hope to learn as much as I can.
This module I learned a bit more about how to use 3ds Max, like how to use basic primitives and how to use different tools. I built a temple by using basic primitives in the 3ds max software, like cubes and spheres and pyramids. I learned how to use tools too, like move, scale, rotate, and select. I also learned a little bit more about rendering, like how to take a photo. All in all this was a fun unit to learn most of the basic building tools in 3ds Max.
This module I learned quite a bit about the 3DS Max engine. I mostly learned about how to use some of the more niche tools, like grid snaps, and how to use the veiwports. I also learned how to import and organize my files better and how to autosave. So, all in all, I really learned how to use the engine better, just getting some info on how to use the engine more efficiently.
In the future I hope to use these skills to use the engine more efficiently so that I can model better. In my ongoing quest to learn the art pipeline and how to make models for video games, these skills will most definitely help me understand how to model better. So, this model was great for me to learn some more functions of the engine, so my art can become just a little bit better.
This quarter I have done a lot of 3D modeling, Like the Lego figure, and the field scene, but at the end was the first project where I had to truly had fend for my own. The field scene could be considered to be the first project to require solo skills and creativity, but they still held your hand by giving you a tutorial for the mushroom and flower. This project was truly from your own mind. Being the less than smart person I am, I decided to choose the first option on the list: the modular building kit. The idea was to create different building pieces like walls and floors, and then use those pieces to build 3 houses; a small house, a medium house, and a big 2 story house. In the end you should have 3 houses made out of the unmodified building pieces only.
The design process was easy, just sketching out what you wanted to build, and blocking it out in studio. The real challenge came when you decide to start building and realize your pieces don't fit perfectly. No matter how hard you try, you will always hit this part of the project, which is physically and mentally draining because of the simple fact that it is just a ton of numbers. You have to add, subtract multiply and divide until all of the pieces fit and you can build the houses. And at the end, it is all worth it, as it is the fastest one, while also being the one you learn the most from in the long run, and you can look back at all the hardship and say: "I hope I never have to do that again."
Module 4 was about how to use lights and cameras in 3Ds Max. This module I learned how to set up lighting and how to light scenes, with all of the different lights available. Additionally, I learned how to use cameras, another core feature, allowing me to truly learn how to set up and render a scene well. Some things I learned about cameras were: how to use certain types of cameras, the different types of cameras, so on, and so forth. The ability to use cameras and lights together in 3Ds Max means I can truly start to make art, and nice looking photos.
These skills are crucial for animation, so I can create scenes that look good. In animation, lights are important so as to bring attention to what is currently the center of view, and to make scenes look more realistic. Cameras are important because, they're what you see from. Different types of cameras influence how you scene can look, and how you animate, like how target cameras focus on one point, while free cameras look wherever. This all plays into how the scene looks from the view of the watcher, and is crucial for a good animation.
This quarter being the first quarter, it was a lot. I really got down most of the systems of 3ds Max, and learned how to efficiently use all of the tools. Due to the block schedule, this is the only learning quart there is, as from my understanding, the final project will take up most of quarter 2. Being halfway done with 3D Modeling and Animation is crazy to me as I feel I have just started. But looking back on this last quarter I can see how far I've come.
Some of the things I learned were using all of the basic and some of the more complex tools, like: move rotate, and scale, but also things like: array, Cameras and edit poly. These skills helped me get to making the things I will soon make in quarter 2. My original ideas of 3D modeling were completely changed when I started this class. I first thought it would be like molding clay, but soon found out it was none of the sort. And now after all of the learning this quarter, I think that I am a lot better at things like: editing polys, using lights and cameras, and creating things in the engine.
This module I learned how to use and navigate material texturing. This is using the material editor to customize and change materials to make objects that look real. It is an important tool because without it it would be incredibly hard to change things about an object like how light reflects off of it, of how translucent it is. Using this tool can allow your renders to change from just being objects with images on them to being full realistic objects with texture and physics. As I have said, this is important to making renders feel finished and look good to the viewer.
I'm going to apply these skills to my projects in the future, and to my final project where I hope to use them well. These skills will help me make my final project look good, and help my ability to render well in the future. I can use them to make objects in the background like trees look good, and change texture on my objects closer to the camera, making the scene look better. In all, this module was very important for getting down a system to make renders more realistic, and better.
This Module was about how to use the UV mapping service in 3DS Max, and it was quite tedious and hard. UV mapping in general is a way to texture and apply materials by laying a map of the object out on a 2D plane. This creates all sorts of formatting problems which was the main focus of this module, just making it so the mapping will work. It is an important form of mapping so that you can apply images and textures by moving them around and matching the object with the image, which is important for things that have stuff that goes in certain places, like clothes. While this is so much incredibly harder than using the material editor, it is still a very necessary piece for the situations it is needed in.
In the future i can use UV Mapping to make precise textures and make my models look good. I hope to use this skill in the final project, where I will need to texture thigs on my own, and some textures are going to need to be sized. This might be helpful on things like books, if I want to put titles and pictures on the cover or pages. This is also helpful if I want to make changes to where a material shows up on an object, or changing where a pattern might be. In all, UV mapping will be important for many things in the future, and I hope to use it well on the final project.
This module we learned how to rig and use models in 3DS Max. Rigging is like making bones for models so that you can move and animate them easily, and so that movements look natural and human. Some things that we did this module were things like the "skin" modifier. This modifier allowed the used to easily connect and change a model with bones. Additionally we learned how to use ik chains, which are things that allow you to make sure bones bend naturally and and don't contort weirdly. Really this module was really just learning how to use a skill so that we can animate in the next module.
I can use these skills in the future to make animations and be able to control my models and other things easily. It is incredibly important to animations, being what you move in the studio so that you can change poses without the program contorting strangely. Bones are important so that when the program moves the model to the next keyframe, it does so without contorting unnaturally. I think this is going to be good on the final project, where I can use it to move my objects around. All in all, it is an important, but underappreciated skill, mostly used for animation.
This module I really got into the trenches, with this module being about learning how to animate. Mainly this module we learned how to do the basics, keyframing, and how to export, not getting into more advanced things like motion capture and perspective, things that are of use for more advanced animators. The main area of this module was to learn how to use 3DS Max's keyframing tech, which makes it so that you don't have to animate everything by hand. Keyframes are important poses and moments that the animators mark out, and in between keyframes is the computers work. These are important for making 3D animation move quicker that traditional animation, where every frame is hand made. This streamlines the animation process, and makes it easy for anyone to animate.
I'll be sure to use these skills in the future of my animation career, as this idea of keyframes is what most software use. Things like Blender use keyframes, the most likely option for the future of my animations. This module also shows how to use paths to move things, which is also going to be helpful, as that is how i plan to animate and plan where things are going to move in my scene. Also it was helpful to learn about how to render animations, and output them to my files.
This project was a quick refresher on how to animate, and how to show we did out work. It was pretty simple, the project being to make a car drive around on a little road in a scene we had previously completed. The project helped us learn how to use the follow and bank commands when using a path constraint. These settings allowed an easy way to make the car rotate with the road, and when necessary adding a bank to make the car appear like it is actually turning. We also learned a little bit more on how to render, and the render output settings.
This was the extension of the original four corners project, bringing lights and cameras into the mix. We had to learn how to use keyframes to change the brightness, positions, and colors of the lights. We also had to make the cameras move, learning how to attach cameras, and cameras targets to objects. all of this put together can make our four corners scene look a lot more interesting. Things like headlights for the car, Sunrays that adjust with the timing of the sun, it all comes together nicely.
This Quarter was quite interesting to say the least. It started off with us finishing up the Brain buffet modules, and most of it was dedicated to working on the PBM. I learned a lot this quarter from more advanced animation and lighting techniques, to UVW mapping, and just getting better at modeling in general. Animation was a big part of this quarter, as we only started on it this quarter. It was also very important as we started doing the PBM, and most of the quarter was for it, as it is the final project, a five second looping animation. All in all, this quarter was mostly more advanced techniques and practice to get better at animation.
This quarter set some skills in stone that I will continue to use into my animation career, like actually learning to animate and better use of UVW maps. Starting off with animation, this is incredibly important because, its animation, you have to learn it to do it well. I want to use this into the future to collaborate on projects with other people in community's I'm a part of. Additionally, working on the PBM really helped me branch out and learn about some skills in a more advanced usage, like UVW maps. Overall, I learned less skills this quarter, but the skills I did learn were learned with more practice.