3D Modeling & Animation Reflections

School Year

Quarter 1

End of Quarter 1 Reflection

10/28/24 Q1 Reflection

My Skills and own Assessment of Q1

In this reflection I am going to discuss the things I have learned this Quarter and how it has affected my Modeling skills and learning behaviors. I learned many skills this Quarter but the main and big ones were, Proboolean, Extruding, Beveling, editing polygons and meshes, and many many more. These were just some of the big ones. We learned dos much about modifiers and how to proper use them in our work and projects. I think that the submarine project really helped me understand the use of Proboolean and how it is used in projects. I also think that the tank project helped us understand Beveling and Extruding even though it was a simple project it had done so soo much for our learning capabilities.

Concepts and Resources The helped

I think that my concepts of 3DS max have jumped ages when I look back at the Q1 as I had little to no knowledge at the start of the year but even though we have barley edged the surface I have felt like I have opened a door to a new world. I think is is also shared with my skills as they have has the same pathway as at the start of the year I had no skill but now I think I might actually be able to do some cool things on my own. I found that the tutorials and asking those around me was a great tool in helping me learn the software as those around me were learning as well which meant I could learn from them but also teach them if they needed help.

Goals for Q2

I hope to gather new knowledge and do just as well as I did this quarter. I believe that Q2 will be just as if not better than Q1 in terms of learning opportunities.

I hope that during Q2 I can truly improve my modeling skills tremendously.

I hope to achieve so much next Quarter and I am willing to try extra extra hard to achive that as I would love to know that I am constantly improving.

Quarter 2

UVW Reflection 1/27/2025

UVW Mapping

Steps

There where many steps involved in making and applying UVW maps in 3DS Max and in Photoshop. The first step to making the UVW map would be convert your object/model into an editable polygon and the select the entire model and then proceed to unwrap. Once in the UV editor I would figure what goes with what and break it away from the main body and connect it to its collective pieces to give my map a good idea for where each shape/polygon goes and should be placed. After you organize it in UV editor you will bring it into photoshop so that you can color/paint the map according to what you want your final design to be. You will paint over the entire map covering the outlined shapes to the colors you want to be shown when rendered in 3DS Max. After all of that you will then save it as a jpeg and bring it into 3DS Max and go into the material editor where you will create a physical material attached to your model and then place you bitmap on the base color node of the material and then your model should if done correctly, will have been texture and you've successfully applied a UVW Map.

Challenges

The whole entire process is a challenge. Creating the UVW map is problem the most annoying experience as many hiccups can occur if things go wrong making it so you have to redo everything. I think that the process of making the model into a UVW Map is annoying and frustratingly complex and time consuming whereas painting it is very fun and even though it takes quite a bit of time, the time spent is worth it. I found that watching videos outside of school and being more patient with the software were my fixes to the annoyance of UVW Maps and their complexity. Once you get to painting the entire process is simply and fun noting taking to long but still long enough for you to feel accomplished and it will show in the final product.

Enhancing Realism
Using materials and texture really helped enhance the realism as they gave you choices to make shines here and cuts there to show that your work had seen some action or you can put rust coatings around the model if it was metal to show how it has been aged and around for awhile. This whole experience has taught us as students so much about modeling and how unique it is. The process of creating the maps/bitmaps and applying them in our own ways gives/enhances the realism with the fact we choose what we paint and how we paint the model's bitmap and how it looks give each project a unique finish creating a cool idea of realism as no mech, tank, or anything will always be the same as all are different in their own ways.

New Skills and The Future

A new skill I learned through this process that I am proud of if the ability to UVW unwrap with ease as I have overcome many of the challenges I faced and feel confident given the time I need. I am proud becuase at the start of learning UVW I was skeptical and weirded out becuase I had no idea how it was going to go and if I would like it; however, I turned out to quite enjoy it even when it frustrated me and annoyed me, I still found a way to enjoy what I was doing which makes we feel proud and confident in the new skill I learned. In the future I can see myself using UVW maps all the time if I plan to go into a modeling profession. I think that for school use I'll definitely be using for classes if I continue down this pathway and I believe that I will use this knowledge to aid me when I decide what I want to do and if that isn't in modeling then having this knowledge in general is overall very useful to me and is truly helpful to know, understand, and be able to achieve/accomplish.

End of Quarter 2 Reflection

I have learned a lot this quarter but just to name a few big ones would be UVW maps, Multi Sub-Objects, and Substance maps. Those were the big 3 things we worked with this year. I learned how to apply materials to objects and then shift their parameters around to create illusions of bumps, scratches, holes, and many more things. Materials were a big part of this quarter and how we used them made them even more important. We have constantly used them with all sorts of different projects and never just one piece of a project but constantly updating parts of the projects with them. Multi Sub-Objects involved materials aswell and it involves placing the materials on separate nodes in the material editor to directly influence what each polygon look likes when rendered. Working with these were stressful at many times but also super fun and awesome to experiment with. UVW maps, how weird and irritating they were this quarter. I both enjoyed them and hated them all throughout. I personally enjoyed many parts of them but still definitely have many things to learn when it comes to unwrapping models and other substances within 3DS Max.

3 Big Questions

1: What new skills or techniques did you learn in 3ds Max this quarter?

I learned many new techniques this quarter but the best technique I learned had to have been how to apply materials and maps to objects and models within 3DS Max. It was always fun being able to correctly place nodes with the corresponding map and vice versa. I enjoyed learning about materials as I believe that learning about them gave me priceless information that I think anyone that might even consider going into modeling should know and understand to the fullest because you are going to be constantly in the material editor and understanding what you're doing is very important in the gaming workspace.

2: Which project or exercise helped you understand a specific aspect of 3D modeling better?

I definitely would say the textured tank was the project that helped me understand so much about the world of 3D modeling. That project taught me how hard it is for people to texture models for games and make them look as good as they do. I think that project really helped me understand the modeling and texturing aspect of 3D modeling because of how challenging it was and how if I do end up going into 3D Modeling professionally I will need to know that and be able to get through it with little to no trouble as what we did was very easy for professionals but hard and challenging for us students.

3: What aspects of 3ds Max do you feel more confident in using now compared to the beginning of the quarter?

I think I feel way more confident in my ability to texture and apply textures as I didn't have much skill at the start of the quarter but by the end of it I think I can proudly say I have learned a lot and can say I am way better at modeling than I was back at the start of the quarter. I really enjoy that I am starting to feel more and more confident as the quarters go by and that I feel like I am learning a lot when it comes to modeling in 3DS Max.

Quarter 3

Rendering Techs

This is an image carousel containing all the renders using the Arnold Renderer

I found Arnold to be the best renderer for quality but the worst when it came to time consumption. Arnold takes way to long to render if you are trying to render something quick but if you want quality, Arnold is going to be the best option. Arnold is built to render scenes for video games, and other huge things in the animation and 3D Modeling scene. I found that changing the transmission would have the best affect on speed as if you had a super high transmission the render would take what felt like years but if you lower it by what seemed 2 values, it became quite quicker in comparison to before. I find that as you flip through the images you'll see the renders change and that was due to the settings changed during them whether it was Camera AA or diffusion, it could drastically change the speed it renders. I found that for arnold Camera AA and specular had the biggets effects of quailty and definetly felt like it as they contributed heavily to the time taken to render the final product.

This is all the renders from using the Quicksilver Renderer

I found quicksilver to be the best renderer for quick and fast results regardless of quality. I think Quicksilver is the renderer you'd want if you just wanted to real quick check how things were coming along and make sure everything is looking correct and in place. I found that changing iterations and shadow quality to be the biggest impactors of quality and time as both of them played a huge part in the time consumption of most renderings. Once you enable Ambient Occlusion it also plays a huge role as it speeds the Gpu and you can hear it alright. AO definitely increase render quality and render wait time.

This is all the renders using the Scanline Renderer

I found Scanline Renderer to be the middle of the road renderer. I don't think it is very good but it isn't really that bad either. I think that biggest setting that has effect on quality is the Global SuperSampler and the type of Shadows you use. I felt that I would only use this if I didn't have a need for the Quicksilver renderer and didn't have time or the equipment to use Arnold Renderer. I think as I changed settings not much would change entirely but the time would get longer to render and it certainly improved in quality as I changed to higher quality settings as I rendered each time.

Overall Summary of Project

I would say Arnold was the renderer that produced the best results visually and I believe it performed this way becuase it has built in ray tracing and takes its time to render maximizing the output and final design rather than rushing through just to get a product out. I felt that the Quicksilver render was the quickest and easiest one to use as it was simple and have very few problems and troubles when rendering. I felt its settings were very self explanatory and easy to understand which made it easy to navigate and look around. I found Arnold to be the most difficult, not because of the UI or anything but because of the time to render. Arnold no matter what would take what felt like years to render a simple teapot and yea it did it at amazing quality which I am very happy with but the time it takes take so long making it just extremely difficult to work with if on a tight schedule. I found that each renderer handle shadows in a different way whether relying on ambient occlusion, soft shadows, ray tracing, or other various methods, each dealt with shadows in a unique way that help make the renderer feel like its own and that it had its own shadows it was forming. If I was working on a real project I would most likely always resort to Arnold renderer as it is by far the best. I would use Quicksilver during the project to check on my progress and see how my work is coming along but never as the final design and final render, that will always be Arnold as it just provides the best quality for most projects. I think I would never personally use Scanline as it just never seems to be the best for any situation for any work I would do but maybe if I was working with a bad or damaged GPU, maybe Id use Scanline in replace of Quicksilver. Overall I would personally always favor Arnold's quality and finish even though it takes awhile, I would choose Arnold renderer for most projects current and future.

Snow Day

For the Snow day assignment, we were tasked with setting up our own 3-point light setup and take a photo using the setup. The first image in the carousel is my brother(the subject) and he is inside a 3-point light setup I set up. I found that it was very hard at points due to I could always change the intensity of the light to exactly what I wanted or the similarly things to it. I enjoyed the creativity involved and thought that one must put into to successfully create a correct 3-point light setup. The second photo in the carousel is the setup in its entire form. I set up the lights with 2 facing his sides at 45 degree angles and one back light looking down on him as much as possible. I think their is so much I can learn from this and can improve upon given time and effort but all in all this was a super fun and unique assingment I quite enjoyed.

Snow day 2

This is a poison potion I created using paper and tape at my house. I had many struggles figuring out how to get a good circular shape for the base so I went with a more flat but still 3D style when it came to the overall look. The potion was made up of my modeling it out with real objects like plates, and salt shakers than cutting out pieces of paper alike and taping them together. I know it isn't the best model but as I am pretty much locked in my house and can't go outside to shop for more tools, this is the best I could do with what I had. we were running low on paper which made for another huge problem so my apologies for the rushed feeling of the assignment but I didn't have the best materials at hand. I think if i brought this into class to make form physical to digital I would just spheres as my base then from there either extrude and bevel for the top or smoothen out a rectangle to get the shape I want and then finally a torus for the cap and a flattened sphere for the top of the cap. I think it would be really fun to bring something like this into digital and I would most definitely make it way more realistic and appealing than the model I made today.

Video Game Scene 3/4/25

Modeling Choices: I think the most challenging things to model were the little characters I created and the cage that fit them. Even though they look simple, they took a lot of time and I feel I detailed them up as much as possible as I wanted to make my scene feel realistic. I really enjoyed modeling all of them though and I feel I put in my best effort on all of the models created in the scene. Lighting Choices: I used many types of lighting in my scene but the I feel I used ambient lighting the most to help create realistic feel I was going for and I didn't want to overpower the scene with lights so the ambient lighting really made a huge impact on my scene and I feel it just increases the overall quality of the finished product. I also used Object-specific lighting to help me enhance specific buildings, characters, and more. Object-specific lighting definitely contrasted to ambient lighting but just the perfect amount to where it looks great when I comes out of Arnold rendered. Renderer: I used Arnold renderer to get my final product as I used lights that only would've worked in Arnold making it useless if I wasn't to render in Arnold. I used many of the highest quality settings to get the best quality image as possible to make sure that the final product would be something I am proud of. I choose Arnold additionally becuase of the fact that it is meant for Video Game renders and if I am making a video game scene, I would want a renderer the prioritizes quality and specializes in those types of renders, so in final Arnold was just the best overall option for me when I was choosing what to render. Problem-Solving: A couple huge issues I faced during the making of my scene was lighting issues not working and 3DS crashing. Now the crashes was easily solvable with just creating quicker autobacks and making sure that I both saved way more often and made sure the quality wasn't so high while modeling that I would crash the software. Now the lighting issue was a bit more complicated as for some reason lights I had placed weren't showing nor giving the light effect, I turned off and on the scene settings to see if I had accidentally changed something that messed with that but I found to nothing. I was confused and worried and didn't know what to do but as I was thinking I tried changing some of the settings I applied to the lights and BOOM, lights were back and the problem was thankfully solved. Final Result: If I had more time to work on this I would definitely improve my models quality to the best of my abilty and improve some of the materials I created as they didn't feel the greats as I ended the project but they still felt good enough that it work well with the final result. I think I would also add a bit more to my scene to make it really feel like the game and the environment created throughout one's playthrough of Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

Exploring Cams Reflection 3/11/25

Target 85mm and 15mm changed the image drastically from the first 200mm shot. I found that when we lowered the mm in the lens that the object appear farther in the viewport for when it came to the final renders and the higher the mm, the closer in the shot is. This changed drastically when going from 200 to 85 then to 15. Now I saw aswell that when we put in a manual far clip of 160, all we could see was Marvin's head and not his body. When we jumped up to far clip 165, we could see his full body but nothing behind him which was quite interesting. I seemed that the far clip changed how far the cameras target view is and what it ends up capturing in the final shot. I noticed when we changed the camera's location to x=70 that we could see Marvin at an angle and side view rather than the front view we had been in originally. It got even worse when we also changed the corresponding camera target to x= -50 and z=50 after we reset the original camera position. We could not see anything or any part of Marvin and were just staring at green as the render finished. When we switched to the free camera and swapped our x value to x= 50 it was just a blank green wall I ended up staring at. This was a huge but slight difference from the previous renders as we were used to seeing him in the render but as the past few renders pasted by, no longer was Marvin visible. When we went to use the Physical camera I learned a lot of stuff I already knew when I would normally take photos with my Canon camera that could not be applied here, whether that as differences in ISO values, aperture values, shutter speed, and the white balance. I found to learn how to apply things I already knew into 3DS Max and quite frankly enjoyed it.

I found that when we changed the lens size, the render would zoom in or out based on the lens's mm being too high would be too zoomed in and too low would be too zoomed out for a good render. this would affect the render and make the finish look different according to the lens mm you choose to use. I noticed that when we use the clipping mask, the higher the value the farther the camera target reaches and the lower the value that closer the target sees and ends up clip anything beyond that point/value. I found that the main difference between target and free cameras is that there is no set target point on a free camera and that it can be moved around anywhere making for unique and cool shots that can somewhat resemble real camera work/photography. Changing settings on the Phys camera is huge as if you don't change some settings accordingly, your render will be horrible and vice versa. I find that once you change them you can create a practically realistic shot from any actually camera. I personally prefer using physical camera. I find that I like the amount of settings I can do to the camera and I personally enjoy the feeling of my own home camera that it somewhat resembles with all the wonderful options. I think that compared to the easier alternatives, physical is harder but I personally love photography so I don't mind the challenge as it makes it more fun to experiment with and use. I find the ability to change all the settings about shutter speed, F values like aperture, and ISO values super nice to use as I personally enjoy using them to create in my opinion an amazing photo.

anim blocks.avi

Basic Animation Tech 3/19/25

adjusting time configuration really helped you the animator know how quickly your animation will be and how long it can be maximum with the speed at which the animation will play. This is important as the amount of time the animation will play is one of the most important aspects of animation. I found hardly any challenges as I have been animating for a while now and knew most of the things we were doing. The 15 fps impact a bunch but helped alot with understanding our timeslider and how long we have for each second. having 15 frames per second made it so our animation would play relatively quickly and speedy. I chose to use Keyframe animation for my animation as I am most familiar with it and know how to work with it really well. I found that it gives us a good amount of use for our timeslider and can really help you block and map things out before creating your final render. I think this exercise really relates to how animators work in the game industry with how many animators use keyframe animation and do simple things like this to block out how the actual models will move later. This helps familiarize us with how to start animation and how to finalize it as well. I found this entire assignment to be fun and enjoyable as someone with many upon many hours of animation already.

carssss.avi

Curve Editor Reflection 3/20/25

Changing the tangents would help shift the speed of the cars and the location of them in correlation to the time slider. I found that ease in was probably the most realistic as you dont usually start at your top speed or start too too fast. You usually slow down as you finish the race to make sure your not damaged. Now this was the opposite for this animation as ease in almost finished last but that's mainly due to the other cars having unbelievable speeds. I didn't face many challenges at all with messing around with tangents as I animate on my own at home and I am quick familiar with the curve editor as I love to use it so it made for an easy time doing this assignment. This technique can be very helpful in game design if you just need a background vehicle to do simple movements as they around in the foreground. I think this technique would fail if place in the foreground as usually you will want to give lots of emotion to the animations in the foreground and keep the background simple. This technique would be amaizng for background vehicles though. If I was to refine this animation more, I would actually make it realistic and not super over the top like I did as that isn't what animation is always about. I will most definetly be going back and make some cool things happen in this scene becuase thta would be fun! I think this assignment was a blast and I can't wait to go back and make better in just a bit!!

carloop1.avi

4 Corners Reflection 3/24/25

In this assignment we used an old assignment to have as a base for a merger assignment we pulled into it so that we could make a car loop around a whole bunch of things. Having backups and organizing my projects in folders throughout the whole year made this super easy to find and super quick and speedy making the assignment go bye very quickly.

PATH CONSTRAINT:

I noticed that once we added the path constraint to the car, the car became attached to the path and would follow it. Now it didn't follow it realistically at first but the constraint forced the car to follow the path. It became realistic when we changed the x-axis and flipped it and when we added a 0.15 bank value which made it drive correctly but at a super unrealistic speed.

SPEED: In order to fix the speed we made the scene run longer and the last key frame end later making the car slower and it brings it down to a realistic speed. After extend the frames to make it 24 seconds the car became significantly slower. It was important we did this as if we didn't the car would be driving like it was practicing for a F1 or Nascar race with how fast it was going.

FRAMES IMPORTANCE: setting to 30 fps helped make sure our key frames were linked and snapped correctly and helped us estimate a correct time scale for our animation better than 29.97 fps would. From this animation you can learn that fps plays a huge role in speed and timing of animation and that the animation isn't just key frames but really everything else around it and key frames are just poses in the animation.

carloopfreecam1.avi

carlooptraget1.avi

Car Loop 4 Corners final scene 3/26/25 reflection

Addition of more lights: Adding unique lights like spot, omni, skylight, and more helped make our scene resemble the day night cycle and the atmosphere created. The lights impact the feeling of the scene making you feel like you are watching a car drive throughout the day and night. I found that many of the challenges were just the time. It was tedious to just type in numbers over and over again but for the final product, it was worth it. I also would say making sure you are on the right frame when adjusting was also an issue as sometimes I would find myself one or two frames either ahead or behind where I am supposed to be which lead to be just having to reset my changes and go to the correct frame.

Link Headlights affect: I think this gave the animation a realistic sense and made it feel like it was actually night driving as otherwise it would have just been a car without lights driving in pitch darkness. The addition of headlights helped create a more realistic mood and feeling to the animation which is very good. The align tool helped make sure that the light was in the correct place and was correctly aligned making it so we didn't have a light in the middle of the car bumping out light form all sources.

Light transitions: The animation of lights swapping through a day night cycle really helped make the atmosphere feel a little more realistic and moody for the scene. The key adjustments for this technique was most definitely the hues changes and when they would change in correlation t the light multiplier making it all flow smoothly. without the light multiplier and hue changes then we couldn't have had as smooth of a transition and the animation would look clunk and weird.

Shadows: enabling shadows gave life to our scene and made the scene feel even more realistic than before. Adding shadows to lights allowed for the lights to cast shadows on many of the pre-existing objects located within our scene and helped make the scene truly feel like a realistic drive. IT gave a more natural feel to the scene and almost makes us feel like we are there with the car as the animation plays.

Cameras role: Cameras played a huge part in this scene and are a huge reason for why the animation looks good and feels good. The cameras put us in these views that otherwise wouldn't change our perspective but these particular views make use feel like we are with the car, especially the free camera as it makes us fell like we are the ones driving the car. Link and aligning the cameras was also very important as it would allow the cameras to track and follow the cars existing path constraint and would allow for the cameras to flow along with the rest of the animation. The cameras also change the view of our animation to either 1st person on the free camera and isolated view on the target camera and we just follow the car. Cameras played a huge role in this animation by far.

End of quarter 3 reflection 3/25/25

Learning experience: This quarter we have learned so much! We have learned all about lights, renderers, and even the start of animation! I think learning all about these things has increased our capabilities within 3DS Max and has helped us evolve our technique and master our own creative style within 3DS. I think that learning new skills like Lighting and rendering has really helped. Learning how to correctly use spotlights and area lights has helped increased the realism of projects as we've moved on. Learning about Cameras this quarter was amazing and helped us create perspectives we originally weren't able to do. Cameras and lights play a huge part in the things we've learned and help us create new creative designs and aspects of our projects.

Old Techniques still being used: I think that throughout the year we've been learning new things constantly and now that we are nearing the end of the year we are constantly using old modeling techniques we learned months and months ago now in recent projects and making old projects look better and better. Old techniques that we used to model earlier like the use of modifiers and proboolean and the different things we can apply to models has truly helped increase our skills and this is very apparent in recent projects where knowledge and understanding of the software come into use and are super helpful.

Understanding of concepts: Understanding the concepts of past assignments and units has drastically helped improve my talent and work in 3DS Max and they have also helped me improve my opinions and thoughts in my work making me truly feel proud of the things I've learned during this course and how I've used them in relating projects. I think the understand of the concepts and ideas we've learned throughout this quarter have extremely helped me make the best work possible for both me and my teacher. I think I have been able to really improve on most all of my work from the start of the year till now.

Conclusion: This quarter I have learned a lot and with that there also comes many things I still don't know. I think this quarter has been amazing and truly a great experience for me and many around me. I think in this quarter alone, I've learned so much and enjoyed every single moment of it! This year has been amazing so far and I have enjoyed doing all these assignments which involve hard think but fun and creative outlooks! This classroom has been a blast so far and I can't wait to see what's in store for the next quarter! Thank you very much Quarter 3, you were a great adventure to complete!

Quarter 4

Quarter 4 Reflection

What I've Learned:

This quarter has been a huge one. I've learned a lot but I feel the biggest thing I learned this quarter was how to pace myself and be patient. Throughout this quarter we had one project with 5 parts and my biggest challenges was understanding how to pace myself and be patient when it come to final renders and final output. With some renders lasting days, I truly learned what it meant to be patient and take care of time accordingly. During renders I would go ahead and get started on reflections of the slideshow as I knew that I could always be doing something else other than just sitting there and waiting. I am glad I did this as I gave me so much spare time to relax and do everything I need to be careful and correct when it came to the final look.

My understanding:

My understanding has improved so so much. I have been able to recognize and shift and adapt before things even happen. I have been able to improve my work ethic or work quality within short periods of time becuase of how much I've learned and how quickly I can apply it now. Understanding these concepts have been extraordinarily beneficial to me and have been a huge help in my being able to achieve the final project I wanted. My work has improved as I have improve self explanatorily but I think it is not due to talent but due to my trying my hardest and using what I have already learned earlier in the year to create and do the things I want.

Most useful strategies:

I think that the strategies of patience and know your strengths and speed have been the most helpful this quarter. I found also that outside resources were also super helpful as many of my projects parts involved things that Mr.B did not necessarily know making it hard but once I used other websites including YouTube, I was able to find the solutions and answers to my questions very easily. Havin these resources and strategies were super helpful and I think they were the bets think for my quarter this year.

Conclusion:

I think this quarter has been an amazing one and I have personally learned so much as a person this quarter. The things I did for my final project will stretch to my outside and personal life as I grow and mature into an adult. This quarter hasn't just taught me more about modeling but more about how to be patient with the things around me, how to now overwork myself and more. This quarter has been an amazing experience that I couldn't replace for any other. I am just super proud of myself and what I have done aswell as how far I've come in modeling since the start of the year. I started out knowing nothing but now feel like I can generally talk about modeling with a professional and understanding what is being said. I must give a huge congratulations to my Teacher Mr. B as I wouldn't be here without the amazing help of him and his helpful guidance.

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