School Year

Quarter 1

First Reflection - 8/27/2024

Why I decided to take 3D Modeling & Animation

There's a couple of reasons I chose to take 3D modeling and animation this school year. First I realized that it would probably be benefitial to take some CTE courses to graduate highschool, and also to potentially explore that career path in the future if I found it interesting. The reason why I picked this particular course is because the idea of 3D modeling seemed fun, and a friend who took a similar course recommended it to me, which inclined me into choosing this.

What I expect to learn from this class

Being completely honest, there isn't something very specific I'm expecting to learn this year in this course, since I don't know much about this. What I do expect is to learn is the basic essentials of 3D modeling and animation, just to give me an idea if it's something that I want to get into and take more courses years to come.

Reflecting on Durable Skills - 8/28/2024

The Job I chose and why

The 3D modeling career I selected is visual effects artist, the job title is Senior Technical FX Artist at Psyonix. The job consists on coding and modeling the visual effects for games like Fortnite and Rocket League. The job requires being able to optimize effects accordingly to each platform, having an understanding of graphics math, scripting construction, etc. and be able to come up with quick solutions to problems that may come up. It is worth mentioning, that you do also require a good amount of experience in this field for this specific job posting. Here is a link to it: https://g.co/kgs/hQYpfr7. The reason why I'm interested in this particular job posting is because I like videogames, but I'm not very interested in the design of characters or the scenery because I feel I would not be suited for that. I believe working on visual effects would be more fit for me, and a job where I can express my creativity better.

The Soft Skills I will need:

1. Teamwork

The company that posted this job is very prestigious, so having the right hard skills is definitely not enough for their standard. These types of companies also look for the soft skills that a potential future employee might have, to ensure they will be successful. Knowing how to work and function properly in a team is a soft skill that is needed in a ton of different jobs and careers in completely different fields, such as market research, or human resources. This job is no different because teamwork is essential to succeed in it. The reason for this is that in this job, you are in a group, so you will have to communicate between employees in order to organize better and have an end product that is more satisfying for the players. For example, if another artist is struggling with operating the software and they need help, I need to have this skill in order to communicate with them, understand the problem and try to figure out a solution. And if we can't figure it out, that is what the team is for, you can call other employees to work togheter to solve it. Teamwork is a skill that leads to better career opportunities because being able to work in a team, makes whatever you do faster, more effective and with the ideas of many people there is usually a better outcome, and companies will definitely look for someone like that. When I work in a team, one of my biggest weaknesses is not having leadership in most occasions, or not really imposing my ideas. I do have strengths, like working efficiently and hearing other people's opinions. I can still work to develop this soft skill in school when doing things like group activities, or more importantly group projects, which requires more time and more thinking and planning with the group.

2. Problem Solving

A second soft skill that is indispensable to this job is problem solving. As I mentioned before, this job requires working in a group, and when they have issues, I have to be there to help. This would not only involve me using my teamwork skills, but also my problem solving skills, since I need to be fast and use my resources to find a quick solution to whatever might come up. This skill opens up to many career opportunities because every job involves some type of problem solving at some point. Not everything will always run smoothly in everything you do and that is why being able to problem solve is so important. This is a skill that I believe I have, but I could still improve on, and a way to do that is for example, if there's a deadline for a big project and I have little time, I have to figure out a way to get the best out of my time to get it turned in.

3. Personal Responsibility

The third soft skill I wanted to highlight for this job is personal responsibility. Possessing personal responsibility is very useful for this job because, even if you have a ton of experience, you can still mess up at times, like every human on earth. When you do though, you have to take responsibility, in this job and in all aspects of life as well, this skill will make you more likely to be employed anywhere, because it shows you are mature and understand your responsibility. On the other hand, if you escape your responsibilty and/or blame someone else, you are less likely to be employed because you won't seem like you care or that you're taking whatever you do seriously. I believe this is a skill I also am pretty good at, I feel like I have the maturity to take responsibility of my actions on most occasions. I can develop this skill for example if I'm in a group project, and I insist on making a specific change to the product we have, and that ends up lowering the grade we get, I should take responsibility for that, and admit I shouldn't have added that change.

Conclusion

As it has been proven, soft skills are essential to succeeding in any career, including the 3D modeling and animation industry. Durable skills should be acquired and developed throughout school years mostly, so that later in life it is easier to achieve what you want/get the job you want. The courses you take in school and college not only prepare you for the future by teaching the content, but also by teaching you those soft skills, even if you don't realize it. To conclude, in order to be more prepared for a job and to be more likely to be employed, it is necessary that you carry a good number of of different durable skills, the more, the better!

Block Modeling Reflection - 9/13/2024

What I learned & My initial thoughts

In these first 3 assignments I had my first experience with 3ds Max and 3D modeling in general. I remember the first time I saw the interface of 3ds I was very overwhelmed. I even thought I wouldn't survive through the year, but after these activities I am much more confident and don't have that feeling at all anymore. In these assignments I've been working with basic primitives such as spheres, cones, boxes, etc. and getting familiar with the program a little bit. I have learned how to move and rotate primitives, as well as how to modify length, width, height and diameter, among other aspects of the different primitives. I have also learned how to move around the scene and use the different viewports to my benefit. In addition, I learned how to select and group objects and how to make copies of them. I have faced a couple of issues in these activities, but the most recurrent one was entering values in the wrong places, but as I went, I got used to it.

How these activities helped me understand the basics of 3ds Max & How I can apply these to future projects

What I have done in these 3 assignments isn't anything too complex, but it really helped to understand how 3ds Max works. Basic Primitives & Transforms taught me how to go through the pre-production, production, and post production of a project, as well as where to enter the values for height, width, length and the transforms, as well as how to rotate objects. Simple Block Model 1 gave me a very important piece of information, being that working exclusively on the perspective viewport can be very unaccurate, which is why it is always more useful to jump between different viewports. Moreover, I also learned how to copy/duplicate objects, and how to center them using the middle button in the mouse. Finally, with simple block model 2, the most valuable thing I learned was actually how to use the different viewports to be more precise when modeling, and not placing objects somewhere they shouldn't be. All these skills will be extremely useful for future projects, since I am now pretty familiar with the basics. This opens many possibilities for coming projects because now I have a foundation and I've had trial and error in these activities, which is what makes you learn and not make those mistakes in future assignments.

Custom Objects - 10/9/2024

How modifiers impacted my modeling experience

In my last 3 assignments I've learned how to use different modifiers in 3ds Max. In this time, I have used bend, meshsmooth, taper, noise, and twist, among others. This  has significantly helped me to extend my skills in 3D modeling because, before this, I was only able to work with standard primitives. Primitives were very limited compared to this, since I was only able to put simple 3D shapes together, but now I can actually edit them and make them look the way I want to the point of them becoming undistinguishable from when they are created, like the rocks I made using spheres on the image below of the Field Scene.

How Boolean tools impacted my modeling experience

In 2 of these last assignments, I've not only learned how to work with some modifiers, but I also learned how to use ProBoolean tools to improve my models. ProBoolean has been especially useful to make subtractions to my models, something I found myself doing on multiple occasions during these assignments. Some good examples of these are, when I had to make the hole for the Nut & Bolt, or to make the inside of the submarine. Boolean tools improve my models because they are necessary If one wants to make a house, for example using a box, and then needing to make that box hollow to make the inside. Not only for subtraction, but Boolean is necessary to merge objects together as well, and not have to change both of their colors, then select them, and then group them.

How I could improve my block-out project with what I learned & challenges I faced

In my blocking out project there are many aspectsI could improve with what I learned. I could subtract the extra parts of the boxes on the sides of the stands with ProBoolean, I could remake the back stand for it to be made with a bent box using the bend modifier, and with MeshSmooth make the boxes for the letters have smoother edges, and more. One major challenge that I faced and got stuck on was using splines to make objects. The problem I encountered was that I was placing a line in the wrong viewport, which was making a different object than the one I was trying to create with loft. What I had to do was place the circle in the top viewport and the line on the front for the object to correctly form.

1st Quarter Reflection - 10/31/2025

Intro

On this 1st quarter of the school year, I've taken my first steps in 3D modeling. I came into this class knowing nothing, so I started completely from scratch. I've learned the basics of modeling, starting from standard primitives, all the way to surface modeling essentials. The learning that I went through in this quarter will probably be the most useful, and important throughout my modeling career, wether it's just at school, or at a future job. If my modeling skills were a building, these first steps are like the base, essential for everything else. Without the base, everything else would fall over, which is why this part is so significant, because it builds a foundation for the harder things to come. 

What I learned

At the start of the quarter, I learned how to use standard primitives to make very basic block outs. The pencil and the snowman were good practice, as I learned how the 3ds Max interface works, and the most basic aspects, like moving objects, rotating them, and working in the different viewports. From there on, it got progressively more and more complex as the weeks went by. I learned how to use modifiers, like bend, noise, and taper; an assignment I think really helped with that was the field scene, because I got to practice with these modifiers and experiment with them, which I believed helped me greatly to better understand how to use each of them. Next, I learned how to use compound objects to subtract and merge objects together. This really helps if you're trying to make a hollow box for, say, a house, or in this case a submarine. I also got my first bit of experience with animation in the nut & bolt activity, in which I learned how to use the time controls to make a basic animation. Towards the end of the quarter, I learned how to use splines, which I think are some of the most useful tools, because with that, I can now create my own objects, and not have to work off of one of the provided ones. I want to highlight the screwdriver activity, which was challenging, but it's when I really figured out how splines work to make more complex shapes. Lastly, came surface modeling. In these last weeks, I've been learning about how to use subobject mode using tools like extrusion, inset, and bevel, all of which I applied in the spaceship and tank assignments.

Conclusion

In comparison to the start of this quarter, I feel like I have a base on how to 3d model, and that, going forward, I will be able to apply what I have learned to make more complex models. Something that I found useful on this quarter is that I experimented with the new tools everytime we were introduced to one. This has helped me to better understand what it does, and how it works. My goals for the next quarter are to learn new ways to improve my pieces, and be able to understand the new tools that I'm using, so that my skillset gets larger, and I have many different ways of modeling a desired object. Finally, for next quarter I would like to end up with models that show improvement, and more complexity than those from this quarter, to ensure that I have made progress.

Quarter 2

Basic Modeling Reflection - 11/12/2024 

Overall Growth

Looking back at the start of the year, compared to now, I have improved on many aspects. Mainly I have noticed that my pace is starting to pick up, and I can perhaps do something that is simple way faster than at the beggining of the year. This is due to me having more resources than at the start, and becoming more and more familiar with the 3ds max interface. I also feel that compared to the start, I can successfully acquire concepts faster due also to my understanding of 3ds, and its functions. I think the skill/tool that was the most challenging to learn how to use were splines, because they are different from everything else in a way. Like I said priorly, you're making your own 3D objects with splines, and I felt that it was challenging making the curves for the pawn, figuring out which viewport each spline should go in, etc. I am improving though, and I will continue to improve in the next quarter because I will compromise to include more splines into the models I make, like I did in the basic modeling project. My confidence in 3D modeling has changed drastically. At the start, I had 0 experience, and was just experimenting. I had never touched a 3d program or anything similar to that at the beggining of this year, but now I feel like I have made enough progress that I can make models that satisfy what I want to make to a decent extent. Of course I'm far from an expert, but these first steps are the base for what's to come later.

Applying Physical Materials Reflection - 11/14/2024

In these last 2 activities, I've been learning about how to apply materials and textures to objects in 3ds max, and how each map affects the appearence of an object after rendering. On the Applying Physical Materials activity (first 2 images below) I remember manipulating mostly reflection and roughness on the materials that I applied. Each parameter that is modified has a slightly different effect on the final result. Increasing the roughness, I have observed that, makes objects' textures look more flat, and not as complex, as seen on the second image below with the torus and the box. In terms of the different maps, there is base color, normal, displacement, and roughness, as well as metalness. (only on the last image) Base color only changes exclusively the color of the object. For normal maps, I find that they modify the lighting a bit for bumps in the texture to look as prominent as they should. Displacement maps are what actually gives the material a more real feel in my opinion, because you can see the bumps coming out of the object. Roughness adds sort of a reflection effect to the surface of materials, or takes it away, depending on the map. Finally, metalness is only used in certain metallic textures, to actually make it look like a metal, as seen on the last image. To assign texture maps to materials, all one needs to do Is connect the map with the corresponding node in the Physical Material. If it is a texture that includes metalness, you'll need to use PBR material metal/rough, or else it won't work. Adjusting the bump map values makes the final render's bumps look sharper or smoother, depending on if you lower or raise. Displacement is sort of similar, because when you chang the values, the displacement becomes more/less pronounced. Finally, the 2 ways that I've learned how to assign materials to modeled objects are either dragging the output node of the material to the object, or clicking the object, then the material,  and clicking "assign to selection."

Multi/Sub-Object Reflection - 11/15/2024

My Experience Working with Multi/Sub-Object

The activity that I just completed involved applying materials to individual polygons in an object in 3ds Max. My experience was smooth for the most part, I followed the tutorial step by step, and, honestly didn't have much trouble applying the materials. Multi/Sub-Object materials have allowed me to apply different materials and maps to individual polygons of an object, which leads to having individual objects that look very different from different angles in terms of texture. In order to do this, I made a box, then converted it into an editable poly to assign 24 different material IDs to each of the polygons in the box. Then, in the material editor section, I made a Multi/Sub-Object material and added 24 nodes, corresponding to each of the polygons. Finally, I added several different materials and maps to each of the nodes, and when I was done, I connected the output to the box to apply the Multi/Sub-Object.

Advantages, Strategies, & how Multi/Sub-Object can be applied in Future Projects

When working with complex objects that may require many different textures like a character, for example, is when having Multi/Sub-Object material is very useful and necessary. By assigning each polygon a unique material ID, applying multiple materials to the same object is easy and in a very organized way; I could also have applied the same map/material to different polygons if I had assigned more than 1 of them with the same ID, which is something to keep in mind for the future. Changing parameters in materials can really change an object's appearance, and a great example of this is the leather material in which I modified the transparency, making the polygon slightly see-through, which I thought was a very fun parameter to experiment with. To keep my Material Editor organized, everytime I added a new material/map and connected it to the Multi/Sub-Object, I used the "Lay Out All" tool, and that made me have a clear view of all my maps without having a mess of connections all over the place. I'd say that there's a big difference between using individual materials and combining them under a Multi/Sub-Object material, both in terms of result and workflow. In terms of result, you obviously get an object with multiple materials instead of 1, and in terms of workflow, it is a longer process, since you need to get each map out, then connect it to a physical material, to then make it to the Multi/Sub-Object, not to mention that you need to assign the IDs first. The reason why this knowledge will be useful for future 3D projects is that it allows for me to make more complex models, not in terms of the actual model itself, but improving how it looks in the final rendered image. This is a tool I think is more useful for things like game design than for something like architecture, since in some 3D occupations, the way light reflects on the objects in the model doesn't really matter.

UVW Reflection - 1/17/2025

Intro & steps

In the last weeks of quarter 2 we have been transitioning out of 3D modeling a little bit, to explore textures and maps. That ended leading us into UVW Mapping, which has been quite an experience. This is the general procedure of it: first select the seams I wanted to make, to make it easier to paint. Then apply an edit poly modifier, and split edges. Once that is done, apply the UVW unwrap, Ctrl+A and reset peel. After this, straighten up the islands, and it should be ready to paint. In order to rejoin the islands together, you copy the UVW unwrap modifier, then delete both the UVW unwrap and the edit poly. After that paste the UVW modifier back, and that should be it. After that you can take it to Photoshop to paint it.

Challenges

I did have to overcome many challenges while trying to figure out how UVW worked. An example of this is to know where to put each of the seams, especially in more complex 3D models. Another example of a problem I encountered was that when I tried to reset peel, it wouldn't work on some occasions, either showing the unwrap empty, or separating each of the polys. The only solution we could find for this was stitching each poly individually (which isn't very practical, but it works.)

How materials and textures enhance the appeal of my models

UVW is great for making more sophisticated and personalized textures, because you can take your template of the unwrap (image 2), paint it to look however you please (image 3), and then add the texture to your model (image 1). Sure you can get really good textures without using UVW, and maybe getting them off the internet, but making them yourself, especially if you know how to use Photoshop (or a similar program) well is a different story. It really is fantastic, but It does take a lot of time to unwrap and paint (at least for me.)

One skill I'm proud of & how I could use UVW in the future

One skill that I'm proud of is having somewhat of an understanding of where to place each of the seams for the painting process to be easier. This is something that I am proud of because it was a hard concept to understand at first for me, but after some practice, I think I better understand how it works. UVW could be very useful in the future, especially if I am working on a model that requires a more complex texture, like a mech. This could also be useful to create bump maps, specular maps, etc; not just basic color. Something I should improve on though, is learning a bit more how to use Photoshop and its varoius tools, in order to get better results when it comes to textures.

2nd Quarter Reflection - 1/21/2025

Intro

In the 2nd quarter of the school year, which went from November of 2024 to January of 2025, I have not expanded my knowledge too much on 3D modeling in general. That might seem surprising, but it's true. This quarter went much more into how models will look like in the final render. To do this, we explored how to apply and work with maps and textures, which modify the final appearance of an object, but don't actually change the model itself. I have to say that, I did not like the topic of this quarter as much as the last one because, as I said, it didn't involve that much modeling, but that doesn't mean that the knowledge I gained throughout wasn't useful or important to make my models more accurate to what I expect.

What I learned

I'm not sure the exact date of when quarter 2 started, so the basic modeling project could fit into any, although it fits a lot more with what we had been doing in quarter 1. In addition, it wasn't a learning experience, it was more of demonstrating what I had learned in the whole of quarter 1. With that topic closed, at the start of the quarter, I started learning about the basics of physical materials and how to apply them in 3ds Max. I learned that materials are they way objects look when light interacts with them, as well as textures, which are 2D images applied to a 3D surface. There are different types of maps, which tweak an aspect of the object's look. The basic ones are: basic color, bump/normal map, specular map, roughness map, and metalness map. The assignment that really helped with this concept was "Exploring Maps," in which there were boxes next to each other with different types of maps applied, so the difference was visible. This assignment really helped me understand which map does what effect. Base color is just what it sounds like, roughness controls how rough an object's surface looks, specular controls the shininess, bump creates bumps (up and down), and metalness gives a metallic effect. I also learned how to use the material editor in 3ds Max, connecting the bitmaps to the materials and then to the object. The next big step that I took was starting with multi/sub-object materials. Multi/sub object lets me apply multiple maps to the different surfaces of a model, by assigning material IDs to each poly, and then making it match with the multi/sub-objects material nodes. The assignment that helped me the most with this was "Multi/Sub-Object Materials," in which I applied 24 different maps to a box to see the effect of each type of map on the final render. Finally, in the last part of Q2, I incorporated Adobe Photoshop into my range of programs, and with it came UVW unwrapping. UVW unwrapping consists in litterally cutting and unwrapping a 3D model into a 2D surface, to then add a material. The assignment that helped the most with this was the Textured Tank, because it helped me understand where to place seams in order to make the painting in Photoshop easier. This was a complication at first, and it even took me a couple of days to unwrap the tank, but that helped me learn more about how UVW works.

Conclusion

Compared to the end of quarter 1, I have gained a lot of useful knowledge regarding how to improve the visual aspect of models after rendering. At the end of quarter 1, I wasn't able to make my models have any sort of texture at all; all I could do was change the color of objects, very basic stuff, whereas now, I can make objects look however I want, and change it's reflectiveness, roughness, and other properties, to make it look a lot more like what I have in mind. Now that I know how to work out textures, what I want for the next quarters is to learn more about how to use the different tools in Photoshop, since I don't have experience with this program at all (prior to this quarter.) To conclude, I would like to be able to combine what I have learned in quarter 1 and 2 to increase the complexity and aesthetic appeal of my models.

Quarter 3

Rendering Techinques Reflection - 2/23/2025

Renderer Settings

Starting with Arnold, the variables are resolution, camera AA, diffuse, specular, and transmission. Resolution affects the render time slightly, but it all depends on how much it is raised to. Camera AA seems to be the setting that impacts render times the most by far out of all the settings, and it is logically, in my opinion, the one that improves image quality the most, making the background and the shadows less grainy when raised. Both diffuse and transmission don't seem to affect render times or enhance image quality at all from what I can see. There probably is a small difference but it isn't very significant. Lastly, specular changes the render time pretty significantly, but makes models only seem a little more polished in my opinion. Moving on to the Scanline renderer, there are 3 key settings: resolution, ray tracing, and global supersampling. Resolution barely affects render times, so it is nothing to worry about. Actually, I didn't really find any of these settings to affect render time to a significant point. Enabling ray tracing improves lighting distribution and quality, and the global supersampling polishes the lighting too, but not as much. Quicksilver is the last of the 3 renderers, which has the settings: resolution, iterations, shadow intensity/quality, and ambient occlusion. Resolution, ambient occlusion, and shadow intensity/quality don't affect render times, whereas iterations barely increase it. Iterations is the setting that influences the most in this case, since it makes the objects look much more refined and less pixellated. The shadow settings make shadows look more noticeable, defined and dark. Finally, ambient occlusion doesn't have much of an effect, except for making contrast work a bit better in my opinion.

Conclusion About the Renderers

The best visual results were definitely given by the Arnold renderer; it is the one that can produce the most "complex" lighting to put it some way. The other renderers' final products look a bit dull, and not as interesting. In my opinion, it performed better because it is the renderer made to render the highest quality images, and it is the reason why it has the longest render times by far. The easiest render to use for me was Quicksilver, simply because the names of the settings and how they are arranged is easier to understand in my opinion. The most difficult render to use was Arnold because it has many confusing settings, and that don't seem to make a big effect on the final product. Lighting and shadows were handled the best by Arnold by far, again, because scanline looks very basic, and quicksilver's shadows still look kind of pixellated, even in the high quality settings. To conclude, when working on a real project, I would most likely use scanline for test renders to see how things look, but for a final render I would most definitely use Arnold, especially if it's a significant project.

Snow Day 1 Reflection - 2/19/2025

For my subject, I decided to use this 3D printed orange skull, which my uncle gave me a couple of years ago and I thought would be cool to use for this assignment. For my key light I used my lamp that I use to study and do homework; it was the easiest light to find since it was right next to me. For my fill light, I didn't really know what to use, so I went downstairs and found the flashlight that I ended up using. I did have 1 problem with that because it was way too bright, so I fixed it by putting an empty pack of tissues over the light to dim it, and it worked. Then, for the back light, I used the flashlight from my mom's phone (since I would use mine to take the picture). The problem was I would need to make it hang over the object, so I asked my dad for his tripod, but it was too tall. My next idea was to switch to using my Funko Pop boxes for both the phone and the flashlight, and at the same time raise the skull with a cup. Finally, to make the phone stand, I used a portable battery which has magnet that attaches to the phone and has a stand.

Snow Day 2 Reflection - 3/13/2025

Creation Process

For this assignment, I chose to make a tulip flower. I made it by using 2 15x15 cm papers, one of them used for the top of the flower, and the other used for the stem and leaf. I made this by folding the paper continuously in an origami style. I never had much experience with origami; I'd say I have probably made an origami once in my life prior to this, and I think the final result was fairly good, despite some folds in the leaf and petals that look slightly awkward.

Challenges & Solutions

The first thing I did was create the upper part of the flower, which I had a bit of trouble with. I was going just fine for most of the process, until the tutorial said to blow into the flower to make it inflate like a balloon. I was confused at that part because the orifice on the bottom of the flower was really small, and it looked a bit impossible to do that. I unwillingly tried to inflate it, but I couldn't. I sat thinking for a while, believing it must be because I didn't have the right type of paper. I had to leave for a couple of hours, and when I came back, I actually tried to blow it and it worked. I was in complete awe for like a minute (don't know why). Then for the stem I had 2 different tries. On the 1st one I failed because the folds weren't perfect enough, and I thought it was probably because I hadn't cut the paper that well. The 2nd try wasn't perfect either, this time having cut the paper much better, so I figured it didn't have to be perfect and the end result was satisfying.

From Physical to Digital

I think this model would be fairly simple to recreate in 3ds Max. For the stem and leaf , I would do something similar to what we did near the start of the school year with the flowers in the field scene, using the bend modifier with a cylinder. For the upper section, I would use a pyramid, and make the petals the same way as the leaf, but stretching them a bit.

Video Game Scene Reflection - 3/13/2025

Modeling Choices

For my video game scene I got inspiration from the video game Crash Bandicoot. This is meant to be the Snow Go level at the start, and then transform into the Cavern level entering the cave. I modeled the fruits from the game, the boxes, the environment, the bear and the seals. I actually started by trying to make Crash, but then realized I was taking too long on it and I decided to focus only on the scene. The hardest part to model was the seals, because it was the model with the most complexity out of everything in the scene. The body of the seal was hard, because I didn't know what to start with, but in the end, I think I used a box, applied MeshSmooth, and used a bend. I think this worked well and fixed my problem. I used a sphere for the head and merged it with ProBoolean with the body. For the extremities (tail, flippers) I used mostly extrude, and it turned out fine.

Lighting and Material Choices

In terms of lighting, I used exclusively Arnold lights, as they are, for me, the best to use when rendering with Arnold. For the snowy part, I used a spotlight high up above, in front of the scene; I placed it so that It wouldn't illuminate much of the inside of the cave, so that it had more of a darker and mysterious look. In the cave, there is another, less intense  spotlight to highlight the seals and the green acid-like liquid on the bottom. Finally, since the material I made for the boxes looked a bit awkward without extra lighting, I added a quad light in front of them so that the Crash Bandicoot face was visible. Moving on to materials, the ones for the snow and the ice I got from ambientCG, while the ones for the 3 different box versions, the fruits and the acid I made myself. For the boxes I used the same kind of procedure from the crate we had made not so long ago in class, but adding Crash's face and the Aku Aku mask in each respective version (I know it can be hard to appreciate the Aku Aku one from the render). For the acid liquid, I wanted to make it glow like it does in the game, but I didn't really know how to do that. I looked on google but the thing I tried didn't work either, so I stayed with what I had. The fruits were really no mistery, just filling in with 3 colors on photoshop.

Renderer Used

For this assignment, I used the Arnold renderer. This selection has to do with the fact that this is a very project-like assignment, and the renderer has to look as good as possible no matter how long the render time is. With this said, I think it is pretty clear that Arnold looks much better than any of the other renderers and I will use it for all of the major assignments. Its flaws are the long render times, but like I mentioned, if one wants their final render to look really good, the wait will be long (but worth it). In addition, I used the highest settings listed in the Renderers assignment to get the best result.

Problem-Solving

I already adressed a couple of times where I had to do a bit of problem-solving, but here I will mention the other instances where I had to do that. I think maybe one of the biggest ones was how to make the other side look like a cave. What I ended up doing, was making a very big hemisphere, then thinning it to the point it was almost flat, and a barrier between one part of the scene and the other. Then I think I used a stretched cylinder or something like that and subtracted it from the hemisphere with ProBoolean to make the hole; this would make the entrance for the cave. Another, but minor problem I faced is that on through the abyss, you could see the floor of the cave. This was an easy fix, as I just decided to add a black box below to cover. Also I added it not directly touching the snowy floor, but added it with a bit of separation to create a bit of a depth effect.

Final Result

If I had had more time, there are a couple of changes I would've made to the scene. To start with, I would've modeled Crash himself because the scene feels incomplete without the star of the game. I would also have done more research on how to make the acid glow, which is an effect I am pissed I didn't get to add. In addition, I would've liked to fix the problem with the box materials because I feel like the icons on them aren't very distinguishable unless you zoom. To conclude, Maybe adding some torches inside of the cave, beside the seals would've looked cool too.

Exploring Cameras Reflection - 3/14/2025

Lens Size

From the renders that I took on from the camera, 3 of them were affecting the lens size. These are the first 3: 200 mm, 85 mm, and 15 mm. The change between each render is that the higher the milimeters are, the more zoomed in the camera is on the subject, hence why 200 mm is showing the robot up close, and the 15 mm is showing the whole room zoomed out.

Clipping Masks

On the image carousel, I included  2 renders where the clipping masks were modified. The modifying of this setting can make renders look very weird, but what it is basically doing is only taking a picture of the objects in the selected distance, cropping out everything else. This effect is clearly seen in the 160 and 165 clip setting images.

Comparing Target & Free Cameras

There is one key difference that differentiates target and free cameras, although they are very similar.  Free cameras are essentially the same as target ones, but as the names suggest, there is no target. This means that free cameras behave a bit more like cameras in real life, since there is no target and the camera can move freely in the scene, as seen in the images where X or Z are modified. I know there isn't much to be seen in some of these renders, and it is because the free camera has moved from its original position, and the FOV is pointing somewhere else.

Physical Cameras

Physical cameras are the most real-world accurate representation of cameras in 3ds max out of the 3 types. It has settings that are completely different from the ones on the other cameras and they make reference to real-world professional camera settings. I took one render with this camera, which is the last one on the carousel. I spent some time exploring the settings, and they are very interesting, as one works a bit like changing the exposure on lights, making the shot brighter or dimmer. The other setting that I modified and is noticeable at first sight in the render is the filter of the camera, in which I changed it to appear green. These are some nice features that give freedom to how you want the final render to look. I am sure there are some other settings that I haven't seen, but this is overall a very complete camera in terms of settings.

Which Camera I Prefer

I think here it depends on the context of what I'm trying to take a render of. For me, if I have to take a simple render, not for a very important project, or if I have to take a render on a single model, I would use a target. If I'm rendering a big scene, for an important assingment I would use a physical camera. This is simply because the target camera is meant to point at one subject, and doesn't have as many useful settings in my opinion as the physical camera. The only one I don't think I'll find myself using is the free camera. It's like a mix of both, so I don't find it very useful.

Basic Animation Reflection - 3/19/2025

Time Configuration & FPS

I made my second animation of the year in 3ds max, which consists of 3 objects: a tube, a sphere, and and a torus. The sphere moves around the scene, the tube resizes and rescales, and the torus rotates. Adjusting the time configuration determined 2 things: the FPS of the animation and the length of the animation. For this particular animation, I made a 15 FPS animation that ran for 5 seconds, therefore it was 75 frames in total. I didn't face any major problems when making this animation, as I already had a very basic understanding of keyframes from when I animated the Nut & Bolt from Q1. The fact that this animation was 15 FPS did make it a bit rough, and it doesn't feel smooth at all. I think that to get a really smooth animation, you would probably need about 30 FPS at least, but for this purpose, 15 is perfectly fine, as it isn't terribly disturbing and all the movements of the objects are clear.

Animation Mode & Animation Techniques In Game Design

For this assignment, I worked with manual keyframing instead of automatic. I made this decision because I feel like manual keyframing is a bit less confusing, and I don't want to accidentally place a keyframe somewhere and then have that mess up my animation. I think that as I start animating more and getting used to it, I will rapidly switch to auto, because it requires less clicking around, and it's faster. This type of animation is a very useful tool to have, as many game designers use it to animate games. A lot of them use these same keyframing techniques and time configuration, which is why this skill can come very useful for a potential future career.

Editing Curves Reflection - 3/20/2025

Tangents

By adjusting the tangents, the cars change the speed at which they travel from start to finish. It's not only the overall speed, but you can make it fluctuate, being faster in the beginning and slower at the end, for example. I think that if we'd be going for realism here, the best option is bezier curve (shown in the image carousel), because cars start up slow, speed up, and slow down to a stop. If I had to pick the least realistic, it would be the pink car since it has a very irregular speed, although the others aren't very realistic either. The only real challenge that I found was making the shape of the bezier curve, but I quickly realized how to pull the tangents in the right directions to make it work.

Game Design Potential & Adjustments

I think that this technique could very well work in a game design for vehicle movement. In games, this technique could be used to animate vehicles in a background that are passing by, with the linear curve for constant speed, or perhaps starting and stopping as well with the bezier curve. This would not only work for cars, but also other types of terrestrial vehicles, like a train, a bike, even a tank, obviously adjusting the speed to whatever it may need to be. If I had to refine this animation or make some adjustments, I'd start by rendering it in arnold, and adding more frames, so that it looks more polished. If I wanted a more realistic approach, I could change all of these cars to bezier curves, to have them act more like real vehicles, or I could extend the plane furhter than the edge of the viewport, and make them blast through with ease in.

Animated 4 Corners Reflection - 3/24/2025

File Organization

Since the beginning of the school year, we have been told to keep an organized 3D modeling folder, with all of the assignments and projects we do over the year, to be able to easily access them in the future when needed. I did this, and kept a copy of every single assignment we have done in the year in Google Drive, and updated it every time I finished one. This is kept in a folder, which is organized by the date in which I added each element, which makes things easy to find and access when I need them.

Path Constraint

In this activity, I learned how to use and apply path constraints. This is done by making a spline, then selecting the object you want to see following that path, selecting path constraint, and selecting the spline. Path constraints are extremely useful to plan out the movement of an object in an animation, because it makes the process much faster. Instead of having to make many keyframes, and having to figure out how to space them out, making a spline is much easier. I did have to make some adjustments, like making the car follow the path in a realistic manner by selecting follow in the path parameters. I also had to flip the axis to make the car face the right way, and I adjusted the banking for a more realistic approach.

Re-scale Time

In this activity, I used re-scale time when I wanted to change the frame count to reach the desired 24 seconds. After using the re-scale time, the car's movement was the same, except much slower. The reason why it is necessary to use re-scale time in that case is because we want the car to be moving for the whole animation, and if I hadn't re-scaled it, the car would've gone an entire lap in a bit more than 3 seconds, and the rest would be completely still.

Frame Rate Choices

For this animation, I changed the frame rate settings. It was set b default to NTSC, which is 29.97 fps, but I changed it to 30. This was necessary because it made it a lot easier to calculate exactly how many frames I needed to get an x amount of seconds on my animation. Of course, I think if I had used NTSC, it would've still looked completely fine, with almost the same length, just not exactly. 30 fps is just better because it is a round number and it's easier to work with, that's all. (of course the more fps, the more fluent your animation will look, but in this case, it's barely noticeable)

Final 4 Corners Scene Project Reflection - 3/27/2025

Light Types & Shadows

In this final piece of quarter 3, I had to use a couple different types of lights and animate them to add that to the previous car scene to make a more interesting animation. I used 4 light types specifically: free spot, target direct, omni, and skylight. Each of these lights had a purpose in the scene, and they all work to make the scene more compelling. The free spot was what made both of the headlights of the car. The target direct served as the sun rays, which where what lit up the whole scene. The skylight light served to set the atmosphere and the brightness of the scene overall, and how it changed throughout the day. Finally the omni light served as the moonlight in the night (obviously). The only challenge that I faced when changing the settings of each light was the color. I found the way that the instructions were written a bit confusing, and I didn't exactly know which value went where.  Later I figured that only the first 3 numbers were relevant, and the last 2 changed themselves based on the first ones, which ended the confusion. For both of my final renders, I activated shadows, mainly because they make the scene feel more realistic, and they improve the quality of the render. They also emphasize the transition between night and day, as the shadows stretch or shrink, as they do in the real world.

Linking & Animating Lights

When it comes to the car, I needed to add headlights to it in order for it to be more realistic when driving at night. To do this I used the linking tool, and made an instance of the original headlight. In addition I used the aligning tool for it to be perfectly placed on the headlight, instead of doing it by hand which wouldn't be as perfect. The animation of the different lights in the scene was definitely what makes this animation come alive. It also looks very realistic, since the sunlight moves throughout the day, the car turns on the headlights as the night arrives, the omni light rises at night, the color of the lights change to match the appropriate time of day, etc.

Cameras

Cameras where another big part of this assignment, and what makes these animations different from the first. I used cameras to get a third-person (animation on the left) and a first-person (animation on the right) view of the car, which helps see the animation from different angles.  In order for cameras to move along with the car, I had to link them to the car, in a similar way that I had to do for the headlights with the car.

3rd Quarter Reflection - 3/27/2025

Intro

In quarter 3 of the 2024/25 school year, I expanded my knowledge of 3ds max. It seems to me that the knowledge that I was going to acquire regarding 3D modeling specifically, is already at least 90% of the way there. I say this because in this quarter I learned how to make the final render look better, and my scenes and lighting look more realistic. In this quarter we worked a lot with lighting, and learning how that works and what lights are used in which occasion, as well as getting a little bit into animation at the end. Finally, I learned about renderers, cameras, their settings, and which is best to use in each occasion.

What I learned

At the very start of the quarter, we went into ligthing for the first time. Although I think I may had previously had to insert a light in an assignment before, this was our first deeper dive into lights. We started by making a table lamp, in which I learned where to use spotlights, quad lights, omni lights, etc. by experimenting with them when trying to get the best lighting for the room. After that, I learned how to use 3-point lighting, a lighting technique that works to focus on an object in a scene, lighting it up, but also separating it from the background. It works with a key light, a fainter fill light without shadows, and a fainter backlight without shadows as well. Then we moved on to exploring renderers. In this activity, we tried the different renderers - quicksilver, scanline, and arnold - and messed with their settings to see which gave the best results, and which were quicker. I figured that the Arnold renderer is the most resource-consuming and time-taking, but produces the best results. Continuing, I made my Crash Bandicoot inspired videogame scene. This scene tested my knowledge of lights, materials, and renderers to try to make it the most realistic possible. After that, I learned about the different types of cameras, - free, physical, target - what each one does, as well as its settings. I discovered that the physical camera was the most apt to a scene, the target was best for a singular model, and the free I found a bit pointless, having the physical. Although it's settings are easier to understand if you don't know how real cameras work. Finally I expanded my knowledge on animation from previously in the year. I learned about curves, and how to edit them to make objects ease in, or ease out, or go at a constant speed, or go at an irregular speed. This was through an activity where we had to edit some cars' curves, to make them finish a race at different times and at different speeds. At the very end, I combined my knowledge from cameras, animation, and lighting to make the Final 4 Corners Scene Project (directly above this reflection). Here I produced 2 renders of the same animation, but with different camera types and POVs. The animation features different types of lights, and a smooth night and day transition.

Conclusion

The knowledge I have now is not comparable to that I had in quarter 1, where I only knew the basics of modeling. It is like my knowledge at the end of quarter 2, but expanded on, since that quarter we focused more on the visual aspects of the final render, as well as in this one. The difference is, here I learned how to make the atmosphere of a scene look more realistic, something I wasn't able to do before. Coming into quarter 4, and thinking about what I knew at the start of the year (nothing) I consider that I have made great progress in 3d modeling up until now. I am ready now to learn what I will on quarter 4 and then hopefully to move on to Game design.

4th Quarter Reflection

Intro

Quarter 4 in this class has been much different from all of the past quarters. In this quarter, I didn't specifically learn many new things regarding my technical skills; this quarter was more about figuring out how I could apply what I learned in this school year into a singular project: The Performance Based Measurement Project. This project took 5 different stages, and in each I had to apply a different concept that I had learned throughout the year, from modeling to unwrapping, to animating, etc.

Process & What I learned

We began this PBM by modeling an object/character. I had a couple of ideas at the start, although it was very hard to choose something to do. It had to be a model that was overall simple, low poly, but also complex in order for it to take different modeling techniques to create. I chose to do a robotic tiger, because I thought it could fit the criteria. I used a lot of extrude for the arms especially, as well as some bend, bevel, and inset for the hips and torso. Something that I did not pay attention to enough was the poly count, as it was around 13k at the end (probably due to all the polys that I used to make the tail). I ended up taking a good couple of weeks to finish this, which already started adding up to the crunch closer to the due date. For artifact 2 I had to UVW unwrap my character and paint it in Photoshop. The unwrapping process was extremely long and tedious. It took up a very significant amount of the time I spent on the project (maybe around 40% I'd say) because I realized I did not have an effective method to unwrap objects. I tried to go back and follow the tutorials, but when I tried to reset peel for everything, the UV islands would not stick together, which led me to stitch every single part of the head individually. That was a LONG process, which resulted in a very distorted UV island, that was not satisfying at all. After testing some different methods, I found an effective way to make them not look distorted, by just resetting the peel once the island was stitched together. I also found that by clicking "stitch to custom," everything was much faster. Once I got that figured out, the unwrapping was done in no time.  I unwrapped the head and the body separately so they would be more easily painted. Then I painted both in Photoshop, learning how to use tools like polygonal lasso. I used JPGs of tiger patterns and applied them to the map. By the time I had to do Artifact 3, the deadline was very close (although it ended up being extended luckily). This stage involved creating a scene with a couple of more objects using different modeling techniques. I made some trees, a robot factory, a robotic bird to fly off of the factory, and a UFO. I made these with similar techniques as the tiger, with the addition of spline modeling for the body of the birds. Using what I had learned in artifact 1, (of trying to keep models simpler) I was able to make these models fairly quickly and moved on to animation. Artifact 4 required to animate my main object. I used manual keyframes to animate my tiger doing a backflip and then spinning its head while extending its neck. I had one challenge, which was trying to move the head after I grouped the entire object midway through the animation. I solved this when I learned I could open the group and edit objects inside of it without messing up the animation. For the final artifact I animated the entire scene and the objects, with the inclusion of a camera. Here I relearned how to link objects together and how to make a path constraint, as I had forgotten. Apart from that the animating was pretty straight forward.

Conclusion & Takeaways

In this quarter, I may not have gained too much in terms of technical skills, (although I did have to learn some) but I did learn how to adapt to the time that I have to finish a project. I also learned that I should better plan out how much each stage of a project is going to take me, to make sure that I'll be able to finish in time. Talking more generally, this class has taught me that 3D modeling is something that - although I obviously need a lot more practice and learning - I may pursue in the future. This is very useful, since I'm still pretty lost on what I will do for my career, but this gives me an alternative to at least consider.