In this reflection of the 1st quarter of my first year at Chapel Hill High School, I shall discuss three things about the previous quarter.
What new skills or techniques did I learn in 3ds Max this quarter?
What goals do I have for the next quarter to further improve my 3D modeling skills?
How has my understanding of 3D modeling concepts improved over the quarter?
So now, without further ado:
Over this first quarter, I have learnt what I can only assume will be the most important functions of the software I will learn over the entire year, or at least the basics of them. I learnt how to use basic shapes, and from there basic modifiers, and from there basic splines, and from there basic sub-object modification, all of which, while only the basics, are the foundations of the entire rest of the quarter, I assume. These techniques will help allow me to create the most detailed models I can make, and I will at some point be able to make whatever I can imagine, all with time and the use of the skills I have learned and developed.
My goals for the next quarter are simple: get better so I can make better models. I take this class because I want to make video games, and not only 2D video games, which means I need to know how to 3D model. Of course I don't need to perfect it now, but if I want to ever become a professional, I need to keep doing my best, because my best is all I can do.
Over the quarter, I have gotten more and more acquaintanced with 3DS Max, getting to know more and more of it's systems, meaning I have become more and more comfortable with it. I have also learned more about how to use the systems, and I have gotten used to them, as well. Some specific 3D modelling concepts to mention might be the 3D space, it is vast, and far more moldable than 2D space, my primary workspace. Getting used to 3DS Max has been, in general, fairly easy, I simply had to ride the wave of knowledge that my teacher, in this case Poseidon, has sent to me.
In short, or I suppose as a TLDR; I have learnt and grown accustomed to the ways of 3DS Max, learning the basics of the basics of it's modelling mechanics, and getting used to the way the program functions as a whole. I tried to use blender before, but I suppose I will never go back to it, as I am too used to 3DS, and Blender was really complicated anyway. In the future I shall grow with my knowledge of the program, and I shall become a master of it, one day.
During this quarter, I have learned two very important yet very opposite ways to texture models, and how to make my own textures for models. First, I learned sub-object modelling. It's fast and easy, but creates middling results. It allows for high customizability in-engine, but can only be applied per polygon, which can create obvious seams in low poly models. I am yet to test it in high poly models, but it could look better there. UVW mapping is my texturing method of choice, as, while it is far harder and far more time-consuming, it creates far better looking textures on models. While you can make custom textures for sub-object texturing, I feel that, at that point, you might as well just make a full UVW map. It does come down to preference, but I just think that I shall use UVW mapping more in the future, although for other school projects I will certainly use sub-object modelling for its convenience.
My goals for the next quarter are to, like last quarter, get better at modelling. I also want to get better at texturing effectively and efficiently, and to model likewise. I hope to have more time to do some modelling of my own, so that can dictate what I create alone, and to get more used to the program.
While my understanding of the modelling itself hasn't increased substantially, my understanding of making textures certainly has. I won't repeat myself from the first question, but I learned how to texture models, and over the quarter my ability to texture them has grown. I learned how to use sub-object editing, then how to customize it, then how to make my own custom textures for sub-object editing, then how to make custom textures for entire objects. I didn't do much 3D modelling, but texturing is still a 3D modelling concept, concept, and I certainly got better at that.
Over the course of the first half of my second half of the first half of the first half of my high school career, I have learned quite a bit, though it feels as if we learned less than what we learned over the course of the first semester. This semester we learned how to use lights, cameras, and basic animation techniques. First, we learned how to use lights and what parameters they have, as well as the variants. We didn't do a hell of a lot with them, but we did enough to set up the basic floor for them that we'll use forever more. Second, cameras, which are a little more complicated, but still not hard to use. All I feel I need to know is FOV, aperture size, and the two or three settings that all affect zoom. Lastly, the best knowledge from this quarter in my opinion: animation. We didn't do much, but we learned what key-frames and tangents are, which are two of possibly many foundations for animation. So all-in-all, I've learned how to make a scene look good beyond the modelling itself and how to do minor animation.
Over my next quarter I plan to do the lessons, but more importantly, make something that uses most of the skills that I've learned over the four quarters for my final project. I'm currently making a little practice model to study basic anatomy, and I'd love to use it for my final project somehow. My overall goal is to make up for my disastrous final project from the first quarter, and then some. Above all else, I want a result that I don't just like, but love.
We briefly visited animation before, but not in-depth. In this quarter, we learned the basics of animation and how to create tangents, which I've gone over previously. The main spotlight (pun intended) of this section will be lights and cameras. We hadn't used lights before the texturing unit, but an in-depth section was nice knowledge to receive, especially for such a crucial part of any scene. Cameras, which you could technically do without when rendering a scene, are equally important. While you could realistically just use your own view for rendering, having a specific point to build around that is also still is good. As well, the options that having a camera give are useful, like FOV, etc. Unrelated, but I also learned how to tile textures. Not an incredibly important skill, but good for certain scenarios. More in-depth explanations about the skills discussed here can be found on their respective reflection pages, as well.