Quarter 1

This little room is currently my magnum opus, although I know I shall have others. My reasoning for my pride for this particular piece is solely in the fact that I had complete creative control, and with it I created something that, despite simple, genuinely looks nice. It also is a bit of me put to pixels, as it is a layout of a room in a game I wish to make, however far away that game is. In my opinion, despite being my harshest critic, it looks well put together, maybe even real in the way that the objects are placed. There is just something about it, hard to state with words, but I just really like what I've created, and can't wait to create more like this with new knowledge I've acquired.  

I feel that it demonstrates that I am, in the very least, acquainted with the tools of 3DS Max. While not a masterpiece, it is still visually appealing, which shows I know how to use the tools I have learned to create something that can is more than blocks mashed together to create a worse result. I feel it also shows that I have a general grip on design in 3D modelling, as it uses depth to great advantage in its design. The whole thing just looks well composed to me, an just generally aesthetically "good," despite its simplistic design. 

From this project I learned how to do sub-object shape modelling, an important technique to create more complicated shapes. I learned how to use vertex, edge, and polygons to create a smoother and less blocky shape. In the future, I can use these skills to, as I said, create smoother objects and avoid blockiness when I don't need or want it. With these functions, I can also more easily edit smaller parts of an object, with more ease of use and accuracy because I can manipulate singular polygons, vertexes, or edges. 

Well, while not being extremely detailed or having a large amount of things about it to talk about, I still like what I created. The pencil on the left is the one I was told to make, with the torus rings around the top part of the pencil being in the given instructions. I, however, don't very much like them, in my opinion my version on the right, while not having groundbreaking changes, looks better. It has more consistency throughout it. This can show my artistic vision as being stylistically consistent, or that I'm just a fan of low poly modelling. 

Another simple one here, despite what such an unfittingly "meaningful" title might tell you. The plan for this wine glass: Step one, think about make a wine glass, like those ones I like to hold in my hand with my palm underneath the drink-holding part and my fingers avoiding the glass stem like a villain. Step two, make the spline for it. That was easy. Step three, do the thing (I forgot what the process was called, array maybe? It was similar to that. But my memory fails me.) and voila! Wine glass like those ones I like to hold in my hand with my palm underneath the drink-holding part and my fingers avoiding the glass stem like a villain! What a simple process! 

Quarter 2

My main challenge was creating something that looked good while using sub-object textures. When working with sub-object texturing, the main issue I have is the disconnect between polygons, which is especially apparent on such a low poly model.  Perhaps it is not as big an issue on higher poly models, but on lower poly, it is fairly prominent, at least to me. While I could not completely overcome this problem, making the main two colours shown on the top of the tank incredibly similar made it hard to differentiate them, especially with the bright orange light, helped. I would say this is my 3rd favourite piece from this quarter.

For this particular model, most of the work was actually done in Photoshop. First I had to find the smaller elements, like wood and the "fragile" stickers, and then I just arranged them to look like a wood crate. Using tools I forgot the name of, I was able to make the little strip and the outer edges for the crates, and using burn I was able to add some damage to the crates. Once in 3DS Max, I just imported the textures and used sub-object texturing to put the correct textures on the correct sides.

As the first model in the year to use and teach me UVW mapping, I can confidently say that UVW mapping is what I learned. It's fairly hard, and very time consuming, but creates a better looking product than sub-object texturing does, in my opinion. It taught me how to divide areas within objects with sub-object editing, and how to create a UVW map to export to photoshop. While most of the faces on this object are just flat colour, I was still able to learn the basics of making a textured UVW map.

I feel this model demonstrates my skill to add both small details and relatively large parts, and making an overall good looking model. While, in retrospect, I do feel like some things could have been less detailed, I think that the model is still good. Every part of the model adds something, and I tried to make it not too cluttered while also not having too much empty space, and I feel I succeeded. The scene shown in the image also demonstrates my ability to create a good looking scene for my models, in my opinion. This model is my 2nd favourite of the quarter.

My main challenge with this model was the difficulty of using UVW maps with such a short deadline for somebody who is new to UVW mapping, but is also a perfectionist. Every decision I made, I feel, did enhance the end product, though. Near the end I added static, which helped give the textures a dirtier and rougher look. I added two mud hand prints, to make it seem more used, and I added shiny bolts on every seam to make the tank look as if all the metal sheets and whatnot were screwed on. I finished just in time, and I made something that I am very proud of; this is certainly my favourite model of the quarter.

Quarter 3

While a bit janky in the lighting, I'm still incredibly proud with the outcome of this project. The overall composition is great, in my opinion, and it looks almost like a real scene. The table and the lamp specifically give this feeling, though I don't know why, I think this scene shows that I can comfortably use the techniques that I had learned up to that point. If there were one thing I would fix, though, it would be the dark strip and the rigid bed. They both take away major amounts of immersion.

This entire project was a train wreck, if the train mysteriously fell off it's tracks off a nearby cliff and then onto another set of tracks, while simultaneously squashing another train that was already on the tracks the original train landed on. To start, we were supposed to make a separate file and copy a previous model into it, but I instead just hijacked a previous model (the space ship) and used that. Then, I made a background and a pole for the model to make it look like it was on display, then combined all three objects in a completely destructive manner. Finally, I put a metal texture on the pole that not only didn't show up, but also completely broke how the pole looked. I did eventually make it through, though, so it all worked out.

Through this lesson I learned the very fundamentals of animation, the literal floor of it. While I could've used the tangent editing lesson for this item to also touch on tangent editing, but this animation looks better to me. From the basics of working with key frames with all transforms, I can use what this lesson taught me to animate quite literally any movement from any object or organism. Rotation to change where something faces, dilation to change their size, and movement to simulate, well, movement. Additionally, all three of these can be used for more advanced techniques like simulated smear frames and forced perspective.

The Four Corners project was pretty simple in what it taught, yet still taught a good bit. While certainly nothing groundbreaking, it showed me how to easily use splines to force animated objects on a predetermined path, as well as how to make the object look good while doing so. The project also somewhat taught me the merit of saving, storing, and organizing my files, as we used a previously made project for this one; if I hadn't effectively organized my files I would've had to either remake the entire scene on which the road is lain, or taken a point hit and used a remake by my teacher.

If you were to look at the source material from which I derived this work, you'd think it looked nothing like it texture-wise. While that is true, I'm still proud of just how accurate the placement of all the walls and buildings are, especially considering that I eyeballed all of it; however, to say that I "eyeballed" it would be a lie. I, in fact, did something that I think is pretty clever: I used metric units while making this project and used the pixelated and tiled textures to guide how many metres in each dimension certain objects were. While the textures do look completely incorrect, they still work for my purposes, and don't look horrible, so I'm proud of that too. However, I am still most proud of how well the composition came out, if I had bothered to take textures directly from the game I think this and the screenshot I used would've look almost identical.

Quarter 4

I feel that this project reflects my ability to recreate scenes from other media, and my ability to make do with what I have to do so to the best of my ability. It also highlights my problem solving skills: I used the closest matching textures to the source material where they could be used and found out how to tile the textures all on my own. I chose this scene for my third favourite piece of the year because I love ULTRAKILL, the game I referenced this scene from, and I love how it turned out so relatively accurate.

This scene, compared to my first quarter work, was a massive jump in quality. While the model was made in the first quarter, my expert use of textures, lights, and composition makes this scene look genuinely great. I used special textures that I could manually configure, and I used a combination of them to give a ruined look to the tanks. Along with the texturing, I placed the tanks in ways that made them look out of order and broken, adding to the feel of ruin. Lastly, I used lighting to give the look of dawn, for a special coloured glow, and put a spotlight upon the centre tank, to give it focus.

I feel that this final scene of mine is the culmination of the entire year, and I love how it turned out. Unfortunately, due to some error, some of the keyframes of Jen's arm got deleted between this render and the render for PBM 4, but the scene looks great nonetheless. I love how the catwalks look in the background, especially the one going out into the darkness, and I love how shiny Jen is. The addition of a second incinerator also gives the whole place more of a factory vibe, and I think it all looks great. I am sad that the quality of the clip is limited to 720p, but it captures the scene's essence regardless.