Recently in DDA II, we've been working with lighting and how lights interact with objects in 3DS Max. Our most recent project, which had to be completed at home due to the coronavirus, involved working with the Arnold Renderer and the Arnold lighting system. Arnold lights are versatile and appear to be photorealistic, and I personally really like how my final scene turned out. The only problem that I have with them, and the Arnold Renderer in general, is the fact that it takes a really long time to fully render. A preview pass takes an upwards of three minutes, which is fine, but my full render for the scene took around 3-4 hours, but it looks incredible. Below are two renders I made of my scene- one of the preview passes, and the full render, which I'm really proud of. The preview passes are grainy at best, but give a good idea of what the full scene really looks like. Overall, I really like Arnold lighting, but rendering takes a really long time, which can be a problem if I'm working on a school assignment.
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Recently in DDA, we've been learning about UVW mapping and texturing on 3D objects. So far we've learned that it's a difficult, tedious, and hard process, and a lot can go wrong with it. The amount of content we had to learn to texture a single can is hard to believe- it took me about a week of straight work, and then some, to make this: They're not even all that good. The process is cool in concept, where you slice a mesh along a series of vertices to apply a seamless texture, but if you try to work with anything more complicated than a box, it gets so difficult and tedious that it's barely even worth it. All in all, it's probably a skill we need to have in this class, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't like it. Over the course of my winter break, I finally took the time to finish my character model. I added details to the legs, I added a cape, and did some other stuff to make it look like a finished project, including an overhaul of the backpack, and I added a pedastal for him to stand on. I'm proud of how it turned out- I like how I used the reference image to pose him the way I did, and while the level of detail isn't great, I think that it'll be easier to print out in the end. Below you can see some low-quality renders I did- after I was done with the model itself, I messed around with some lighting and materials to show off what I did. Finally, I simply scaled it down to the size of a standard mini (1 in. x 1 in. x ~28 mm.) for printing later on. I did run into a problem while doing this- the spear made it taller than most minis, making it stand at around 38 mm. instead of 26-28 mm. I fixed this by scaling it down a small percentage, making the base somewhat smaller than 1 in., but in keeping the proportions the same, the height was put at about 32 mm., which was a lot better than 38 mm. I thought this was pretty good, and so I saved it as a copy, leaving me with two files- the original, and the one scaled for 3D printing. When I get back to school, I'll share both versions with my teacher, and see about printing it. Overall, this project was a lot of fun, and I'm actually excited to work on more things like it in the future. For the past month or so, I've been creating a 3D model of a character design that I drew. I'm making it to hopefully be 3D printed, and so far, I've made some great progress. I really like how it looks so far, and I'm nearly done with it- hopefully, I'll be able to work on it at home over Thanksgiving break this week, and maybe even finish it. I've drawn a few inspirations for the design- I only recently redid the spear, which is inspired from the game Dark Souls. I'm really proud of how it turned out, and I think it's a major improvement over my old spear design, which was pretty poorly modeled. I also redid the chestplate, making it look a slightly more detailed, and it looks like it actually fits with the pauldrons, which have also been redone. All I really need to now it the legs, feet, and skirt, and the pedestal on which the figure will stand. I'll then make the cape using the cloth modifier, and finally scale it all to the right size in centimeters. All in all, I'm really excited to see where this goes. We've been working with 3DS Max, a 3D modelling program, for a good while now. I personally love its versatility and variety of uses, and lucky for me, we'll be using it all year. Recently, I've been working on a personal project, where I have taken a hand-drawn character concept, and am trying to make a printable 3D model of it. So far it's gone well. I've pulled up a reference image in the program, and have been working on blocking out where all the limbs and body parts go, making sure to keep the proportions consistent. I then moved onto adding in detailed armor and body parts, which I'm still working on. This part will probably take the longest, but it's also the most fun. I just get to sit back, and model out nice-looking pieces of armor. It's cool to see it all coming together, but I still have a long way to go. Hopefully, by the end of this little project of mine, I'll have a good-looking 3D-printable mini.
Compound Objects are a subset of tools in 3DS Max that are used to combine or create two or more objects into one. Examples of this are Boolean and Proboolean, which are used to combine two shapes in some way- Be it combining them, removing one's volume from the other, or removing the intersecting volume. That in itself is incredibly useful, but my favorite tool of the few that we've used so far has to be the terrain tool.
The terrain tool isn't as versatile as something like Boolean, but what for what it is, it is amazing. You create contour lines using 2D splines, and then use the terrain tool to create terrain shaped to those contour lines. It's perfect for something like a video game scene, or to just create a mountain if you're bored. The tool has options that affect how it's shaped, and how smooth it is. The simple fact that it uses contour lines makes it so much more efficient and easy to use than it would be otherwise. You can make the walls sheer and flat, or gradual, much like a hill. You can choose to add more polygons, cramping computer resources, but making it slightly smoother, and possibly some weird geometry. All in all, the terrain tool is one of my favorite things to use in 3DS Max. It's sheer efficiency and ease of access makes it simple to pick up on the spot, and while it's not super versatile like Boolean, Blobmesh, or Scatter, it was made to do one thing, and that thing is to make terrain, which it does indeed do. In Summary...
This year I'm heading into 10th grade, and I am taking DDA II. In DDA II, we'll be focusing solely on 3D work, as opposed to last year, where we did largely 2D work, with some 3D at the end of the year. I'm very excited for this- I love 3D animation, and I feel that, while it's harder to visualize concepts in 3D, it's a lot easier to make 3D pieces look better than 2D. What I mean by that is that 3D work is much easier to edit and tweak to make it look better overall. However, it can sometimes take a bit more work to make some simple 3D model than it does to just draw it out. That's why I did exclusively 2D pieces for my summer assignment- it's easier for me to visualize things in 2D than it is in 3D. This summer, I experimented with drawing in a sketchy sort of style. Overall, I think that there is a lot of room for improvement, but I like my pieces nonetheless. I like how a lot of the lines, while messy, kind of work well with accenting the folds of a cloth. One thing I need to work on is making individual details stand out, and making those accent lines work better on non-cloth areas- armor, etc. This style helps me focus on posing, something I've struggled with in the past, but I think I've improved on. I did use references for the posing, and I think it turned out well. Overall, the thing I'm excited for most is 3D animation. I think it'll be a lot easier, if a bit more complicated than 2D animation. I know a little bit about rigging and how 3D animation works, and I'm excited to learn more, as (As far as I know) it takes less time and work than most other forms of animation. But, overall, I have high hopes for this year. In Summary; - I am taking DDA II this year, where we'll be focusing solely on 3D work. - While it's easier for me to make overall better looking compositions in 3D, it's easier for me to conceptualize pieces in 2D. - In 2D artwork, I like how a more sketched-out style looks when compared to my simpler style that I have used in the past, and I hope to improve upon it as time goes by. - I am most excited for 3D animation this year. 3D Modeling is a lot of fun. I have really been enjoying it and its versatility. 3DS Max is also a great tool, helping me to complete my projects, and I've run into few problems using it. The program is well made, and while I wouldn't say that it's easy to use, its only from the amount of things you can do with it. The sheer amount of menus, functions, engines, and tools is overwhelming- in a good way. There's so much that you can do that it's a wonder that the systems are so well organized.
Below you can see one of my rendered models. It's a table with a lamp, vase, flowers, and a wine glass. Everything but the flowers was made with splines, 2D bezier curves and shapes that you can turn into 3D models. It just goes to show the versatility of the program, being able to make something like this in that way- even if my work is far from good. All in all, 3D Modeling is a lot of fun. I really, really like it, which is a good thing. Next year, all we do is 3D Modeling. All year. Nevertheless, I really enjoy this unit, and I particularly look forward to when we do 3D Animation. I want to see how different it is from 2D Animation, which I did not like too much. I think it'll be easier, if not simpler- most things in 3D are more complicated than those in 2D. In Summary - 3DS Max is very versatile - There are many ways of accomplishing a single task - I very much enjoy it, and I cannot wait to begin 3D Animation 3D Modeling is not hard. I've had limited use of Blender before, but I honestly think that this is one of the easiest units we've had in this class. (for the second half of school, at least.) I really like the process of modeling, and the products that come out of it.
3DS Max is a useful and versatile, but complex. There's a lot of things to do do it, but there are also a lot of sub-menus and it can be hard to do simple things. However, I have not had any problems doing anything with it, and while I don't think my models are the best, I do believe that that's due to a lack of skill, rather than any fault of the tool. Above, you can see two of my models. One is a cartoon head, one of my first models, and the other is a futuristic city, which is my latest model. I think that I have improved a bit on my detail and skill, though the city was very, very simple and easy to make. Next year, we are supposed to spend the entire year on 3D Modeling. I am personally excited for things like texturing and animation- and I think that 3D Animation is much easy and simpler than using something like Adobe Animate. All in all, 3D Modeling is fun, and easy to do. It is complex, but you quickly get used to it. I personally cannot wait to use 3DS Max more in the coming weeks. In Summary:
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AuthorHi! I'm Thomas MacDougall, a sophomore at DSA. Here you can check out my thoughts and recent activities. Please note that the views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Archives
March 2020
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