Diary & Rational...

Well here we are, end of the first term and I have managed to get my work finished and handed in. So this is meant to describe what I now know about the industry and where I feel I fit in amongst it all. So here goes. I have realised that in the 3D industry you normally have only one job, be that rigging or texturing or something along those lines, and doing it all by yourself can lead you to a mental breakdown. But I feel that the part that I would fit into best is the modelling part, creating the Creatures, buildings, vehicles etc, that go into the final product. The reason behind my thinking are thus; Modelling is what I find most enjoyable. Creating something that looks intricate and impressive is what I like doing. As far as texturing and rigging go they aren't really my cup of tea as it were. I mean I am pleased with how many of the textures came out on my final gather, and if pushed to do so I would gladly do the textures, but if I had to choose I would stick to the modelling. Rigging, and thus the act of animating the models was the part I found the hardest. This is partly due, obviously, to the fact that this is my first time at doing any, and given time I could probably develop at least a decent ability to produce short animations, but on a large scale it is simply mind boggling to me.

Within my animation my pride and joy has to be my Robot, Norm. The model itself is based off the one we got taught in our seminar, at least the arms and legs are, the body, crotch plate, spine and head are all of my own design. I feel that the way I have modelled him really brings across his sadness and his misfortune, mostly conveyed by his downward slanting eyes. This was a concious decision of mine right from the start, that he would look a tragic figure, thus making the audience feel at least a little sorry for him. The other character, the mouse, was part of my original story line, however his role changed slightly from revenge seeker to just plain mischief maker, and this I feel is very fitting for what is, after all, vermin.
The environment is something else that I am rather pleased with. Although not massively complex it serves its purpose. I especially like the fact that you can see the street reflected in all the windows, adding masses of depth to the whole affair.

All in all I am happy with what I have produced, especially as it is my first foray into the animation side of 3D. Given more time there is certainly plenty I would change, however as it is I am pleased with the outcome.

So here it is...

Like it?

A lonely Street

Due to a very last minute change of mind I have started (and nearly finished) modelling a new environment for my "Of Bots and Bananas" Sketch. This is essentially a lonely street in an undesirable part of town. The shops are all based on those shops that just look cheap and nasty, the ones you would never normally go into. But among these shops I want to have a very shiny and bright "Liqueur Store". This is now the main focus of my narrative as I will explain in a later post.

Why so sad keanu...

Right let me start by saying that I have not, I repeat not, called my robot Keanu. However the pose he is in kind of reminded me of those sad Keanu pictures, hence the title. But in all seriousness I created my robot to look sad and downtrodden. He is meant to be based on the idea of Charlie Chaplin, the "Happy Hobo" style as it were, however minus the happy in my robots case. I wanted him to pull on the heartstrings of my audience, I wanted them to feel sorry for him as he is such a tragic figure who is having a bad time of it. This also means that when the "Gag" happens to him there is both a mixture of humour and the "awww" feeling.

Introducing....

Introducing....

Now that he has colour...

Has been a while, but here we go...

So I know it has been a while since I added anything to my blog. There is a very simple reason for this, I did nothing that would of been of interest to anybody. For the past couple of weeks I had been working on my essay, which I think we can all agree does not make for interesting viewing. However I now have a new screenshot of my "bot" as it stands at the moment. The rigging is complete and I hope to have a video of him in full motion soon enough. Also he currently looks too "smart". I intend to work with the polygons to cover him in dents and such, so that he is more in keeping with the hobo effect I was going for. I have also created him to be hunched over, a result of his life not going to plan and the weight of worry upon his shoulders so to speak. His face has also been designed to convey a sense of sadness and depression, with downward slanting eyes and a "bot beard" look to his lower jaw. I have yet to decide whether I want to add a mouth to my robot. so as it stands he currently does not have one.

So here be some arms

So in Andy's seminar this week we learnt how to do basic rigging, and here is my attempt at it. I have made the hands do a series of poses just to get my head round creating motion and using the keys on the time line. So basically this is what I have come up with. A lot of the movements, although slow, do appear to be a bit more human than robotic, but I think this adds to the whole thing, giving my robot a more human feel makes it easier to relate to him.

Basic motion

So basically I just took my original truck and created a short animation simply by rotating the tires and moving the whole thing along the scene. It is very basic but is, after all just practice for the main project.

Looking at slapstick

Above are a couple of examples of slapstick in a more modern setting. The first is from robot chicken, the second is Rowan Atkinson from Not the Nine O'clock News.

Orrery...yeah I had the same look on my face ¬¬

So this is known as an Orrery. An accurate one shows our solar system in a simple way and how the planets orbit our sun. Mine, dear friends, is not as yet accurate. So forgive the rather fast inner planet but this was mainly to give me a taste of getting a basic animation to work, and in this respect it has done. Whilst making this model, and through the seminar I learnt about Hierarchy and what parts have to be slaved to what. The actual term is linked to but it gets the same meaning across. I also added some extra moons to some of the planets, and before you say it yes I did look them up so I know which planets have moons and how many there are. The next stage would be to add some detail to the whole affair, such as lighting effects and materials, but for now it will remain as it is as I have a presentation I need to create.

So, nearing completion...

So, this is the car after some tweaking, and I must say I am rather pleased with the whole thing =) I added an Omni light to the scene and played with the materials a bit, I also created clear windows and added some interior detail.

So...Has been a while...

So hey

I know it has been a while but I haven't had access to 3DS MAX at all over the holiday.
Anyhow this is the first of my new models since getting back to Nottingham. Basically, to fill you in, I got obsessed with Red Faction:Guerilla, completed it in a day and all. However what I found I liked most about it was the designs of the vehicles. Thus this creation was born. So far it is just a basic model, without the detail I want added. I also gave it a basic colour scheme so that it was easier to view. The main chassis was made from just one box. I manipulated the polygons, extruded faces and all that to create the angular shape of the armour. Like I said earlier, I still need to add more details and create a better colour scheme, but that will follow in the next few days =) Enjoy...

Rational-Interactive Media

Right, so what to say. Firstly Flash is a pain, constantly ignoring you and doing its own thing and then messing up at a crucial moment. Despite this I managed to get a working quiz finished, and one I am surprised to say, that I actually like. Ok it's not the best looking quiz, and there are certainly some bits that need fixing and sorting out, but besides these little issues I am happy with it. The inspiration came from any basic internet flash quiz I have ever played. It's a series of quick fire questions with helpful pictures along the way. I also tried to include a video question but seeing as the video was on my laptop it would not work on the net. I now know that I need to upload it to the web and then it should hopefully work. The background itself is a wacky combination of colour and shapes with a musical feel. I felt that this certainly worked for my quiz, hence its presence on every page. The scoring system on the quiz works well, although in my presentation I put the wrong code in so it just navigated back to the menu straight away. It records the right answer and adds it to a tally on the last slide. Annoyingly I wasn't able to figure out the code for recording the right and wrong answers and displaying them at the end. There isn't really much more I can say about this really. I had no intention of being a Flash wiz when I started the year, and I think this shows that. However I am still happy with how it turned out and hope it gets me at least a half decent grade.

Rational-Virtual Environments

So I know this is a bit late but hey.

My lair that I created for my virtual environments project is, sadly, not what I initially had in mind. However due to polygon issues and the need to restart it has ended up like it is now. The inspiration for my lair came from the idea of having an ex soviet union KGB style man. Bearing this in mind I went for a very soviet era Russian look, with simple concrete buildings and functional fittings. I also kept the lighting low to try an add a bit of a gloomy atmosphere to an already gloomy scene. The main inspiration came from looking at photos of old Russian cities, and how they followed the same pattern of simple block type apartments. I also noted that there was a large amount of Soviet propaganda pasted onto the walls, and thus I have tried to capture this feel by placing it around my lair, almost like pictures. The colour scheme is a combination of concrete outer surfaces, as was common in the photos, and then simple interiors, in true communist fashion. The only major difference to this colour scheme is the red carpet in the main hall. I made this red as I thought it helped to emphasise the villains connection to Russia and what it used to be like.
The other additions to my lair include a garage which I have kitted out with tools that would be used to fix the large truck inside it, and then the large truck itself. The truck started life with a more complex track system then the one that is in my lair. However these tracks were well over a million polygons in themselves, so after some remodelling I ended up with he truck seen in my lair. Saying this I'm still happy with it, just not so fond of the tracks. The inspiration for the truck came from looking at old half tracks and armoured personnel carriers. Thus I created a high sided, tracked vehicle. I also have another truck within my lair, and this is more of a high performance truck than an armoured beast. This is reflected in the fact that it has wheels and a streamlined body instead of tracks and a heavy armour shell. This truck was more inspired by racing trucks than half tracks, thus the streamlined body. The workshop in my lair contains what I feel to be my best models, the guns. These were inspired by my old Warhammer models (sad I know but they were good inspiration. I also added tools and shelving to the workshop to give it a bit of a filling as it were. It was around this time that I started laying with the renderer and discovered the Raytrace materials. From this point on I used them almost exclusively. The last building in my lair is the shooting range. This is simply a long building with targets at the far end. The targets were simple models with a bitmap attached to them to create the bullseye.

The compound itself is something right out of a prison, and this also I thought suited my villain down to the ground. The high walls and watchtowers mean nobody can get close without being seen and thus dealt with. Overall I am please with how it turned out, but will certainly be doing lots to improves it.

A quick look...

Ok so my laptop keeps messing up, end of the world? I think so! And just as those tories cam into power...Coincidence? I think not!!!

Anyhow enough political ranting and pot stirring for the moment.

Basically what we have here is the one rendered shot of my armoury I was able to get before my 3DS MAX had a memory crisis and crashed for the 10th time. This is not wholly completed but shows what I am basically going for. Any how enjoy...

Has been a while...

So between working on my 3DS MAX project and casting a vote that made very little difference I haven't had much chance to update my blog. Well here is the latest major addition to my lair, a tanker kind of vehicle to kit out the hanger/garage with. It is almost all one piece, having started life as a simple box which I then edited polygon by polygon. The track system was fairly simple in that I created one wheel and then just cloned it and resized it where needed. The tracks themselves are simply tubes which I have extended and extruded to create the raised parts. The colour scheme is a simple military green with grey detailing. The reason I chose this scheme is that this is a working vehicle and not one used for being flash, thus what is the point in having an over the top, colourful paint job. SO this is what it finally looks like, enjoy...

Weapon obsession continued

So I am not sure about this one. I want a grenade launcher in my arsenal but this model isn't quite what I expected to come out of my mind. However it does have a rather interesting look to it so I reckon I will keep it. I might well work on another version but not right now as I have other models to make =p Until then...

So after a long night of work, here is some more...

These pictures show some of the changes I have made to my models. I made grips for the handles on both the rifle and the pistol as well as removing the flash suppressor from the pistol and shortening the barrel. I did this because the pistol looked way too front heavy, meaning the barrel would drop when firing. Plus it just made it look way to bulky anyhow. I also created a sniper rifle modification by adding a longer barrel, a bi pod and a scope on top of the rifle. This allows me to load out the armoury with all the weapons you would expect an evil villain to equip his henchmen with. Anyhow enjoy...

And the next instalment...

Ok so I appear to of got a little obsessive tonight with the whole modelling thing, thus this second creation for my armoury. This pistol follows the same basic design as the rifle, as is standard with any evil armies arsenal (why spend money on different style weapons when you can make similar ones for cheaper and spend the savings on more henchmen?) Anyhow since I did the rifle first and this follows the same basic design and is obviously smaller it took less time, around about 30 minutes in fact. Now that's two weapons down and maybe a couple more to go, will keep you posted my loyal fans!

And the chewy armoury filling...

So as you can see this is a gun. I know your probably reeling from that shocking statement but one can't help that. The reason I have created this model though, apart from being rather fun, is to allow me to create an armoury in my Super villains lair. Now I know what your saying, villains don't use guns! They use some over the top mega death ray cannon that always blows up! Well true they do, however my villain is somewhat of a genius, and as such has hired henchmen to help do his evil bidding and run the lair. These stupid yet tough men are not above using your conventional, everyday firearms and as such a need for a place to store them was found. And when you have an armoury, you must have weapons with which to fill it, hence this rifle. It is just one of many weapons I am creating to fill the armoury, other screens will follow in the next day or so showing the others I have created. Till then I leave you with this...

Total time to make said rifle was about one and a half hours. I have yet to add materials to it however. I am waiting for the seminar on adding them so that I have a better understanding of how to do so and thus can make it look rather good.

Just a quickie...

For my visual essay I have had the idea of using 3DS MAX to create an art gallery as it were and then have the viewer take a virtual tour around it. I originally thought this idea would be mine and mine alone, however after browsing some of the other blogs I have discovered somebody else as crazy as me =p Well I am sticking with the idea and will post screens once I have the basic thing done...

So I have been commissioned...

All right maybe commissioned is the wrong word but what has happened is that one of my friends has asked me to design and make some buildings for an RTS game he is working on. Am I excited by this idea? You better believe it!!! RTS games are my number one favourite of all times and being able to be part of making one (no matter how small or low budget) fills me with so much enthusiasm and excitement that I haven't stopped drawing ideas since he asked me. As I have my virtual environments project to do at the moment I will be working on the models for this over the summer but rest assured I shall be posting screens on here throughout so keep coming back to see what I have made =)

Welcome to my lair! Mwhaha

Well here we have the first look at what is soon to become my lair. As you can see it is a bit on the large side, and at the moment seems to resemble a German bunker complex but that will soon all change (hopefully!!!) I realise the brief said to do around 4 rooms but I got a bit carried away with my design, mainly because I was enjoying it so much, so I have a dilemma, I either give up my life and do all the rooms or I spend time on 4 of the rooms and then leave the others as sort of a continuous project. The second is more likely, as this means I can keep adding to it and make it rather formidable =) What I have so far I found pretty easy to create, and was able to do it within a couple of hours, the interiors will obviously take more time but I am confident that I can create something rather cool with this =)

After more work on my cannon

After more practice I have made some changes to my original cannon. I have made a new support for the rear of the cannon, making it look more like the picture I used as a reference. I have also added metal work to the wheels and a towing ring to the rear support. All in all I think these improvements help to make it look much more realistic and I for one am happy with it =)

Finally getting the hang of this... sort of

Well I set myself the task of getting to know 3DS MAX over the Easter, thus giving myself a bit of a hand when I start the lair project. As such I borrowed a book from my library called the 3DS MAX 2009 Bible. This book is 1200 pages of tutorials and tips, starting from the basics and moving up to more complicated stuff. So here is the first tutorial I decided to have a go at, a cannon! There are several pictures, the more basic one is where the tutorial leads you too, giving you a basic cannon with out much detail or originality, or for that matter very much colour. The others show how I have edited the materials and added additional details, such as the pile of cannonballs and the handles on the back of it. I have also added a light source in the shape of the sun and a horizon line. Now that I am getting more used to the program I am really starting to enjoy using it, and seeing as this is the pathway I want to take next year this is certainly a good thing =p I will updating my blog with pictures of further projects I try, so keep checking to see what I have made =)

Thinking of lairs.....

Right, well seeing as I will be starting the Virtual Environments project in a weeks time I think its time I started to look at how I want my lair to look. My biggest influence I have to say is the work of 2K games, in their games "Bioshock" and "Bioshock 2". The architecture of Rapture is what brings the games to life, and as such I want to try to incorporate this into my lair. It's a combination of 50's and 60's Architecture and what deep sea architecture would look like from that time. It kind of reminds me of the old style diving suits, but in city form, if that isn't a weird comparison...

3DS Max- Ice cubes

So this is a tutorial I found on another Blog ( Jazzs' blog to be exact). It is a really good tutorial on how to make a basic ice cube model and also shows you how to apply a material that looks like ice. This took a grand total of about 10 minutes but really helps you to learn the basics. It also helps my confidence in getting to know the program I am hoping to be using for the next two years =D

So remember Heavy Rain???

This is just for a little bit of fun. This guy is a games reviewer who says all the things that magazines and such aren't allowed to. It is a refreshingly new look at how to review games and one that always has me in stitches =)

BTW the size of the video is being annoying so to watch it fully just click on the vid and it will take you to his website where all the videos are, then just have a browse and a giggle...

3DS MAX - Did the Devil finally get into software creation?

Well this is just a quickie... just downloaded the trial for 3DS MAX so that I can get a head start on learning it over the Easter holidays, thus removing some of the pressure of learning it when we come back after.. and I have to say I have not seen a more complicated program on first view before, sooooo many buttons, all of which do scary things, even though I can't tell what they have actually done. It's going to take some learning but then hey, what am I here for right?

First movies, now games. Is 3D taking over?

http://gizmodo.com/5493828/screw-avatar-3d-gaming-is-what-will-get-you-to-buy-a-new-tv

This is a link to an article talking about the latest in 3D gaming. It talks about how it helps with the field of depth when exploring the game and how it helps with shooting and targeting. I for one like the idea of 3D gaming, being an avid gamer myself ( I am sure you all know this and am tired of me saying it all the time =p) Anything that helps to involve a player more is a bonus in my books, thus this kind of thing gets me excited. Read it at your leisure...

Context 1 lecture- exercise

Well this quite simply is what the title says it is, a task we were set in our lecture... so here goes...

From interviewing somebody using the questions I thought up I have come to the following conclusions:

1. People are developing their skills alongside the other projects we are doing. The person I interviewed is undecided between Web and Virtual Environments, and as such has been working on Web page projects for clients as well as giving 3DS MAX a go, and their conclusion is that they enjoy both but 3D is unnecessarily difficult!

2. I also found out that a lot of the knowledge we are gathering and the help we are getting is coming from other students, including first years. This is mainly due to our different interests and backgrounds. This collective of knowledge is certainly a bonus to us all.

3. We have also developed our skills since starting this course, moving into more complex areas of what we are interested in. We have also started analyzing what we do in a much more effective way, allowing us to get more from what we do.

Looking at music

Well looking at the music for our moving image has led me to look at music from the 60's/70's for our voice over scenes. This music will only be played in clips, as the scenes aren't overly long, but will hopefully help set the idea of this girl living in the past as it were, her thoughts always going back to that time. A good source for this music, in my opinion anyhow, is the OST from "The Boat That Rocked" as it has a good variety of music from the era we are looking at. In particular I have been listening to the slower, more "sad" songs as it were, as they help to set the idea of this girl being upset or sad, and also being apart from the rest of the world.

These are just a few songs I have been looking at. Feel free to search them:

. The End of the World - Skeeter Davis
. You Don't have to say you love me - Dusty Springfield
. Knights in White Satin- The Moody Blues
. Father & Son - Cat Stevens
. A Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum
. Romeo & Juliet - Dire Straits

Another curious thing- lego moving into games?

http://kotaku.com/5490093/lego-universe-beta-ready-to-brick-your-computer

http://kotaku.com/5489855/prince-of-persia-lego-playsets-chesty-jake-wears-a-shirt

These are a couple of links just showing what appears to be Lego trying to appeal to the youth of today as it were by cashing in on the popularity of the games industry. The first link shows a sort of World of Warcraft style free roaming universe, except in Lego form, and the second shows Lego "Prince of Persia" sets, again cashing in on the Game and recently turned Film. Mega Blocks did something similar to this with the "Halo" games series, bringing out complete sets, vehicles and character figures.

New obsession + curious thing

Right I can now say I am getting obsessed with Gary's Mod, a sandbox tool that you can access through Steam. Quite simply you can use any object from Steam as a prop and create pretty much anything using them. This can range from a series of short films to just having a laugh by making a trebuchet out of a shipping container and some wooden posts and launching cars across the map. Whatever it is you like to do you can on this program. It even lets you get as detailed as changing facial expressions and fingers. I am currently playing about with it relating to the story board for our Moving Image project, just for a bit of fun, and will post screen shots when I can. Until then enjoy this little video from a master of the program.

Curious thing of the week- 3rd space vest

I know this might look odd but bear with me on this. What we have here is known as the 3rd Space vest. Basically it is a gaming accessory that has been developed and released recently. What it does is quite revolutionary, it registers hits you take in game and then translates that to a force in the vest (ranging from a small force for light hits up to 10lbs for heavy hits). It uses pressure pads to create this feeling of force, 8 in total, and is meant to help the player feel more immersed in the game they are playing.

This vest, in my opinion, goes hand in hand with trying to make games more lifelike and more like you are actually there. This is already being achieved with high spec graphics, and the vibration through the controller in your hands whenever you fire a weapon or interact with something. This is the next stage, allowing you to "feel" the game through your entire body.

In some ways this looks like it could be a lot of fun, taking hits and feeling them. In other ways I feel this is a bit of a fad item. After a while you might well get annoyed with feeling every hit you take and then stop using it (at £150 this is a bad thing!) I personally though would buy one if I had the money because I like the concept of being more immersed in my games, as games and everything about them are a big part of my life.

Moving image, Inspiration

We have taken inspiration from "Let The Right One In" in the form of the connection between two characters. Our script centres on this notion, the connection between a girl who is not used to people noticing or communicating with her, and a man who changes this.

We have also taken inspiration from the film "The Sixth Sense" Our film takes inspiration from this with our male characters ability to communicate with the girl (who is in fact dead and is now just a ghost) We are using the idea that our girl is a ghost as it helps to explain how she has become so good at reading people so quickly.

Curious thing of the week- Curious Displays

http://kotaku.com/5477917/what-life-as-a-sim-might-look-like

Curious displays is a graduate thesis piece produced by Julia Yu Tsao. It takes the ideas of using half inch blocks that float around and act as a form of reminder about different things, sort of a free floating diary or calendar. The block diary it appears can receive updates about appointments or meetings that have been changed and update you about it. As an idea I think its pretty amazing, however we are nowhere near the technological ability yet to create it, unless done digitally or projected. As a concept though it really works and would ensure we no longer have that issue where we lose the remote down the side of the sofa!

Visual Essay- 2K games first look