The idea for the second ident for the discovery channel was a table showing different science equipment and apparatus. The ident would start with zooming in on the table, then travelling around the table and finally landing on the Discovery Channel logo.
The table was created with a large, flat box drawn into the viewport. Four narrow cylinders were drawn and attached to the box to create the table legs. The paper on the table was created by three very thin boxes drawn and placed on top of each other, rotated slightly to show three bits of paper. The petri dishes were created by drawing a thin cylinder for the base and then adding a tube on top, the same diameter and a small height dimension. The same method was adopted for the beaker but with a larger height diameter on the tube for the sides. The test tube rack was created with 4 boxes created and placed at ends to form a hollow box. The holes in the top were created by drawing four cylinders and placing them through the top. A Pro Boolean was then used on the top to remove the cylinders, leaving a top with four holes. On the base of the test tube rack, four spheres were placed and the same technique of using a Pro Boolean removed the spheres leaving a small indent. The test tubes were created with a tube for the main body and a sphere for the bottom rounded section. A pro boolean was used again to cut the sphere in half. These were grouped together and cloned to create 3 test tubes. These were then placed into the test tube rack previously created. The bunsen burner was created with lots of different sized cylinders and a cone for the base. These were placed together, whilst looking at real images of bunsen burners to get the desired effect. Another longer cylinder was then used with a bend modifier for the gas pipe coming out of the tube. The bunsen burner stand was created with a torus for the top and four cylinders for legs.
Finally, the flame for the Bunsen burner was created with a sphere gizmo and a fire effect added to it. The levels were tweaked until the desired effect was achieved. This was then placed over the top of the bunsen burner model.
A range of materials were used to bring the table to life. A wood map was used for the table top. A grey blinn shader was used for the table legs, bunsen burner and stand. The metal effect was created by adding a light grey ambient and diffuse colour, changing the white specular level to 77 and increasing the glossiness to 23. A bitmap map was used with a picture of an A4 document to add to the paper on the desk. This gives the effect of really being a document on the table. The bottoms of the petri dishes had bitmap maps added to them with images from real petri dishes. These images were tiled 10 times in both axis to give a good effect. The clear effect for the side of the petri dishes, beaker and test tubes was created with an off white blinn shader with the opacity set to 27. Another cylinder was placed inside the beaker with a light colour to give the effect of liquid inside. Finally, another bitmap was used on a map for the Discovery Channel logo in the bottom left hand corner of the table.
A target spot light was placed above the table, flooding the table scene with light. The hotspot/beam was set to 100 to cover the whole table. An omni light was also placed slightly off the scene to the front to add a little more ambient light.
A free camera was placed in the top right hand corner of the scene with a very wide angle lens. Over the period of 400 keyframes, the lens was set to very telephoto so by the end of the animation, the camera was highly zoomed into the table. This was the first section of the ident.
The second section consisted of a camera tracking right to left over the entire table. It then ended up on the sheets of paper placed on the table in the scene. Finally, the camera moved round and centred on the discovery logo on the table. This ended the ident.
The clips were imported into Premiere Pro and linked together, again with cross dissolve transitions. The zoom into the table was slowed down to 50% as it was too fast from the render from 3DS Max. Finally, the camera stops on the Discovery logo for a few seconds and then the video fades to black.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Ident 1: DNA
My first ident for the discovery channel is looking at DNA. The scene starts with a single strand of DNA turning, moves onto vertical strands of DNA and finally ending with travelling through a strand of DNA.
The DNA strand was created by drawing two thin, parallel cylinders into the viewport. Between these cylinders, smaller, thinner cylinders were drawn and placed along the entire length. The whole section of DNA strand was then selected and grouped together to form a single object. A twist modifier was then added to the group along the X axis with an angle of 180 degrees. This provided the shape required for the DNA. The group was then cloned four times and placed next to each other forming a long strand of DNA with many twists in it.
To make the DNA more authentic, materials were added to the strands. 5 main materials were created for the 5 different sections of the DNA strand. The main outer of the DNA strand was a Blinn shader with a Blue Ambient and Diffuse colour. The glossiness was set to 10. This was then applied to the two parallel cylinders of the DNA strand. Then, four other materials were created similarly with different ambient and diffuse colours of Yellow, Red, Green and Pink. These were alternately applied to the smaller cylinders to mimick a real DNA model.
For the first part of the animation, a camera was placed at the side of the strand in a similar position to the perspective viewport. Over a period of 400 keyframes, the DNA strand was rotated along it's X axis. When the timeline was played, the DNA strand was slowly rotating. This scene was rendered to form the first section to the ident.
The next section consisted of lots of vertical strands of DNA. The strand created earlier was moved to a vertical position and cloned 18 times. The heights and original positions of the strands was adjusted so they did not all look uniform. Over 400 keyframes, the strands were set to rotate as in the first scene but at different times to make them look different. A spline was drawn as a path through the strands of DNA. A free camera was placed in the viewport and a path constraint linked to the spline created. The camera was then set to follow the path over 400 keyframes. This view was then rendered to provide the second section of the ident.
Finally, a free camera was placed at the end of one of the DNA strands and over 400 keyframes was moved through to the other side, along the entire length of the strand. The strand was also set to rotate as in all the other scenes. The final view was of the camera moving through the spinning strand.
The three rendered scenes were imported into Adobe Premiere Pro and linked together with a cross dissolve transition. At the end of the 3 rendered scenes, a static plate with the channel logo was placed on the timeline with a zoom transition. When the video was exported, the ident was complete.
The DNA strand was created by drawing two thin, parallel cylinders into the viewport. Between these cylinders, smaller, thinner cylinders were drawn and placed along the entire length. The whole section of DNA strand was then selected and grouped together to form a single object. A twist modifier was then added to the group along the X axis with an angle of 180 degrees. This provided the shape required for the DNA. The group was then cloned four times and placed next to each other forming a long strand of DNA with many twists in it.
To make the DNA more authentic, materials were added to the strands. 5 main materials were created for the 5 different sections of the DNA strand. The main outer of the DNA strand was a Blinn shader with a Blue Ambient and Diffuse colour. The glossiness was set to 10. This was then applied to the two parallel cylinders of the DNA strand. Then, four other materials were created similarly with different ambient and diffuse colours of Yellow, Red, Green and Pink. These were alternately applied to the smaller cylinders to mimick a real DNA model.
For the first part of the animation, a camera was placed at the side of the strand in a similar position to the perspective viewport. Over a period of 400 keyframes, the DNA strand was rotated along it's X axis. When the timeline was played, the DNA strand was slowly rotating. This scene was rendered to form the first section to the ident.
The next section consisted of lots of vertical strands of DNA. The strand created earlier was moved to a vertical position and cloned 18 times. The heights and original positions of the strands was adjusted so they did not all look uniform. Over 400 keyframes, the strands were set to rotate as in the first scene but at different times to make them look different. A spline was drawn as a path through the strands of DNA. A free camera was placed in the viewport and a path constraint linked to the spline created. The camera was then set to follow the path over 400 keyframes. This view was then rendered to provide the second section of the ident.
Finally, a free camera was placed at the end of one of the DNA strands and over 400 keyframes was moved through to the other side, along the entire length of the strand. The strand was also set to rotate as in all the other scenes. The final view was of the camera moving through the spinning strand.
The three rendered scenes were imported into Adobe Premiere Pro and linked together with a cross dissolve transition. At the end of the 3 rendered scenes, a static plate with the channel logo was placed on the timeline with a zoom transition. When the video was exported, the ident was complete.
Thursday, 29 January 2009
First Animation in 3DS Max
Well, back for the second semester and now starting animation!
For our first tutorial, we learned about the basics of animation and key framing. My first video below shows how I animated a torus knot.
First, I drew out the knot onto the viewport then switched on the auto key framing tool. Then, I moved the timeline slider along the bottom along by 20 frames and then moved and rotated the torus knot. I repeated this step about 10 times until finally ending up back where the torus knot had started. When playing this back, the torus knot moves and rotates its way around the viewport.
Secondly, I created a sphere in the viewport and then, using a similar approach to the previous animation, I used the scale and move tools to modify the sphere at different times on the timeline. After I had done this, I opened up the graph editor and played around with some of the lines, changing how certain movements occurred and their speed. When I had finished, I exported the animation as an avi file and the result is shown below!
For our first tutorial, we learned about the basics of animation and key framing. My first video below shows how I animated a torus knot.
First, I drew out the knot onto the viewport then switched on the auto key framing tool. Then, I moved the timeline slider along the bottom along by 20 frames and then moved and rotated the torus knot. I repeated this step about 10 times until finally ending up back where the torus knot had started. When playing this back, the torus knot moves and rotates its way around the viewport.
Secondly, I created a sphere in the viewport and then, using a similar approach to the previous animation, I used the scale and move tools to modify the sphere at different times on the timeline. After I had done this, I opened up the graph editor and played around with some of the lines, changing how certain movements occurred and their speed. When I had finished, I exported the animation as an avi file and the result is shown below!
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Semester 1
Thoughts
Overall, I am quite pleased with what I have come up with during this semester, looking at 3D Studio Max. However, I did come across a few problems I hope to sort out before next semester.
The version of 3DS Max I was using at home and on my laptop was newer than the version used at the University. Unfortunately, that meant the work I had created at home couldn’t be opened on the university machines. Therefore, I had to work from my laptop which wasn’t easy as the screen wasn’t quite big enough and I didn’t always have a mouse, so in the end, I did most of my work at home on my desktop computer which with large monitors was much better. However, I hope to find a different version for my computer before semester two so I can open my work on the university machines as well as my own.
Targets for Next Semester
For next semester, I am going to try to organise my time better and set regular small targets to ensure that I get all the work completed in time. Although I finished all the work for this semester, I still feel with some more time which I could have gained earlier on, would have helped produce some better work.
I am also going to try to keep my blog more up to date with regular updates and entries, something which I didn’t do too well this semester.
Overall, I am quite pleased with what I have come up with during this semester, looking at 3D Studio Max. However, I did come across a few problems I hope to sort out before next semester.
The version of 3DS Max I was using at home and on my laptop was newer than the version used at the University. Unfortunately, that meant the work I had created at home couldn’t be opened on the university machines. Therefore, I had to work from my laptop which wasn’t easy as the screen wasn’t quite big enough and I didn’t always have a mouse, so in the end, I did most of my work at home on my desktop computer which with large monitors was much better. However, I hope to find a different version for my computer before semester two so I can open my work on the university machines as well as my own.
Targets for Next Semester
For next semester, I am going to try to organise my time better and set regular small targets to ensure that I get all the work completed in time. Although I finished all the work for this semester, I still feel with some more time which I could have gained earlier on, would have helped produce some better work.
I am also going to try to keep my blog more up to date with regular updates and entries, something which I didn’t do too well this semester.
December Image
For my December Image I chose to focus on a snow scene and a snowman. I felt this image went quite well and I am pleased with the finished result. I could have maybe added some more elements to this image. Here is how I created this image.
Creating the Scene
I started by creating a thin cylinder with a large radius to sit the whole image on. I then created a box at the back of the cylinder to act as a background. I made this thin but tall and wide enough to fill the entire viewport. I then also added some spheres to the back of the image as small hills just to break up the horizon line a little as it looked very bare without them. I drew out several different sized spheres and placed them mostly below the surface with the top section sticking out over the top.
Creating the Snowman
To create my snowman, I drew two spheres, one larger than the other and positioned them on top of each other. I then converted them to editable poly so I could manipulate the spheres to make them look less like two perfect spheres. I used the soft selection tool and pulled the image around until I was happy with the finished result. I then positioned these spheres above the base so it looked like the snowman was built on the ground.
I then created 4 small spheres of different sizes to use as the eyes and the buttons on the front of the body. I also converted these to editable poly and modified them slightly so they were not perfect circles. I then positioned these and rotated them to the correct position on the snowman’s body.
To create the carrot nose, I drew out a small cone, rotated it 90 degrees and positioned it onto the snowman.
I created a torus to go around the snowman’s neck to look like a scarf. Once I had converted this to editable poly I then extruded a small portion of this to make it look like the tail end of the scarf. I then positioned this around the neck of the snowman which I felt looked quite good!
I created two sticks for the arms in the same way I did the November scene by taking a cylinder, converting it to editable poly and pulling it around until it was no longer straight and a perfect shape. I cloned this and positioned it on the other side of the snowman’s body. I rotated the shape around a bit so they did not look identical to each other.
Creating the Extras
I drew out a small sphere to use as a snowball for the scene. I cloned this 3 times and positioned them so there was a pile of snowballs next to the base of the snowman.
To create the presents, I drew out two boxes of different shapes and positioned them roughly where I wanted them in the scene. I added ribbon by creating small, thin boxes and positioning them to look like some ribbon covering the presents. To finish these off, I added a torus knot on top to look like the bow on top of the presents.
Adding Materials
For the presents in the scene, I took an image of some wrapping paper and applied it as a map to a Blinn material which I then applied to the boxes. The ribbons and torus knot are simply coloured red as I felt they looked ok without any materials or maps on them.
For the scarf, again, I used an image of a scarf from the internet, edited it in Photoshop slightly and then applied it as a map to the scarf. I had to tile the map by 10 in both directions and also rotate the map by 90 degrees. This gave me the look I was after for the scarf.
For the stones in the front of the snowman, I used a stone texture and added that to a material as a map which I then simply applied to the stones and it worked quite well as a texture.
Using an image of some bark like I did with my November image, I created the material for the sticks. I tiled the map by 3 and 5 to get the look I was after for the twigs. As the shapes were not identical, the fitted the material differently and this made them look even less alike which was good.
To create the snow, I found a couple of tutorials to read through. I don’t think this produced the best snow effect but I couldn’t find anything better to use. I created a Bump map which was a mix between a Cellular map and a Noise map. The noise map was just black and white whilst the cellular map consisted of some darker greys as well as white and black. I then applied this material to the snowman and the surroundings. I tweaked the parameters slightly on the material to try and get a good snow look but it was the best I could come up with.
Finally, the background image comes from the internet and is applied to the box at the back of the scene.
Finishing Touches
I added a Target Camera at the front of the scene, quite low down to give the perspective feel which also helped with the hills on the horizon. I played around getting the position of this just right for quite a while!
I added two omni lights to the scene, one at the top and one at the bottom to give the scene enough light so everything was visible.
I also added a Target Spot light from behind which simulates where the moon is in the background image. I turned on the shadow map for this light to cast a shadow on the ground, giving an even better impression of moonlight. I played around with the settings for the target light, adjusting the intensity and focus so it was not such a bright spotlight but a more gentle moonlight!
Final Thoughts
I am quite pleased with this image and how it has come out. If I had more time to work on it I would like to have a go at making a different snow material as I am still not 100% happy with how that has come out.
Overall, I am quite pleased with this image and from comments from others, they like it too!
Creating the SceneI started by creating a thin cylinder with a large radius to sit the whole image on. I then created a box at the back of the cylinder to act as a background. I made this thin but tall and wide enough to fill the entire viewport. I then also added some spheres to the back of the image as small hills just to break up the horizon line a little as it looked very bare without them. I drew out several different sized spheres and placed them mostly below the surface with the top section sticking out over the top.
Creating the Snowman
To create my snowman, I drew two spheres, one larger than the other and positioned them on top of each other. I then converted them to editable poly so I could manipulate the spheres to make them look less like two perfect spheres. I used the soft selection tool and pulled the image around until I was happy with the finished result. I then positioned these spheres above the base so it looked like the snowman was built on the ground.
I then created 4 small spheres of different sizes to use as the eyes and the buttons on the front of the body. I also converted these to editable poly and modified them slightly so they were not perfect circles. I then positioned these and rotated them to the correct position on the snowman’s body.
To create the carrot nose, I drew out a small cone, rotated it 90 degrees and positioned it onto the snowman.
I created a torus to go around the snowman’s neck to look like a scarf. Once I had converted this to editable poly I then extruded a small portion of this to make it look like the tail end of the scarf. I then positioned this around the neck of the snowman which I felt looked quite good!
I created two sticks for the arms in the same way I did the November scene by taking a cylinder, converting it to editable poly and pulling it around until it was no longer straight and a perfect shape. I cloned this and positioned it on the other side of the snowman’s body. I rotated the shape around a bit so they did not look identical to each other.
Creating the Extras
I drew out a small sphere to use as a snowball for the scene. I cloned this 3 times and positioned them so there was a pile of snowballs next to the base of the snowman.
To create the presents, I drew out two boxes of different shapes and positioned them roughly where I wanted them in the scene. I added ribbon by creating small, thin boxes and positioning them to look like some ribbon covering the presents. To finish these off, I added a torus knot on top to look like the bow on top of the presents.
Adding Materials
For the presents in the scene, I took an image of some wrapping paper and applied it as a map to a Blinn material which I then applied to the boxes. The ribbons and torus knot are simply coloured red as I felt they looked ok without any materials or maps on them.
For the scarf, again, I used an image of a scarf from the internet, edited it in Photoshop slightly and then applied it as a map to the scarf. I had to tile the map by 10 in both directions and also rotate the map by 90 degrees. This gave me the look I was after for the scarf.
For the stones in the front of the snowman, I used a stone texture and added that to a material as a map which I then simply applied to the stones and it worked quite well as a texture.
Using an image of some bark like I did with my November image, I created the material for the sticks. I tiled the map by 3 and 5 to get the look I was after for the twigs. As the shapes were not identical, the fitted the material differently and this made them look even less alike which was good.
To create the snow, I found a couple of tutorials to read through. I don’t think this produced the best snow effect but I couldn’t find anything better to use. I created a Bump map which was a mix between a Cellular map and a Noise map. The noise map was just black and white whilst the cellular map consisted of some darker greys as well as white and black. I then applied this material to the snowman and the surroundings. I tweaked the parameters slightly on the material to try and get a good snow look but it was the best I could come up with.
Finally, the background image comes from the internet and is applied to the box at the back of the scene.
Finishing Touches
I added a Target Camera at the front of the scene, quite low down to give the perspective feel which also helped with the hills on the horizon. I played around getting the position of this just right for quite a while!
I added two omni lights to the scene, one at the top and one at the bottom to give the scene enough light so everything was visible.
I also added a Target Spot light from behind which simulates where the moon is in the background image. I turned on the shadow map for this light to cast a shadow on the ground, giving an even better impression of moonlight. I played around with the settings for the target light, adjusting the intensity and focus so it was not such a bright spotlight but a more gentle moonlight!
Final Thoughts
I am quite pleased with this image and how it has come out. If I had more time to work on it I would like to have a go at making a different snow material as I am still not 100% happy with how that has come out.
Overall, I am quite pleased with this image and from comments from others, they like it too!
November Image
I feel that my November image has come out quite well. After reading a few tutorials online I found that it was quite easy to create the fire effect and that really finishes the image off! Here is how I created the Bonfire scene.
Creating the scene
Firstly, I drew out a cylinder with only a very thin height to build the rest of my image up on. I then drew some spheres in different sizes to use as hills in the background. I positioned these at the back of the cylinder with only the top section showing through. Having some closer to the front than the others gave the impression of depth to the image.
I then added a box at the back of the cylinder that was wide and tall enough to fill the viewport but only with a very small depth. Later on I would use this as the background.
Creating the Bonfire
First, I had to create some logs for the fire. I started off with a cylinder and converted it to Editable Poly, where I pulled the vertices around a bit until the cylinder looked a bit wonky! This gave me my rough log shape that I could use to build up my bonfire.
I then cloned this log several times and rotated and arranged them into a circle to create the built up fire. Once I had done this, I grouped all the logs together and cloned the group so I had two sets of logs. I lowered one set and rotated it slightly, placing it underneath the other to give the bonfire some depth and to make it look like there are a lot more logs there.
I then created another cylinder that was just wide enough for the bonfire to sit on. I would use this later as the dirt underneath the bonfire. To create the stones to surround the bonfire, I drew out a small sphere and placed it with about half showing through the cylinder base. I then cloned this many times and positioned the clones all the way around the perimeter of the bonfire until I had a complete circle.
Now I had the basis of the bonfire, I needed to create the most important bit, the fire!
To do this, I went to the create menu, helpers, atmospherics and Sphere Gizmo. I gave the gizmo a radius of 43.6 and then added a Fire effect under Atmosphere and Effect. I set the flame type to Fireball and then played around with the characteristics of the flame until I was happy with the result. I then positioned the Sphere Gizmo in the centre of the log pile and with the top half sticking up over the top. This gave a good effect of the flames coming from the logs themselves.
Adding Materials
To complete the image, I needed to add some materials to make the shapes look even more realistic. First I added materials to the scene.
For the main ground, I added a grass bitmap to a Blinn Material and set the map properties to Texture and Planar from Object. I then applied this to the base cylinder which worked well in the scene. For the hills in the background, I used the same technique but with a few different properties on the material as the same material didn’t look quite right. I changed the map properties to Environment and Screen mapping. When I applied this new material to the hills, they looked much better against the base cylinder rather than with the same material.
For the logs of the bonfire, I created another material with a bitmap image of some tree bark which I tiled 1.5 times in both directions. I changed the specular level to 26 to add some highlights and softened the image slightly by 0.4. I then applied this material to all of the logs that made up the bonfire. I felt this material looked really good on the logs and worked well.
To create a dirt base to the bonfire, I created yet another material with an image of some soil as the map and changed the map settings to Environment and Screen Mapping. Applying this to the cylinder gave a good soil base to the bonfire which made it even more realistic.
Finally, I added a background image material to the box at the back of image which I found on the internet. If I had more time I would have created the image myself.
Finishing Touches
As the perspective viewport wasn’t quite right as a good view of the image, I created a Target camera and placed this at the front of the image looking down onto the scene. I positioned it such that the bonfire was the centre focal point with the hills providing a good horizon line.
I added two omni lights to the scene, one at the front and one backlighting. This just gave the right amount of light on the scene to make it as realistic as possible. As the background image was a night scene, the image had to look like night time but also with enough light so that everything could be seen! I played around with a few intensity settings for the lights but I found that they looked good without much tweeking.
Finally, I added a target spot light directly about the bonfire. I changed the spot radius to the same size as the bonfire and adjusted the falloff so that there was some spill around the edge of the light. I changed the colour of this light to a light yellow orange colour to give the impression the light was coming from the bonfire itself.
Final Thoughts
I really like this image and I am happy with how it has come out. I tried creating some smoke coming from the top of the fire by following a couple of online tutorials but in the end I decided I didn’t like the look with the smoke coming off of the top.
I feel if I had spent a bit more time on this I could have added some extra elements to this image such as fireworks or people standing by.
Overall, I am happy with the outcome of this image.
Creating the sceneFirstly, I drew out a cylinder with only a very thin height to build the rest of my image up on. I then drew some spheres in different sizes to use as hills in the background. I positioned these at the back of the cylinder with only the top section showing through. Having some closer to the front than the others gave the impression of depth to the image.
I then added a box at the back of the cylinder that was wide and tall enough to fill the viewport but only with a very small depth. Later on I would use this as the background.
Creating the Bonfire
First, I had to create some logs for the fire. I started off with a cylinder and converted it to Editable Poly, where I pulled the vertices around a bit until the cylinder looked a bit wonky! This gave me my rough log shape that I could use to build up my bonfire.
I then cloned this log several times and rotated and arranged them into a circle to create the built up fire. Once I had done this, I grouped all the logs together and cloned the group so I had two sets of logs. I lowered one set and rotated it slightly, placing it underneath the other to give the bonfire some depth and to make it look like there are a lot more logs there.
I then created another cylinder that was just wide enough for the bonfire to sit on. I would use this later as the dirt underneath the bonfire. To create the stones to surround the bonfire, I drew out a small sphere and placed it with about half showing through the cylinder base. I then cloned this many times and positioned the clones all the way around the perimeter of the bonfire until I had a complete circle.
Now I had the basis of the bonfire, I needed to create the most important bit, the fire!
To do this, I went to the create menu, helpers, atmospherics and Sphere Gizmo. I gave the gizmo a radius of 43.6 and then added a Fire effect under Atmosphere and Effect. I set the flame type to Fireball and then played around with the characteristics of the flame until I was happy with the result. I then positioned the Sphere Gizmo in the centre of the log pile and with the top half sticking up over the top. This gave a good effect of the flames coming from the logs themselves.
Adding Materials
To complete the image, I needed to add some materials to make the shapes look even more realistic. First I added materials to the scene.
For the main ground, I added a grass bitmap to a Blinn Material and set the map properties to Texture and Planar from Object. I then applied this to the base cylinder which worked well in the scene. For the hills in the background, I used the same technique but with a few different properties on the material as the same material didn’t look quite right. I changed the map properties to Environment and Screen mapping. When I applied this new material to the hills, they looked much better against the base cylinder rather than with the same material.
For the logs of the bonfire, I created another material with a bitmap image of some tree bark which I tiled 1.5 times in both directions. I changed the specular level to 26 to add some highlights and softened the image slightly by 0.4. I then applied this material to all of the logs that made up the bonfire. I felt this material looked really good on the logs and worked well.
To create a dirt base to the bonfire, I created yet another material with an image of some soil as the map and changed the map settings to Environment and Screen Mapping. Applying this to the cylinder gave a good soil base to the bonfire which made it even more realistic.
Finally, I added a background image material to the box at the back of image which I found on the internet. If I had more time I would have created the image myself.
Finishing Touches
As the perspective viewport wasn’t quite right as a good view of the image, I created a Target camera and placed this at the front of the image looking down onto the scene. I positioned it such that the bonfire was the centre focal point with the hills providing a good horizon line.
I added two omni lights to the scene, one at the front and one backlighting. This just gave the right amount of light on the scene to make it as realistic as possible. As the background image was a night scene, the image had to look like night time but also with enough light so that everything could be seen! I played around with a few intensity settings for the lights but I found that they looked good without much tweeking.
Finally, I added a target spot light directly about the bonfire. I changed the spot radius to the same size as the bonfire and adjusted the falloff so that there was some spill around the edge of the light. I changed the colour of this light to a light yellow orange colour to give the impression the light was coming from the bonfire itself.
Final Thoughts
I really like this image and I am happy with how it has come out. I tried creating some smoke coming from the top of the fire by following a couple of online tutorials but in the end I decided I didn’t like the look with the smoke coming off of the top.
I feel if I had spent a bit more time on this I could have added some extra elements to this image such as fireworks or people standing by.
Overall, I am happy with the outcome of this image.
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
March Image
This is my least favourite image out of the three that I have created in 3D Studio Max. After all the warnings of not leaving one image to the last couple of weeks, I still somehow managed to do it and I felt I was rushing this image and it hasn’t really come out the way I had hoped.
However, here goes as to how I created my daffodil for the March Calendar image
Creating the Background
To create the background, I drew out a box that was big enough to fill the viewport. I rotated this until it was in the correct position. I then applied a material with a background image to this box. I found the image to use in the background on the internet. If I had more time, I would have created my own image. This finished the background for this image.
Creating the Daffodil
I started off by creating the stem for the daffodil. I drew out a long, thin cylinder, converted the shape to editable poly and applied a bend modifier with an angle of -35.5 in the Z axis. This gave me a realistic shape for the stem. I rotated the stem until it was in the position that I was happy with.
To create the petals, I drew out the petal shape with a line spline until I had my petal shape. When I was happy with the shape, I converted the shape to editable poly and extruded the image very slightly so the shape had some depth. On the reverse of the shape, I selected the border and capped the shape so it was a solid shape. I then applied another bend modifier to the petal to make it look even more realistic. I used roughly about 40/50 degrees angle and the same for direction in the Y axis. I then cloned this shape 3 times so I had 4 petals in total. I adjusted the bend modifier for each one so they were not the same. I then rotated and positioned the four petals so they were in a circle at the top of the stem.
I then had to create the centre part of the daffodil. To do this, I created another spline that outlined one side of the centre part of the flower. I then applied the lathe modifier to create the full bowl style shape that I was after. I then rotated and positioned this at the top of the step, sticking out in the middle of all of the petals.
I then created a small cylinder and applied a bend modifier to it. I cloned this two times and then placed these three inside the middle part of the daffodil.
Finally, I created the leaf at the bottom of the image with another line spline and converted this to editable poly. I then rotated this around until it was in a position I was happy with.
Applying Materials
The materials I used for the daffodil were all taken from images of daffodils that I found on the internet.
For the petals, I created a Blinn material and added a bitmap image of a daffodil petal. I then rotated the map by 90 degrees in the x axis. I increased the specular level to 13 and the glossiness to 16, just to pick out some highlights. I then applied this material to the four petals.
For the leaf, I created another material and applied a bitmap image of a daffodil leaf as a map. I increased the specular level to 50 and applied this material to the leaf.
I created another Blinn material with the centre of a daffodil as the image map to use on the centre lathed shape and the middle small cylinders. I changed the specular colour to a light orange and changed the level to 26. This just added some definition to the material. I applied this to the shapes but decided it didn’t look quite right on the two shapes so I created another material that was very similar but with different texture settings on the map. When I applied this new material to the centre cylinders, this looked much better.
Finally, I used a similar material to the leaf material for the stem of the daffodil. For this material I increased the specular level by about 15 and rotated the map 90 degrees. I then applied this to the stem of the daffodil.
Final Thoughts
As I have previously said, this was my least favourite image of the three I created. If I had spent some more time on this I could have made the daffodil look more realistic and applied some better materials to help with that.
However, everyone so far who I had shown this image to has said straightaway that it was a daffodil so at least people can tell what it is! Even if it isn’t quite realistic, it is a more abstract or modern looking flower!
However, here goes as to how I created my daffodil for the March Calendar image
Creating the Background
To create the background, I drew out a box that was big enough to fill the viewport. I rotated this until it was in the correct position. I then applied a material with a background image to this box. I found the image to use in the background on the internet. If I had more time, I would have created my own image. This finished the background for this image.
Creating the Daffodil
I started off by creating the stem for the daffodil. I drew out a long, thin cylinder, converted the shape to editable poly and applied a bend modifier with an angle of -35.5 in the Z axis. This gave me a realistic shape for the stem. I rotated the stem until it was in the position that I was happy with.
To create the petals, I drew out the petal shape with a line spline until I had my petal shape. When I was happy with the shape, I converted the shape to editable poly and extruded the image very slightly so the shape had some depth. On the reverse of the shape, I selected the border and capped the shape so it was a solid shape. I then applied another bend modifier to the petal to make it look even more realistic. I used roughly about 40/50 degrees angle and the same for direction in the Y axis. I then cloned this shape 3 times so I had 4 petals in total. I adjusted the bend modifier for each one so they were not the same. I then rotated and positioned the four petals so they were in a circle at the top of the stem.
I then had to create the centre part of the daffodil. To do this, I created another spline that outlined one side of the centre part of the flower. I then applied the lathe modifier to create the full bowl style shape that I was after. I then rotated and positioned this at the top of the step, sticking out in the middle of all of the petals.
I then created a small cylinder and applied a bend modifier to it. I cloned this two times and then placed these three inside the middle part of the daffodil.
Finally, I created the leaf at the bottom of the image with another line spline and converted this to editable poly. I then rotated this around until it was in a position I was happy with.
Applying Materials
The materials I used for the daffodil were all taken from images of daffodils that I found on the internet.
For the petals, I created a Blinn material and added a bitmap image of a daffodil petal. I then rotated the map by 90 degrees in the x axis. I increased the specular level to 13 and the glossiness to 16, just to pick out some highlights. I then applied this material to the four petals.
For the leaf, I created another material and applied a bitmap image of a daffodil leaf as a map. I increased the specular level to 50 and applied this material to the leaf.
I created another Blinn material with the centre of a daffodil as the image map to use on the centre lathed shape and the middle small cylinders. I changed the specular colour to a light orange and changed the level to 26. This just added some definition to the material. I applied this to the shapes but decided it didn’t look quite right on the two shapes so I created another material that was very similar but with different texture settings on the map. When I applied this new material to the centre cylinders, this looked much better.
Finally, I used a similar material to the leaf material for the stem of the daffodil. For this material I increased the specular level by about 15 and rotated the map 90 degrees. I then applied this to the stem of the daffodil.
Final Thoughts
As I have previously said, this was my least favourite image of the three I created. If I had spent some more time on this I could have made the daffodil look more realistic and applied some better materials to help with that.
However, everyone so far who I had shown this image to has said straightaway that it was a daffodil so at least people can tell what it is! Even if it isn’t quite realistic, it is a more abstract or modern looking flower!
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