Evaluating My Progress

I did enjoy this module to a certain extent, and am glad to have the experience of using 3d modelling software. This was one of the things I was keen to do at university.

I knew it was going to be hard, but I did not fully appreciate just how much work it is and how intricate 3d work can be. I really do give a lot of credit to those who can sit there for hours using this software and create such masterpieces, I'm not sure I have the patience to start anything now I know how long it takes!!!

I think my skills have grown greatly, but obviously I have only touched at the surface of what 3ds max can really do. Being used for so many things from animations for film to creating environments for computer games, it really is such a powerful program. I am glad to have had this experience.

Tiger Update 3

So here it is; my third and final stamp. I had it in my mind that this was going to be a dark image from the start. The idea to make the eyes glow was a last-minute thing with the aid of a tutorial for neon lights. It works well I think, but it took an age to render. Literally over 20 minutes for one render!!!

The progress of this stamp was a bit slow. It was the first stamp that I really worked on, and then I seemed to stop and do the other two. It may have been because it was the first time I played with the materials. Even with a UVW map I couldn't make it work. I had so many problems rendering; it was actually different in the preview window to the actual render, as I showed you in Update 2.

This problem stands with the final stamp, but I could hide it pretty well with all the shadows. The background image has been sourced from ___(to insert)____ and I think works quite well.

For the leaves I used the same technique as a post I made in October. I used an image of bark for the material of the tree I made and for the underside of the tiger I used the stripes of a zebra. Quite a mixture!

The 'feeling' behind this one was meant to be a sense of dominance or power. The tiger is quite a majestic animal, usually alone and a frightful predator. I have tried to 'exert this energy' through the eyes in particular, with a dark, dreary atmosphere.

Otter Stamp Update 2

Ok, the otter. Again a lot of time was spent playing with this with the fur, and I just cannot get to grips with it. The below image shows some of the problems I had.


Really it just got too confusing, and in the end I used this image from http://blog.oregonlive.com/travel_impact/2008/08/tr.bear.2.jpg below and brightened it up in photoshop with some colour saturation and colorized it with red and green to make it a brighter brown. I chose this image because the wet fur is quite similar to that of a swimming otter.


Having assigned the material (with much difficulty playing with UVW mapping) I started to play with lighting. Skylight seemed like a good idea at the time, but really didn't allow me to play with shadows at all. The image below was an attempt to give a blue atmosphere of the water, but along with that came a dull overlay. It hides how bad the uvw map turned out, but doesn't look very aestheticlly pleasing.

Nevertheless, after a lot of playing around with lighting, setting up a camera, and a few more tweaks, I have finally decided to stop wasting time trying to perfect it (I'm never happy!) and here is a final render for my otter stamp.

The feeling behind this was meant to be happiness, showing two otters having fun playing, but I think this is quite good for the 'companionship' feel too. Whereas the cat is more a sense of friendship between owner and pet, this could be more of a 'couple'. I have actually made the otter that's underneath smaller (see below for different camera angle) so it fits if the smaller one were to be female!

Cat Stamp Revamp

I decided to change the render of the cat for my final stamp, because I'm really not happy with the way the custom lighting works on the face/head. I think the one I have now chosen accentuates the shape of the muzzle (if that's what it is called!), the fur around the face especially looks a bit neater, and just looks that bit better.


**EDIT**

I forgot to mention that my 'feeling' or 'emotion' behind this was 'love' or the feeling of companionship. I tried to show this by including the hand, and would have liked to put a smile or something on the cat (obviously I can't generate the sound of purring!). I felt that it would make the stamo tacky (especially if I had written on PURR like a comic in bright bold letters.

I know they say a dog is a man's best friend so it may have been represented better with a dog, but I have always been more of a cat person myself (hence the tiger). That and the bodyshape woyld have been a bit too similar to my tiger, whereas this way round you still have a bit of variety.

Cat Update 3 - Final

I have played for hours and hours with 3ds max, trying to get my cat to look realistic. Little minor modifications to slightly change it, and to no avail. The render below is probably one of the best.



I have added a yellow tinge to the light I added to make it more realistic (lights in a home are slightly yellow). It affected the render above just a bit too much.


I like the glossiness on the coat of the image above. This is without the use of lights; the 'natural' lighting that 3ds has provided with no input from me. In some ways I think it is better than the renders I have produced, especially around the face, but have decided to persist with one of my later renders anyway. It is a bit excessive with all the shininess around the body.

I spent a while longer trying to perfect the fur, but the hair and fur tool I am finding incredibly hard to use. It may just be that I have a very complex shape to work with (I really should have practised beforehand). Below is my chosen render.

I have now produced my final stamp using the render above. The background image of the stamp is a primary source of my living room. The background image of a paper texture has been sourced from http://mayang.com/textures/Manmade/html/Paper/index.html.

Cat Update 2

Here is the 'simple' shape I started working with for my hand. This will be stroking my cat to emphasise the feeling of love.





My final object features detail on both sides.

Otter Scene Update 1

Here's a screen shot of the progress of my otter scene. This is my 3rd attempt. I initially tried doing it by manipulating a simple cylinder, but ended up drawing an outline in illistrator and lathing it.



After getting a nice 'wavy' shape for the body and tail, I started to extrude polygons to form the legs and arms.


After a lot of playing around and tweaking, I got to the stage where the limbs look fairly realistic. I do seem to have manipulated it so much that it has quite a few 'dents' and I have lost the 'wavy' effect to the body (but I can get this back).

Cat Update 1

Hello! An update on my Cat stamp:

I have a complete body shape, just need to add some detail such as facial features and a fur coat. Not quite sure what it's sitting on yet. Was going to be a person's leg but it would be sitting uncomfortably close to the crotch...

Thinking the armrest of a chair, and then a hand can stroke the cat's head. (I would only have to make the hand and forearm then rather than the whole body, and a part of the chair).

As for a camera angle I like the idea of the last image's point of view.

I personally like the tail, how it wraps realistically around the curved surface it is sitting on. Pleased with that!

Tiger Update 2

Here it is, the next update to my tiger! After hours and hours of fiddling with 3ds max, I finally have the complete body. With a turbosmooth, it looks pretty damn nifty if I do say so myself:




I have had a go at assigning a material to imitate the fur.



It looks completely diferent when it is rendered, the stripes go in a completely different direction. (You can just about see under the hair in the right image they are horizontal instead of being the same as the left image, the one i played with for ages!!!).

I will assign a short fur cover to the entity to make the tiger look more realistic (and there is a mane that will stick out further around the neck too). I have assigned different ID's to polygons to allow for the white underside. I actually used a Zebra fur design as there were no decent white tiger ones. As you can see I need to alter that a bit more, however, ignoring this problem for now, I have carried on creating the scene. I created a plane and used the hair and fur tool once again to imitate grass, and it renders extremely well.



Now another problem! I am going to use a spotlight to cast shadows of the overhanging branches and leaves (to be created) across the tiger's back. Whenever I render I just get black. Off to play with the settings AGAIN...

Tiger Update 1

A quick update on my tiger stamp.

Starting with just a cylinder, with the scale tool I have moulded the shape of a feline torso, complete with a tail.



Started to add a leg by extruding certain polygons repeatedly. Then rather than do it all again, copied the leg, changed it so the model wouldn't be symmetrical, then welded it back together. Of course the front legs are bigger and more muscular so I did this first one from scratch again.


And copied, modified and welded it...

Now I have the torso and limbs. All I need is a head! Might make that tail a bit longer...

My Ideas

Here are my final three chosen ideas for the project. I really want to emphasise FEELINGS in my stamps rather than it just being a picture, because that is something that we all forget about in biodiversity, sure there are animals, sure there are places and habitats, but all these animals feel things. They feel happiness, they feel fear. So I will use appropriate lighting and layout to try and emphasise what I am trying to get across.

1 - Otter Scene (feeling of happiness)
Though the surroundings for the scene haven't been confirmed yet, I am going to do a scene of an otter swimming. If time allows, I will create a second 'playmate' otter that might be breaching the surface of the water, allowing me to play around with opacities and create maybe the scene of a river bed also.
I'm going to try an make them cute so it'll make everyone smile.

2 - Tiger Scene (feeling of darkness / evil / fear maybe)
This scene will be lit like a night scene so that it puts across a tranquil yet tense atmosphere, as a tiger lurks in the shadows underneath a tree, possibly stalking a deer? Maybe I could position it so you can see the tiger in the background behind the deer with a worried expression?
I could completely flip this and show it from the tiger's point of view and make it about survival or the feeling of power and dominance.

3 - House cat Scene (feeling of love)
Although not quite as strong an image as say a pair of lions getting it on (highly inappropriate for this project) there is a sense of love between house cat and owner. The scene would be urban (different to the other two ideas) and hopefully give a bit more variety to my project, with more man-made objects rather than trees in the background, especially if it is indoors.
Why a cat? I just think I'm more of a cat person than a dog person, and it goes with the tiger!

I decided on them quite a while ago, and have been trying to get used to the 3ds max software to enable me to create these ideas successfully. Most of what I have done is the same simple transformations over and over again because I just could not get to grips with it, or make it work for me.

Now however I am really starting to be able to create objects that look decent. Check back soon for screenshots of work I have done so far for my ideas.

SWOT Analysis

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been busy learning 3ds max! Below is a SWOT analysis of my progress on the project so far.


SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS - I have a good idea of what I want to achieve (if only in my mind) and am very passionate about achieving what I set out to do. Being somewhat of a perfectionist I will (guaranteed) spend hours fiddling with vertices in 3ds max just to make my work that little more realistic.

Also, I have quite a good 'imagination' and can understand 3d work quite well (whereas some others in the world have difficulties with this).


WEAKNESSES - I am completely new to 3ds max, and things I learn just won't go in! I keep referring back to tutorials and forgetting how to do simple things. But generally, I'm ok moving things around and simple transformations, but I will fall behind when it comes to advanced modifications and really in depth stuff, and others in the class may 'overtake' me.

OPPORTUNITIES - I have access to 3ds other than at university and so can spend extra time using it, even just becoming more familiar with the software.

THREATS - Other's creativity may make their ideas more interesting, whereas my tastes in subject are more 'usual' or 'realistic'. For example I am creating realistic artwork, however others may pursue abstract or unusual pieces.


(Coming soon, my 3 official ideas in detail. I have decided and started working on them, I just need to post it!)

Halloween Special

Ok, it doesn't look as realistic as it could, but it's still spooky! Scooby Doo, where are you?

Playing around with lighting and shadows I have been able to produce a scene with a lit-up pumpkin.

Playing with Planes

Playing around with 3DS Max again, (really starting to like this software!) created a fairly successful leaf. Check it out:


I really like the effects that make the texture so life-like, such as bump and specular level.


And I also love how this preview looks like the Batman logo!

Banana Making

Second go in 3D studio Max, creating things from scratch. Firstly an apple, then a banana. Here's the final version.

Liking the rendering feature!

Research: Image Board

So here it is at long last, my image board. I tried to create different scenes, each with animals belonging to that space. Yes, I know, the fox was a push, but there are little lights in the background so it does count as urban!

I only focused on animals (and a few insects) because these are all that interest me maiinly, but I think personally that when people say 'nature' or something to that effect, this type of animal and surrounding springs to mind. And you don't have to search far to find lots of vivid photographs of wildlife like this, so it must surely be the most popular amongst the general public. Most popular = sell more stamps!

Also created a nifty little logo for my project too!

Initial Reactions to the Brief

"produce three 3D stamps on the theme of biodiversity"

My initial reaction to this project is WOW. I didn't think it could be so mind-blowingly broad. Where to begin?

My first thoughts on what I might do, having had a quick glance at the images provided (more specifically the range of them) is that I want to provide variety within my work. So I was thinking;

- The first stamp could be a "long-distance" image, for example a tiger stalking it's prey in a field.
- The second stamp could be a "close-up" image, for example an insect.
- The third stamp could be an "extreme close-up" image, for example a microscopic organism in a 'colourful' environment.

Maybe I could even put a bit of hidden meaning behind it, (bear with my attempt at science!) in the way that due to the 'food chain pyramid' we all learnt in biology, we all know the smaller animals at the bottom are greater in numbers, so I could reflect that by making my higher value stamps for say my 2nd and third stamp ideas.

Perhaps now I should try to emphasise the variety in my work by researching a lot of different types of organism, of all different species and type (mammal, reptiles etc.). Get the ideas flowing.

Having just reviewed this before publishing, all my ideas have been about animals, none whatsoever about humans. The animals seem to interest me a lot more, maybe I assumed it would be more appealing to my audience too.