Here's a quick guide to what I learned in my very first week on University! Please note that the date of posting and the date I actually took part in some of these tutorials may differ, this is because I didn't even know how to blog things until today, and some of these tutorials was done a week ago. From hence forth, dates *should* be accurate as I will just put my thoughts directly onto this blog.
Monday 20th 2010
This section will contain my personal learning experience within the 3ds Max Studio software. As I do have minimal knowledge of the 3D design package “Lightwave 3D”, I am at a slight advantage as the general layout and command prompts seem similar in both programs. However, I will be opening 3ds Max for the first time so intend to learn the software from an entirely new basis and begin with the very basics from tutorials in class to ensure I fully understand the program and follow the flow of work handed to me at any time, so not to get overwhelmed by future project deadlines. I fully intend to spend my spare time looking up online tutorials, to ensure I do not fall behind with any work, inside or outside of class time.
In my first 3D tutorial managed to note down the primary keyboard shortcuts which will surely come in very handy throughout my time using the software. After learning the basic principles of the 3ds Max software, we was slowly introduced to the interface of the program and shown how to create very basic shapes in a 3D environment and change their colour. After creating these shapes we had the chance to move and rotate them around the screen to different points of the scene, this was done by using the arrows or “Gizmo’s” shown below:
As you can see in the image above I have created a very basic 3D box and cylinder. In all view ports you can see the Gizmo’s which let me move an object on its X, Y and Z co-ordinates.
Our very first class tutorial consisted of creating a teapot shape model which was a standard preset mesh, much the same the other options “Box and Cylinder was. Below this teapot was a “Plane” shape which could be seen as a floor to place the teapot on. But this was not all, in order to make the scene much more realistic, I was instructed to add lights, shadows and cameras to the scene, which will all become clear in my complete and rendered screenshot below:
Take note of the teacups I added to make the scene slightly more realistic. These were modelled by myself as an effort to understand the basic principles or editing a basic object such as the Cylinder using the “Modify” tab and the options within it.
Another aspect we got to cover was a very quick guide on how to create lighting to simply light up a scene which will give a realistic effect and atmosphere, but also how to add cameras and how to see through the lens of that camera which will later be used as a view from which we will record animations.
Wednesday 22nd September 2010
Now I am familiar with the core basics of 3ds Max, I looked further in depth to find online tutorials that can help me understand the program which will be done in any free time I may have.
Firstly I visited http://download.autodesk.com/us/3dsmax/2011/help/index.html to find official tutorials which will help me attain further knowledge of this complex program. By following this online tutorial I not only learned how to open an already existing scene which had been saved prior, but I also got to grips with again moving around objects and got much more chance to memorise the basic keyboard shortcuts. A brand new skill I attained from this tutorial is applying texture maps to models in order to give a much more realistic feel to an object in the scenes. Also I lightly touched upon the animation methods that are used to give objects the appearance of motion. Unfortunately because the tutorial was aimed at complete beginners such as myself, alot of the animations was already functioning within the scene, so I did not fully understand how exactly everything in the scene was actually working. The same applied for the “Cannon” as this was an object that was part of the scene upon initially opening it, and the cannon was a few separate parts which was “Grouped” and didn't give me much chance to understand how to build some of the parts cannon or set “hinges” for the parts to move on. Another topic that was slightly hard to understand was the “Rendering” setup in order to play my completed scene in a video player such as Windows Media Player. Because I was following a guide, there are still a lot of options that I did not get chance to use as yet, so these aspects are something I will look more closely into learning via other tutorials or spending time in class as much as possible.
Wednesday 29h September 2010
Today I undertook another Tutorial, at http://download.autodesk.com/us/3dsmax/2011/help/index.html but this time I got a chance to actually edit polygons from a simple box, to take on the form of a helmet. Firstly I learned is its mostly better to model even some circular objects from a box. The image below started out with a simple Box from the Primitive Shapes list.
After using the "Spherify" Modify List option, selecting the bottom half of the sphere's polygons, then hitting Delete and finally stretching the top middle vertex (with Soft Selection enabled), this was the end result:
After being given out first major project for this module, which is to create a 3D Animation involving and aquatic creature in a fish tank, we was shown some previous students work. And wow!, those guys had massive talent, it was on par with some of the professional stuff you may have seen in Toy Story, Finding Nemo or the such like. I will have to seriously study hard and dedicate myself if I am to reach anywhere near that standard of work. Of course that does not mean I'm giving up, but instead it gave me great inspiration and a goal as to what quality I should aim for in any of my productions.
So to move on from the 3D elements of my very first week, I will now natter on about other modules we are yet to cover.
Thursday 30th September 2010Today our first class was Web Authoring, now this is something I have little to no experience with at all, and is probably the module I will struggle with thoe most. I have never researched into any Javaa Script or web design software in my life, so this is probably the steepest learning curve I will have to face all year. Obviously I will take up the challenge as it does actually seem fun, so much more research in my spare time is needed for this subject. Thankfully we was slowly introduced to "Crimson Editor", which is a web page builder, and also to "Tags" which are text commands aslo used to build a site. During the lecture we got the chance to actually build a very simple site containing minimal text, so now I feel slightly more confident about what I have to do for this module, but still much more time is needed to research exactly how websites work.
Ah finally, I feel more at home in the next class - Visual Design, as I will get to geek out in Adobe Photoshop, the pretty much only software I have pretty good experience with. This was again just a short lecture about what our main task for this term is for the Visual Design module. And what a good result, we are to create a brand new logo which can be totally individual, for example think up our own company name and make a logo for it - that people will hopefully recognise and know what type of company it is, just by glancing at it. Luckily we have covered this back in College so I have some understanding of how a professional logo is supposed to come across to a consumer. This works out well because I can spend time looking into other programs I am still not too up to date with to ensure I don't fall behind in other class's. Of course I'll post up my logo designs on here at a later date.
Friday 1st September 2010
Apart of our PDP (personal development plan) class, today we had a two hour introduction to Visual Effects. This is another module I have been looking forward to all week as it entails using Adobe After Effects, a nifty program that adds amazing effects to video after shooting. I have seen some videos such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7a_oaiqvj8&feature=related which is pretty cool! But yet again this is a program I have never opened up and had the chance to play around in, so this is definitely something I need to pick up in my spare time. Most tutorials I take and its results will be posted on my blog, you could even give them a try and learn along with me.
So thats pretty much my first full week at University, it seems I have to get my head around so many new programs, and produce things at a very high standard in a short time of 10weeks. Can I do it? Check back to my blog and take a look at my project work to find out!
Any feedback is more than welcome, especially negative feedback, so please be honest!
No comments:
Post a Comment