3D Studio Max - Animations

Theese are a few animations produced from the original models

All the following work is practice projects running up to the big finale which should hopefully be a semi decent games trailer! :).



This is my kitchen which originally started out just as a bagel. Over the day it just evolved into a kitchen and eventually a biped walking. The video is purely there to show the biped walking animation and for some reason no matter how many times i upload it the quality is dodgy at the beginning.



This is my X-Wing model. The initial idea was to create something based on star wars. I chose the X-wing pretty much because "It looked cool" and fairly simple to model. I gave it my best shot and came up with that. The fire effect is very poor however i had no idea how to use particle effects so it's just a trial run really.


I created this flag one day after thinking what to create next i thought i would have a go at making some form of material. I chose a cloth like material and turned it into a flag, for this project i followed a tutorial and made my own scenery being the moon. In this scenario the moon appears to have wind.



This is a very simple animation of my double lightsaber. I have made a short animation to show how the lightsaber would work if it was to be "Switched on"




This is the same sort of thing however it features my single lightsaber which was my first one to be made.

3D Studio Max

Over the past couple of years i have been producing various models in 3D studio max. This is all in practice for building up a portfolio of work and building up to the final piece (Making a games trailer).

The following images are work i have created either by myself or with the help/guidelines of a tutorial found via the internet. And some general tips from tutors with regards to texturing and animation.

In no particular order.


This is a glass with water and ice cubes in. Since the render seems to take so long (Nearly an hour) it's still not rendering to what i would like it to look like. This is my best render so far, i will keep playing with the settings to try figure it out. I followed a tutorial to make this and used a fair wide range of tools.

This is a very simple pencil model that i created from a tutorial in a few minutes.

I saw the tutorial for a ninja death star and just had to make one. So that's my attempt. If i were to improve it i think i would need some shiner looking textures to give it a real metalic look.


This is a very popular tutorial that shows how to create a cartoony looking enviroment and then add textures to make it look like it has snowed. It involves using the loft tool to create a path and the trees are formed from very simple cylinder and sphere tools.

This is my X-wing which was part of a unit to create something to do with star wars. In my next post you can see the animation i made after modelling.

This uzi is not fully finised however i have stopped working on it currently. This is for part of our main end of year project to create a games trailer and i chose to create an Uzi as this fits in with a shooting game. I added the bright green to it to give the effect of some form of futuristic alien killing gun.

This was an "hmm im bored what can i make next" moment. I looked about tutorials and saw a nice simple TV so thought i would create it and add my own texture and reflections.

Another cloth modifier attempt just like my flag. I had to play about quite a bit to get it to work but in the end it did. I started to create a scene for it also but got sidetracked when creating my X-wing. This uses basic Modifiers and Collision object settings.

I created my sword shortly after the lightsaber as it seemed quite an easy thing to make. I followed a step by step tutorial and got the shape and texturing. If i was to re create this i would try get alot more realistic looking textures and possibly someone or a biped holding it.

This lightsaber was one of my very first 3D studio max projects. This also fit into our unit to create a star wars themed model, but i couldn't use this as my final piece as it was way to simple. But a very nice way to start of modelling.

This is the start of my kitchen. Which originally started of as just the bagel you can see on the chopping board. It then evolved into a cabinet with a toaster andglasses.

And it evolved some more. I added walls and floors with windows and sky textures. An oven, dishwasher,washing machine And plenty more cupboards. Eventually i added a biped just to test out the walking features.

This is the lightsaber Rank 2. I wanted to improve the handle textures into some form of chrome. I did that then decided to add another end to it to create the famous double lightsaber featured in the film star wars.


This was another one of my very early projects, i found a bench tutorial and followed it to create this very simple park bench. Then added a couple of textures to give it a more realistic look.

This is my most recent project where we were asked to model a character head. We decided as a class that finding someones head of the internet was a bit boring and instead took pictures of a couple of class mates. The model turned out ok and did resemble my friend a little bit. I added a hair and fur modifier to jazz it up a little and ended up with some fairly nice looking blue hair.

Developing Drawing Skills

As part of this unit we need to draw some concept art. To practice drawing we all took the same picture and used lots of construction lines to aid the drawing. And then shaded it in for full effect. This helps in future drawings as i would be able to add construction lines and shade more efficiently. This is different to my previous drawing of the bar as that was done in Photoshop using a guideline to draw over, similar to tracing. The drawing below has been done totally freehand using no tracing at all.


I drew the picture above free hand using construction lines. and shaded it in according to the source picture.


In this picture i traced over a sheet full of emotional faces. There are all sorts of emotions displayed such as anger, happiness and sadness. I used pastels to colour in the picture on the right as i feel they have a better effect than using pencil colours.



This is a free hand drawing of the character Gohan from Dragonball Z. I made one copy and then traced over it to remove the smudges from rubbing out previous mistakes. My final copy turned out fairly well for a first year sketch.

Storyboard

This is my original storyboard i produced while doing a different unit. It's the plan for a games trailer for an FPS game like the one we are planning on making now. The main difference is that it is set in the middle east and takes after games like Call of Duty. It doesnt have aliens in it and is more of a real life scenario. Since then we have been asked to make a games trailer and we have changed the idea, it's still a shoot em up but instead has aliens and begins in a bar. This is the image you see below.




This is the storyboard for the current games trailer. It is only a short one to describe the general idea of the game, I did it in very little detail hence the stickfigures. I could use photoshop to enhance it but for now i will upload the rough sketch. I have enhanced one scene of the bar below the storyboard using a template of an existing bar.






This is a scene from the storyboard of our trailer. The bar is a main part of our game as this is where it all starts out and all hell breaks loose. I took the image below and put it in photoshop and used the zoom/brush tools to redraw the scene to give it a sketched look. This also makes it look slightly proffesional as this is what was required in the unit.

Merchandise

We came up with the idea of some merchandise for our game. I chose some of the most simple forms of merchandise. I stuck with the same kind of effect i used on my CD case with the font and green colours.


Mug


Mousemat


T-Shirt

Game Covers

We have just started producing ideas for game case covers. They are not yet all complete but here are my ideas so far.





The general idea of all the above photos was to include a pulse heartbeat line since the game is called Pulse. I implemented a zombie head because our game was about aliens and creep y monsters. The writing i used represents blood and gore and the background looks a bit like bloody tendons.

I changed my mind on these ideas and decided that it looked a bit to cheesy for a shooting game, unless we were aiming for this game to be brought out for the Nintendo Wii i needed to change the style.




I then opened up Photoshop and decided to go for the complete product. I feel the bright green represents infection and gore quite well. The text is spooky and shows the game isn't going to be funny. I've added the pegi symbol and our team logo to the case along with the Xbox 360 title. This leaves us open to creating more cases for other platforms like the PS3.

I will complete this post with the rest of my teams ideas for game covers once they are completed.

Ethical Issues - Libel/Acts

Libel

This is the law put in place to make sure you don’t miss represent something or someone. For example if a football player like David Beckham was put in a football game, but his character acted like an idiot and missed every kick and fell over all the time this wouldn’t be right. Another example of this is if it came on the news that Peter Sutcliffe said that he hadn’t ever paid his TV license in his life, this isn’t going to effect his reputation because he is known for being a mass murderer. However if this was said about the BBC boss Greg Dyke this could seriously effect his reputation and even loose him his job working for a famous TV company.

http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html

Race Relations Act

The race relations act was put in place by the British parliament in 1976 to prevent racial discrimination. This is put in place to prevent discrimination against race, colour, education and work. This is basically to say no matter where you come from or what colour your skin is we should all be treated equally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Relations_Act

Obscene Publications Act

The obscene publications act has been in place since 1857 in Britain, since then there were two more acts put in place, one in 1959 and one in 1964. Only the 1959 and 1964 laws are still in place today. This law is about criminal obscenity, an example of this is in 2009 a man posted on the internet about the band Girls Aloud. He claimed they had been kidnapped, raped and murdered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscene_Publications_Act

Computer Misuse Act

The computer misuse act was put in place by the UK parliament in 1990. This act is what you would be convicted under if you used your PC for something illegal. A great example of this is R v Gold & Schifreen. These two people used their home PC’s and Modems in 1984/85 to obtain the password and login name of a BT employee which was 22222222 and the password being 1234.They were able to browse the BT files and even view the private messages of Prince Phillip. This sparked another conflict with BT and they were said to be not taking their security seriously enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Misuse_Act