17th Week - Project

This week in Max, the class presented the animations that they had been working on. The above video is of the motorcycle that I modeled, which has yet to have any materials applied to it.

16th Week - Digital to Physical

This week in Max, I worked in 3dsmax, used the 3d printer, and made some stickers. The above image is of a shield that I started for my knight model. I has the classic kite design but with some added spikes for a little more depth. The 3d printer was used this week for the first time and although the results did not turnout as expected all of the models came out fairly well. More Rancho stickers were made and I help with the weeding of them.

15th Week - AGATHAAAAAA!

This week in 3dsMAX, I started working on medieval models. The plan is to make a few high poly models positioned in different battle poses.I don't intend to animate the characters so I will spend the majority of my time modeling and texturing. I will try to add in some motion to the scene in the form of waving fabric and possibly some simple motion in background objects. So far this week, I have started making one on the shields for a knight character.

Xth Week - Thanksgiving Break

Taking a week off for Thanksgiving break, during which time I will be spending lots of time with my family.

14th Week - Motorcycle

This week in Max, I started making the basic frame work of a motorcycle. The frame is comprised of mainly cylinders that were bent and twisted into shape. The tires were made using a tube and cylinder, which were combined with the boolean tool to achieve a flattened inside. Using splines I first made a 2D drawing of the gears for the rear tire and then put an extrude modifier to make it 3D. Lastly for the gas tank I made a box with the spherify modifier to round it out a bit then I used soft selection to pull out the vertices.

10th Week - Everything and the Kitchen Sink

This week in Adobe After Effects and Flash Professional, I learned of the wonders of rotoscoping and did some flash amination. I attempted to recreate a famous example of rotoscoping, the Light Saber. I started out with a box that I animated frame by frame to follow the movement of the dummy sword and then duplicated that layer about five times. I then took those individual layers and changed the colors around, as well as adding a feather effect with varying intensity. Then I added in some saber sounds and achieved the final product in the video above. The small amount of time I spent in Flash proved to be unproductive, as I found myself to be extremely rusty with that program.

9th Week - Career

This week in Max, I did not use max as I am waiting for the new licences  for the program. The week was not lost however as time was spent on Kuder Navigator looking at future career paths. One of the careers that I looked at was being a  Radiologic Technologists. When a doctor needs a closer look inside of a patient but doesn't want to jump strait to exploratory surgery the R.T. steps in to lend a helping hand. Radiologic technologists specialize in x-ray, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment. They work directly with patients to explain the procedure and help them through the process as best they can. This career field has a bright outlook with an expected increase in employment of over 10%. The average starting pay is around forty thousand dollars, and being in the medical field the top pay is close to one hundred thousand dollars. As far as schooling is concerned, it ranges from associate degree to bachelor's degree to on-the-job training( if you are already working in the medical field).

7th Week - Presentations

This week in Max, I presented my head to the class. The only difference from last weeks post is that in the video I put the head into a jar because there is no other reasonable way to present a severed head to people.
With last weeks setback behind me, I plan on continuing the modeling of my character and will be either be starting on the lower body or upper torso next.
As for the presentations themselves I did enjoy, as I always have, sitting back for a couple of days to see what everyone has been working on. There was some really nice work done by all the first year students.

6th Week - A Step Backwards And A Step Forwards

This week in Max, I was reminded of one of the most important rule of working with anything on the computer, Save often and make Backups. At the beginning of this week I was presented with the lovely error message of corrupted file meaning that I had lost my work from last week. Thankfully, I was able to take my experience from last week and remake the face a little faster. This allowed me to make more progress in the face such as adding in the nose, mouth, and ears. 

5th Week - Modeling

This week in Max, I started my first project which will be centered around improving my modeling skills. I chose to make a model of a person because the human form has a rather complex shape to it is somewhat challenging to make. The head was my starting point for this week as I am expecting the most difficulty with this aspect of the character, seeing as I have never modeled out an entire face. I set up some reference images from the famous Joan of Arc tutorial and made it to a semi complete face with the majority of the head complete.

4th Week - Garden

This week in max I finished my design of the outdoor learning environment. It features a nice large stage, that takes the shape of a cougar paw, with plenty of seating for any event. There are also several areas that can be used by individual classes to sit and work together. I feel that this design brings a nice balance of space for group and individual work which will make it perfect for any class.
The majority of the objects in the scene were made by starting with a outline that was then modified to give it
 a three dimensional shape.

3rd Week - Rough Draft

This week in Max, I made a basic layout of my outdoor learning environment with splines. The cougar paw is where a stage can be placed, with the main stage being set in the palm. Several rows of seating  can be placed in each of the toes of the paw. The circle are an idea for a spot where separate groups can work which allows for plenty of space where more than one full class of students can come to sit and work. Some nice planter boxes surrounding the circles filled with different plants would be a nice touch and a few trees in the area would be nice to have.

2nd Week - Leaning Garden

This week in Max, I did not use max. The class is still settling in and as of right now I haven't set up shop in a fixed location to start working. I have been helping new students get used to the class and have been helping some of them with small problems that they had getting started in class.
With regards to the title of this post and the picture, this week I, along with a few others were assigned a project to design an outdoor leaning environment in 3ds Max. So this week we have been thinking of different ideas and doing some rough sketches on paper of somethings that could go into our learning environment.