11th Week - Fantasy To Reality

This week in Max, I started brain storming different ideas of what I could model in 3dsMax and then print in 3d. So far, the majority my thoughts have been regarding making some sort of figurine but I have yet to settle one idea. Other possible ideas were to make some custom housings for my usb drives. I do want to possibly incorporate moving components into whatever design I choose. Over this weekend I will think about what I should start modeling and try to make a large amount of progress modeling it next week. But soon, I will be able to say that I have brought the digital world into the physical world.

Xth Week -Spring Break

SPRING BREAK

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

10th Week - Presentations

This week in max, the class gave their presentations. Normally, I would post a video for my presentation, however, I ran into several errors while rendering and was unable to produce a video of the scene. The original plan was to incorporate my motorcycle model with my terrain model, showing the motorcycle ride through the scene. The above still images are from the animation showing the beginning area where you ride under the bridge and the camera view from the riders perspective riding over the bridge. The presentation went fairly well with the majority of the class combining some real life video with animation.

9th Week - Almost There

This week in Max, I made a bridge and road system for my terrain. I also incorporated the motorcycle from my last project. The goal for this project is to have a nice modeled and textured terrain which my motorcycle rides through with the camera following the motorcycle. For the most part it is ready to be rendered out. I will try to find some nice sounds to put into the final video, like engine rumbling and maybe some bird chirps, but if I am short on time I will just put some music in the background.

8th Week - Painting Textures

This week in Mudbox and Max, I worked on texturing the terrain using Mudbox. Using Mudbox I was able to take the terrain model that I made using Max and bring it directly into Mudbox where I could tweak the model slightly and paint the rock and grass textures directly onto the model. Then I saved the different paint layers and compiled them into a single image file which could be used in 3dsMax as a diffuse map. Next week I will start working on a road and bridge to put into the scene.

7th Week - Mudbox Training

This week in Max, I did not use max. I am planning on using Mudbox, which is another Autodesk program, in the coming weeks as a second step in the modeling process to add an extra level of detail to my 3dsMax models. I will also be using the program as a way to paint textures onto my models. My overall progress for this week was less than ideal, as I was interrupted by computer problems one day and school assemblies another. On the days that I was able to work, however, I played around in the program testing out what all the brushes did and I also looked at different tutorial videos.

6th Week - New Terrain Method

This week in Max, I started to test a new method for modeling terrain using the Displace modifier. Traditionally I would start by dragging out a plane with a high amount of pollies and then using solt selection I would push/pull vertices to shape the mesh. This week, however, I broke the process into three steps, the first of which being the blocky rough model in the top image. The second step was to texture the top facing pollies in a gradient fading from black at the lower most level to white at the top most. With the rough model textured I can render out a top view of the model to achieve the height map. After that I can simply apply the Displace modifier onto a plane with a high amount of polies, and with slight tweaks of the settings I will get the final model.