Lecture 7

This week I wanted to add a texture map to my cake, I wanted to do this to make the cake look like a real sponge cake.
I searched the internet for suitable sponge cake textures and decided on an image of a pink sponge as I thought this would be best suited and look good as a map on the cake.



I then saved this image to my computer, and then opened my cake file in AutoDesk 3ds max, then selected the ‘rendering’ tab from the top toolbar then selected ‘material editor’ once the material editor window had opened I selected ‘material’ from the top toolbar, then ‘get material’ from the drop down box that appeared. Then the ‘material/map browser’ window opened, I then selected ‘bitmap’ from the selection of maps and materials.




Once I rendered the cake it come out looking a bit odd, the sponge was all squished and stretched in places, so it didn’t look as I wanted it to, so to change this I had 2 options, these were; to use the UVW map modifier, or to create sub object levels and apply the map to each part of the cake to prevent the image changing. I decided to use the UVW map to help change the look of the cake to the one I wanted, so I selected my cake then went to the modifier list and selected UVW map then I played around with the options it gave me to create the desired effect for the cake.

I decided I wanted balloons in the scene as these are stereotypical of a party. So I started creating these by using a sphere and converting it to an editable poly and then using the vertex selection and using the move tool, but this balloon ended up looking very odd shape and not very smooth with bumps and lumps everywhere. So I changed my strategy to creating a capsule then converting it to an editable poly and selecting the vertex’s and using the scale tool to downsize sections bit by bit to create a gentle slope, after playing around with the sphere I was pleased with my finished shape.

I then wanted to add a map to the balloons to made then semi-transparent, glossy and reflective like real balloons, to do this I added a ray tracer map and played around with the properties until I was happy with the outcome of the rendered balloon, I used a red colour with a pink and changed the reflection, refraction and luminosity levels of the map, I then added this to the balloon and rendered and I wasn’t happy with the first attempt at is made the balloon too transparent and you could hardly see it, so I dropped the transparency levels and played around with other factors until I was happy with what I got. Now they look as real as I wanted them to.

After I was happy with the shape and look of my balloon I wanted to add string and the little cone shape you get at the bottom of the balloon when you tie the not, just so it looks as real as possible as I plan to have the balloons quite close to the camera in the scene.

To create the triangle at the bottom of the balloon I used a cone shape and scaled it to the correct size and placed it at the bottom centre of the balloon then I grouped the objects together.

To create the string I created a cylinder, and then I scaled it so that it was the right size and thickness that I wanted. I then converted the cylinder to an editable poly, then used the vertex selection to select certain points of the string that I wanted to bend and move, once I was happy with the bends and shape of the string I used the mesh smooth and turbo smooth modifiers.

I then searched the internet for an image of string, once I had found one I like I opened it in Adobe Photoshop and used the magic wand tool to select the bits I wanted then I saved this as a Bitmap image.


I then added this string bitmap to the cylinder in 3ds Max, to do this I selected the render tab, and then opened the material editor.

I then selected ‘get material’ and then selected ‘Bitmap’ from the ‘material/map browser’ window and then I had to find the image I wanted to use for my map, which was the image of the string, once I had selected this I clicked ‘open’ I used this map as my diffuse colour.

Here is the string wit the map attached,

I also created a torus knot and scaled this to the shape I wanted and then I added the string map to this as well so that it will look like all of the strings are tied together at the bottom.
Here is a screenshot of the finished balloons and strings all grouped, I was pleased with how they had all come out.

I then created a table for my cake to go on, to do this I created 5 boxes in the shape of rectangles, once large rectangle for the table top and then I used 2 smaller rectangles to create a ‘X’ to be used for legs one side and I also done the same with the other 2 rectangles. I then placed the legs beneath the table in the correct position then I grouped the objects together as a table.


I then added a map to the table to make it look like a real wooden table, to do this I opened the material editor and selected the ‘wood’ map as my diffuse colour, once I selected this map it gave me a selection of options that I could change within my map, so I changed the colour of the 2 wood grains and the grain thickness until I thought it looked as close to wood as possible.


Here is the finished mapped table.

I then wanted to add a table cloth to the table to give it more detail and more personality within the room rather than just a cold plain bare wooden table in what is meant to be a happy birthday scene.
To create the cloth I drew a rectangle from the shaped menu that was bigger than the table top by about a 2cm all the way around, so that it could hang over the edge when relaxed.I then added the ‘garment maker’ modifier, then options for the garment maker appeared and I played around with the density settings because the higher the density settings the more realistic the cloth will look in the scene. I then selected the ‘Mesh It’ button to create the rectangle to a mesh.

I then added the ‘cloth’ modifier to the rectangle, I then selected ‘object properties’ then the ‘object properties’ window (shown below) appeared. In this window I had to state the box (the tabletop) as the collision object (this is the object that the cloth will wrap around/land on) then I changed the offset option and the depth option so that it wont look like its sitting too far above the table, then I stated the rectangle as the cloth so that this create the final cloth.



I came across with a problem though, once I done this the cloth did not bend around the table and just stayed as a rigid rectangle, so I then found out that I had to use the ‘time slider’ to change the current frame, and once I done this the cloth dropped and I could chose all the frames which one I wanted to use in my scene.

Here is a screenshot of my finished table and table cloth. I was very happy with the outcome of the table cloth as i think it looks very realistic.

lecture 6

In this lecture we learnt about Cameras within AutoDesk 3ds max.
Firstly I created a teapot on my scene then selected the camera tab from the right hand side toolbar and chose the target camera, (as this is good if you know what you want to focus on, or if you have a specific viewpoint in mind) for this example I wanted to view the handle, I then right clicked the camera and selected ‘set view to selected camera’ and this gave me the viewpoint from the camera, and then you can tweak the and the distance of the camera until you get the view you want.



Another camera I could have used was the ‘free camera’.
I could have used this if I wanted a fly-through shot, following shot or a pan across the scene, this would be good for use in scenes such as following an animated car down a road, or following someone walking.


For my 3d modelling project:
Text on birthday cake,
Firstly I created my text by selecting the ‘text’ from the shapes tab on the right hand toolbar. I entered the text that I wanted to create, selected the size and the font of the text and then I clicked on my stage to create the text.
I then converted the text to an editable poly and use the texture tool on it to give it depth and to make it 3d, I done this so that it would look as it the letters have actually been stuck onto the birthday cake.
Once it had been extruded I then selected it and went to modify then selected ‘Bend’ within the drop down menu, then the bend options appeared, I could then select where I wanted the text to bend from and how many degrees I wanted the text to bend.
Once the text was bent enough to fit round the cake correctly I moved it into place so that it appeared to be stuck to the front of the cake.

Candles:
I created some candles in my first attempt, but this were just boring dull cylinders stuck on top of the cake, they didn’t look too bad but I just didn’t feel satisfied with them and wanted to make them more realistic and life like.

I then decide to create some more candles from scratch to look as realistic as possible, so I looked at some candles and realised one of the main features of most candles are the twisted ridges that run around the candles form top to bottom, so I decided to incorporate this within my candles.

So I decide to create a cylinder with a small ridge in it created from using the Boolean tool on a rectangle sunk into the cylinder then twisting the cylinder using the twist modified. I then tried to make the candle twist with one Boolean line extracted from it but didn’t look very good or very detailed so wanted to add more Boolean lines to make it look more realistic, effective and twisted like a real candle. So I deleted this candle and started to create another cylinder with 4 lines going down it which I created using Boolean and pro-Boolean tool and 4 rectangles. Here is a shot of the cylinder with the 4 rectangles embedded within it,

Here is the pro-Boolean tool and the effected cylinder,

I then added the ‘twist’ modifier to it and used the twist options to get the right effect of how many degrees I wanted to twist it, here is a screenshot of the twisted cylinder with the ridges in it.

I then added a cone on to the top of the candle and resized it so that it would fit the top of the cylinder nice and smoothly to make it look like a real candle and finally I added a wick, for this I used a white cylinder and got an image of string from the internet and used this as a map for the cylinder to make it look like a real candle wick made from string. I also used the bend modifier to slightly bend the wick to give it more realism.
Here is what the final candle looked like, I am pleased with the outcome.

I also searched the internet for ways to create a realistic candle flame to make the scene look as real as possible. I tried a few online tutorial that I found, but none of them really caught my eye or looked realistic enough to put on the cake, they looked out of place and different to the cake and candles.

Lecture 5

Within this tutorial i played around with the environments, effects and added text to one of my final project images.

Firstly I created a torus knot from the ‘extended primitives’ list of shapes, I then clicked and dragged this to the size I wanted it and also the colour I wanted it. I chose a light grey colour so that you could see the effects of the lighting better as grey is a light neutral colour.

I then selected the render button and used the advanced lighted tab within the ‘render scene’ window and chose the ‘light tracer’ as my advanced lighting selection, I then selected the colours and the colour of the colour filter I wanted to use, I chose blue because I wanted to try and create a neon effect to the inside of the torus knot. I wanted to practice this effect because I wanted to see if I could do some thing like this for lighting inside of a pumpkin for Halloween.

I then played around with the different settings and effects for the environment map from the rendering options, for this test I used a marble map for my environment background. I also changed the exposure of the scene by using the Pseudo colour exposure control to make the torus knot look like it was being seen through a thermal imaging camera.Along with changing the exposure from the environment and effects window I also changed the global lighting and gave the environment a light blue tint just to add effects to the environment and to see what the results would be.

I also looked at lighting and played around with the different types of lighting to get different effects, but in this example below I used a target spotlight to create shadows and brightness on the torus knot.

Whilst rendering the scenes I decided to play about with the atmosphere settings within the environment window. I also played around with the volume lighting effect and the volume fog. I used the fog effect on the atmosphere and played around with the settings to create different effects and used the ’lume’ background map as I thought this looked best suited for a creepy fogged scene.

Also I tried engraving my birthday cake that I created by using bevelled text to add depth to it, I then added the text to the front of my cake, then used the Boolean tool to remove the text from the cake therefore hoping it would engrave the text out of the front of the cake. Unfortunately this did not happen, I ended up with a cake with a large hole in the front of it that looked nothing like engraved text. So this plan was changed to using 3d text to stand out on the front of the cake to make it look like it has been stuck on. To do this I created text then used the extrude tool to give it depth and make it 3d. I then used the ‘bend’ modifier to bend the text around the shape of the cake so that it fitted nicely and snug against the front of the cake without and letters missing or standing too far in front of the cake that it was not touching.