Lecture 10

This week I created my Easter eggs for my April scene.
My first attempt of this was creating a sphere and then adding the ‘squeeze’ modifier to try and squeeze the top of the sphere to make it look more off an egg shape. After playing around with the parameters and the squeeze settings for a while I realised this wasn’t the shape I wanted and wouldn’t work for me.

So after attempt 1 was attempt 2, for my second attempt I created a sphere and converted it to an editable poly and then used the ‘vertex’ selection, then used the soft selection options and played around with the ‘fall off’ option until the top part of the egg that I wanted was selected then I used the scale and move tool to play around with the sphere until I was happy with the finished Easter egg shape.

I then wanted to add some colour to my map, and a personal touch, so I created my own map in Adobe Photoshop. I opened a new file and used the gradient tool to create a 2 colour merging background, I used pink and purple as these 2 colours blended well and look soft and subtle for a map. I also used the text tool to write ‘Happy Easter’ and used the line drawing tool to make a zigzag pattern across the layer. Once I was happy with the image I saved it as a bitmap.

I then went back to my Easter egg scene in 3ds max and added my newly created map to the egg, to do this I opened the ‘material editor’ and then selected ‘get material’ then ‘bitmap’ from the map browser window, once selected the ‘selected bitmap window opened’ and this is where I located and selected the bitmap I had previously created in Photoshop.

I then applied this map to the egg, but it didn’t look as good on the egg as I hoped as it was out of line and not fitted around the egg how I wanted it, so I then added a ‘UVW map’ to the egg and played around with the setting and positioning of the map until I was happy with the outcome.

I then created another 2 eggs by cloning the original one then adjusting the scale of the egg to make the 3 individual eggs unique. I added different maps to the 2 new eggs, both of the maps I found on the internet these are images of Easter wrapping paper with Easter related items on.

I then added these maps to each of the 2 eggs, I also adjusted the reflective and specular level maps to create a shine to the eggs to make them look a bit more alive.
Here is a shot of the 3 eggs rendered.

Basket:
I then went onto creating the basket for the eggs to go in. To create this basket I opened the shapes options and then splines then selected ‘arc’ then I clicked and dragged on my scene to create an arc to how I wanted it.

I then added the ‘lathe’ modifier to it to turn the arc into a bowl, here is the outcome,

I then added the ‘lathe’ modifier to it to turn the arc into a bowl, here is the outcome,




I then create a handle for the basket, to do this I created a cylinder, then added a ‘bend’ modifier and changed the settings to get the bend to 180degrees and changed the pivot point to the center, I then also added ‘mesh smooth’ and ‘turbo smooth’ to keep the shape and the curve of the cylinder smooth and neat.

I then wanted to add a wicker effect to the basket and the handle to make it look real, so I found an image of a wicker basket weave, so I used this as my map for the handle and the basket, I added the bitmap as my ‘bump’ map and ‘diffuse colour’ map, I then had to add the ‘UVW map’ modifier to both of the objects and change the settings until I was happy with how they both looked.

I had trouble with the basked once I added it into a scene. Only half of the basket was visible, I thought this was due to lighting so I added lights and moved the basket around, but this didn’t change anything.

So I selected the basket and applied the ‘normal’ modifier.

Unfortunately this didn’t work as well as hoped and gave the same result. It made either the front of the basket show, or the back of the basked show, so I cloned my basket, so there was 2 baskets, one showing the front and one showing the back, this is only a temporary solution, but it worked.

I then added the eggs to the basket by merging the eggs file into the basket scene. Now the eggs are in my basket and all I had to do was resize them with the scale tool and move the into position within the basket where I wanted them to finish it off, here is it rendered,

Tree:
To create my tree I started off with a basic box that I created, I then converted it to an editable poly and played around with the shape of it using the extrude, move and scale tools until I was happy with a basic trunk shape then I added a ‘mesh smooth’ modifier to it.

I then wanted to create the branches, to create these I used cones, and used the scale tool to edit the size and shape of these. I then placed these in suitable positions within the tree. Once I was happy with the whole skeleton (the trunk and branches) of the tree I applied a ‘mesh smooth’ to all of it to make the branches blend in so that they look like there are and extension of the trunk and part of the tree.

I wanted the tree to look as realistic as possible, so I added a map to the trunk and branches. This map is a bitmap image of bark that I found on the internet, I added it as the ‘diffuse colour’ map.Here is a screenshot of the rendered tree with the bark bitmap applied,

I then wanted to create the leaves and the bush part of the tree, unfortunately due to creating other things in my scene I didn’t think I would have enough time to model each leaf and apply them to the branches. I also wanted more of a bigger impact on the scene rather than skinny branches and a few leaves hanging on. So due to this I decided to create a sphere and convert it to an ‘editable mesh’ then played around with the vertex points to mis-shape it and create bulges and indents. Once I was happy with the shape of the bush I added a ‘mesh smooth’ modifier and changed the object colour to green. I then cloned this shape and changed the size of it using the scale tool so I could have a few that are different sizes.

I then added these to the branches then rendered it,

I then wanted to create a park scene for April, a big grass field with small hills to add character to the park. so to do this I went to the create menu, selected ‘patch grids’ from the drop down menu, then selected ‘quad patch’ and clicked and dragged the grid out on my scene to the size I wanted it.I then also right clicked on the grid and selected ‘convert to editable patch’

I then selected the ‘vertex’ selection and played around with the shape of the grid making sections of it rise and sink, to create a hilly effect, but this didn’t work as well as planed this only seemed to create slopes rather than bumps and hills.
So I tired a new approach, this was to add the ‘noise’ modifier, I then selected the ‘fractal’ checkbox in the noise parameter settings and played around with the settings.

Once I was happy with the look of my hilly and bumpy grid it looked like this,

I then wanted to add grass to my patch, to make it look like a real park.
To do this I selected the ‘modify’ tab, then used the drop down menu to select ‘Hair and fur (WSM)’ I then changed some of the settings in the ‘general parameters’ to adjust the amount of grass blades there will be, how long they will be and how thick they will be. I also changed the root and tip colour in the ‘material parameters’ so that the grass looks green and fades to a lighter green on the tip just like real grass.
Here is a shot of the hair and fur setting and the rendered grassy grid.

I then wanted to create a path to bend around the park, because most parks have footpaths and I want to try and keep the scene as real as possible.
Firstly I looked at some tutorials on the internet and realised that I had to create a path that would mould to the shape of my hills so that it would sit nice within the grass.

To create the path I selected splines from the create menu, then selected ‘line’ and chose the initial type as smooth, then changed the drag type as Bezier.

Once the settings were right I then clicked and dragged my line to where I wanted it creating all the bends and curves where I wanted them.


I then created a small rectangle to be used as the depth and width shape for the path.
Then I selected the line and went to the create panel, then the geometry tab and selected the ‘compound objects’ from the drop down menu. Once selected I chose the ‘loft’ button, then within the ‘creation method’ settings I selected the ‘get shape’ button

Once the button was selected I clicked the rectangle and my path was created.
I then selected the path and went to the modify tab, and opened ‘skin parameters’ and activated optimize shapes, this removed un-necessary polygons and shapes making the path look a lot smoother and neater.

Next I had to mould the path to the shape of the patch grin, so that it contours to the lumps and bumps within the grass.
For this I used the ‘conform’ tool. I selected the path object, and then in the ‘create’ tab I selected ‘geometry’ then using the drop down menu I selected ‘compound objects’ then selected the ‘conform’ button.

Once the ‘conform’ button was selected there was a ‘pick wrap-to object’ button which I then selected, I then chose the object that I wished to mould my path to, this was the quad patch object, so I selected the quad patch.
Now the path was shaped to the landscape,

I then wanted to add a bit of depth to my path, to do this I selected the path and converted it to ‘editable poly’ then used the extrude tool to drag a bit more depth to the path.
I then also changed the path colour to grey to make it look more realistic.
Here is the finished grass field and path for the April scene.

I then wanted to add a cobble effect to the path, to give it a bit more character, but I had a few problems doing this due to the conform tool being in place as well, I did finally manage to get the cobble map applied, but it didn’t look very good or clear at all. It made the scene look too much and would of took attention off the other objects in the scene, so I thought it was best to keep the path a plain and simple grey colour.

Rabbit:

I also wanted to create a Rabbit for my April scene to represent the Easter bunny, which nearly everyone can relate to.
To create the rabbit I simply used a combination of about 18 spheres, I didn’t go into loads of detail with the rabbit as it was only going to be small and sitting in the grass far away. Once I got started with the rabbit I played around with the spheres using the scale tool to mould the shapes, and then move them into position. I found it quite fun and the rabbit ended up looking a lot better than I thought it would when I started.
I then added small white spheres as the eyes and smaller black spheres as the pupils. Here is the rabbit,

I then looked on the internet for rabbit fur images to I could add a map to the rabbit to make it look like it has real fur, I found an image of a wild rabbit, opened it in paint and selected an area of the fur I wanted and saved it as a bitmap image.
I then went back to my rabbit file in 3ds max and opened the ‘material editor’ and added the fur image as my bitmap for the ‘diffuse colour’ and the ‘bump’ map.
Here is the finished rabbit,

Lecture 9

This week I wanted to concentrate on my April scene.
For this scene I wanted to create a park surrounding with a half-pipe in the middle as April reminds me of the start of summer when I can ride my BMX. April is also Easter time therefore I wanted to incorporate bunny rabbits into the scene to represent the Easter bunny. I also wanted to add Easter eggs and though I could hide some around the park to make it look like and Easter egg hunt.

I started by creating my half pipe, I had drawn a few by hand to try and split up the elements and to see what should be created first and what can be added. I thought of creating this half-pipe using an arch and spline with the lathe modifier, but this didn’t look very good at all so the other option I decided on was to create a large box and a cylinder. I then place the cylinder laying down horizontally and place it half sunk into the top of the box, so that it looked like this,

I then selected the box and then within the geometry tab of the create options I then selected ‘compound objects’ from the drop down box. I then selected ‘Boolean’ from the object type, I then selected the ‘pick operand B’ button then selected the cylinder as this was the object I wanted to delete, here is the edited box.

I then wanted to add a wood effect to the ramp to make it look like a real half-pipe. To do this I opened the ‘material editor’ window, I then selected a sphere and selected the diffuse colour map and the glossiness map then selected ‘wood’ form the ‘material/map browser’ for both of the maps. I wanted to add the glossiness map to give the wood a tiny bit of shine so that it looked like it had been varnished for weather resistance like in real life.

I then wanted to change the colour of the wood, to do this I selected the ‘wood parameters’ tab and change both of the colours to 2 shades of lighter wood. I also changed the grain thickness until I thought it looked life-like. I then applied this map to the half-pipe.

I then made the hand-rails around the top of the ramp, there were created by using small cylinders as the legs and a thin rectangles as the bar place on top of the legs. I then added a wood map to the hand rails and a slight marble effect to the cylinders to make them look like a bland plain grey metal.
I then created the coping, this is the rail that runs along the top of the transition (curve) of the ramp, this is always metal on all ramps, usually an aluminium or plated metal, so I wanted to use a marble effect and a grey colour to make this look like the real thing.
Here is the coping and how I added the marble map to it,


I then wanted to move onto December and create some presents and a Christmas tree.
To create the presents I made 2 boxes, both the same width and length, but one with more height than the other. The taller one will be used at the box and the thinner one as the lid. I then positioned the lid on top of the box with a tiny gap so that the viewer can see a ridge as if the box was real.I then looked at ideas of wrapping paper on the internet, I found one that I thought would work well, so I saved this image. I then wanted to add it as a map to the box so I opened the ‘material editor’ then added the wrapping paper bitmap as the diffuse colour. Here is what it looked like on the box,

I then wanted to add a ribbon to the present, to do this I created a couple of planes in rectangular shapes and placed them where I wanted them on the present.
I then wanted to make a bow to go on top of the present as this is always a good traditional way to finish wrapping a present, so I then created a torus knot and used the scale tool to flatten and widen the torus knot to make it look like a proper bow.

I then wanted to add a map to these to make the ribbon and the bow look shiny and glossy just like a real ribbon. To do this I created a ‘raytrace’ map on the refraction section of my maps, I then selected the colours I wanted to use, selected a ‘blinn’ shader and played around with the different options in the ‘blinn basic parameters’ section such as the specular level and the glossiness until I achieved the glossy shiny look I wanted for the ribbon.

I also created another present but a different shape and used a map, this time I used a checker map as the diffuse colour, I then changed the checker parameters so that I could use the 2 colours I wanted for the wrapping of the present.

Here are the finished presents,

Christmas isn’t really Christmas with out a tree to be honest, this is why the next object I created was a Christmas tree.
Firstly I looked around the internet for Christmas trees that had been created in 3ds max to see what was possible, the most basic approach I could of gone for was to place a few cones on top of each other, but this didn’t really appeal as enough of a challenge to me, so another option I looked at was to create and use a helix so this would be a spiral line in a cone shape that I could add hair and fur to so that it would look like a tree. I decided on the helix based Christmas tree as I thought it would be using a tool I haven’t used before and looks like it could be bit more of a challenge for me, therefore making me more determined to create it and to make it look good. I looked at a few online tutorials to see how to create a tree using a helix as the base design.

To create the tree I firstly created a helix, then changed the parameters to; Radius 1=50, Radius 2=1, Height=90 and finally Turns=5. These were adjusted within the parameter settings. Here is what it looked like,



I then created a circle, the within the modify tab I changed the amount of steps within the interpolation tab to 20 steps to make the circle smoother, then I change the radius of the circle to 2.0 to get it to the correct size.

I then wanted the thickness of the circle to follow the spiral shape of the helix, so to do this I selected the circle and then in the create tab I selected ‘compound objects’ from the drop down menu, then I selected ‘Loft’ from the available options.




Then once the loft options appeared I selected ‘get path’ form the creation method tab, and the tree was created, I could then delete the original helix and circle as these are no longer needed, I then changed the base colour of the tree to green within the modify tab.
Here is a finished shot of the finished base for the tree.

I then wanted to add little green needles to my tree to make it look just like a real one, so to do this I had to add a hair and fur modifier.
To do this I selected the base of the tree then went to the modify tab and added the ‘Hair and Fur (World-Space Modifier)’

Unfortunately this appeared with an error, this is because most/nearly all of the computers within the computer labs in the sawyers building don’t support the hair and fur modifier properly, so this meant the hair ended up upside down or the other side of the scene and not attached to the tree.

To solve this I downloaded and installed a trial version of the 2009 3ds max on my desktop computer.
I then tried to apply the hair and fur modifier to the tree base and this worked fine on my computer, I then changed the options within the ‘general parameters’ and the ‘material parameters’ to get the tree looking nice and bushy and full of needles. I also changed the root colour to a darker green and the tip colour to a lighter green to make it look life like.
Here is a shot of the rendered tree with the ‘hair and fur’ modifier applied.

I then wanted to add a trunk and a big soil pot for the tree to stand in.
To create the trunk I created a cylinder and added a map to it, the map I wanted to add was a bitmap image of tree bark that I found on the internet. So I opened up the ‘material editor’ and added the bitmap as the diffuse colour then applied this to the trunk, I think this looked pretty good and realistic, here is a shot of the material I used within the material editor and the tree trunk,

I wasn’t super fussy on the presentation of the tree trunk because I knew that from my plans for the scene the trunk would be hardly visible, as half would be sunk into the soil pot and the other half into the bottom of the tree leaving a small bit visible so that the tree looks genuine.

I then went on to create a soil base pot for the tree to stand in. I browsed the internet for pot ideas and textures. Here is the pot I thought would look good, so I saved it and opened it in paint to crop it so I was left with the bits I want,

I then created a cone shape and scaled it to the size I though was suitable in comparison to the size of the tree, I then wanted to add my clay pot material map to it, so I opened the ‘material editor’ and added the clay pot bitmap to the ‘bump map’ and raised the amount until I thought it looked textured enough like a real pot, I then also added the same bitmap as my ‘diffuse colour map’ then I added these maps to my pot, here is the finished pot

I then put all the elements together to create the finished tree with a trunk in a pot then rendered it,

I then wanted to create some accessories and decorations for my tree. Firstly I wanted a star to go right on the top of the tree like a traditional Christmas tree. Secondly I wanted to create ball balls to place around my tree to make it look authentic and nicely decorated.
Firstly I created the star by going to the create menu and dragging the star out to the size and shape I wanted it, I then clicked on it and converted it to an editable poly,

Then I used the ‘polygon’ selection and used the ‘extrude’ tool and highlighted the whole star and dragged it out to make it 3d and to give it some depth. I then selected the ‘vertex’ tab and selected the 2 edit points either side of each of the points of the star then dragged the points in together so the points were now pointed from both sides.

Now the star shape is how I wanted it, I wanted to add a map to it to make it sparkly and shiny just like a real Christmas tree star.
To do this I looked on the internet for suitable images to use as a map, here is the image I chose to use, it was gold and sparkly, both of which would be ideal for the map I want.

I then opened the ‘material editor’ and selected bitmap image as my diffuse colour and played around with the specular levels and glossiness, I then applied this to the star,

I then went on to create the ball balls, to start with I created a sphere for the actual ball ball, I then created a cylinder and placed this on top of the sphere but half submerged, I finally created a ‘donut’ from the splines menu, I converted this to an editable poly, then extruded it to make it 3d.
I then half submerged this into the top of the cylinder, this is to be the hanging loop for the ball ball.

I then wanted to add a map to these objects to make them look plastic and shiny. To do this I used 2 different maps for 2 different ball balls. For the first ball ball I added colour to I opened the ‘material editor’ and used a ‘phong’ shading and edited the raytrace basic parameters. I changed the ambient colour to a bright red, raised the specular level and the glossiness until I got a shine off the map that I was happy with,

For the second ball ball I opened the ‘material editor’ and selected the ‘anisotropic’ shader, selected my diffuse colour as red and changed the ‘specular level’ and the ‘anisotropy’ setting in the ‘specular highlight’ section.

Here are the rendered ball balls and the star,

I then selected ‘Units setup...’ then the ‘Units Setup’ window appeared and I selected the display unit scale as ‘Metric’ and the units as centimetres from the drop down menu

I then made sure that I kept this the same throughout all of the other objects I had created and will create, this will save a lot of scaling and fiddling about once I merge the files together as one scene. Scaling some of the objects can distort the appearance and change effects on the object and this also takes up a lot of unnecessary time.

Lecture 8

In the 8th week of this project I focused on the surroundings of my scene for the month of July.
Firstly I thought of some ideas for flooring such as carpet, oak wood flooring, laminated wood floor and tiles. Once I researched these ideas I thought that the best one for my scene would be tiles, this is because they won’t take too much focus off the main element in the scene like the cake and balloons but will look real enough to create the effect in the scene I am looking for.
So once I had decided on the flooring I then looked more in depth at tile textures, shapes, sizes and patterns on the internet. I finally decided to go with slate tiles from an image I found on the internet using the image tab via the search engine Google (www.google.com/images’)

Here is the image that I wanted to use as my map for the floor of the scene.

I then created a cylinder in 3ds max to use as my floor in the scene, I selected ‘cylinder’ from the create menu on the right hand side of the program, I then clicked and dragged the cylinder until it was the radius I wanted it (I used a large radius as this needed to cover the whole scene), then I used the mouse to determined the depth of the cylinder, I created a thin/ low height cylinder as no depth was needed for the floor as only the top face of the cylinder will be used.

I then added my texture map to this, to do this I opened the ‘Material editor’ by pressing ‘M’ on the keyboard, I then selected one of the sphere’s, then on the maps section of the editor I selected ‘get map’ for the bump option then the ‘map browser’ window opened and I then selected ‘Bitmap’ this then opened a window where I had to select the image of the tiles that I wanted to use for the floor. I then did the same for the diffuse colour map option. I then dragged the map to my cylinder.

Once the tile map had been added to the cylinder it looked out of scale for example the length was a lot longer than it was meant to be and the width had been squashed up so that the tiles looked very thin and skinny. To correct this I added the ‘UVW map’ modifier.
I could then use the UVW map parameters tools to correct the size and shape of the map, it took me a little while to play around with the settings until the tiles looked exactly how I wanted them.

I then opened my 3ds max file that contained my birthday cake, but unfortunately once I opened it I could see that there was no map on the cake. The cake was all plain white, when it should have the pink sponge map on it that I added to it previously.

I then found out that this was because my image for the pink sponge texture wasn’t it the same folder as it was when I added the map to the cake, so I transferred the image back into the same folder then re-opened the cake file and it was fine and correct again.

I then wanted to create walls for the room, I also wanted to add wallpaper to these walls to make the room in the scene look and feel homely.
To do this I created 2 large rectangles that were going to be the viewable walls in this scene and I then placed these at an adjoining right-angle to each other.

I then browsed the internet for suitable wallpapers to apply to the rectangles, I wanted something that had quite neutral colours and a plain pattern so that it didn’t divert the viewer’s eyes away from the main objects within the scene.

Here is the image that I am going to use for my wallpaper within the scene,

To add this image to the rectangles I opened the ‘material editor’ then selected one of the sphere’s and then selected the ‘diffuse colour’ option, then the material browser opened, so I selected the ‘bitmap’ option and then the ‘select bitmap image file’ window opened where I selected the image for my wallpaper.


I then applied this map onto my rectangles. Once I had done this the wallpaper looked a bit blurred and the patterns on the wallpaper image appeared disfigured, so to correct this I added the ’UVW map’ modifier to the rectangles and played around with the setting and map placement until the wallpaper looked perfect.

Here is a rendered shot of the tile floor and the wallpaper on the walls. I am happy with how both of these have come out and think that I have created the homely effect that I wanted with both the floor and the walls.