Rendering and Exporting

This was the worst, it took so long and my 3DS would keep freezing, and id have to restart it, and re-add all the little final touches again because I forgot to save.  It was a very long process that I encountered some problems with, possibly because I was so tired. Once I had finally rendered my scene two days late, I realised that at one of the times I had to stop rendering and start again that I wasn't rendering my animated camera anymore, so instead of a panning from left to right and left to right it starts going left then just skips and freezes in the one place for the rest of the video. I don't have time to change this even though I wish I could. I managed to change and do most of the things I wanted but I could have made it so much better if I planned and organized my time more efficiently, I cold have played around with sound and video effects, and have better timed animations and camera angles. In the end you get out of it what you put in, and I did have a fun time doing this whole process and learned a lot, but if I managed my time better I could have learned and done a whole lot more. I'm very glad to have it finally finished and it does feel rewarding despite the setbacks.

Animation & Scene Assembly Process

This process for me, was a bit of a rush job if I am honest, I didn't have my 3D files to work on for week 7 and forgot it was due on week 8. So Friday arrived and I incredibly stressed begun this process, it was a reasonably straight forward and simple once I stopped panicking. but as I am new to this software I still encountered incredibly frustrating issues, mainly the animation segments. I would always forget to set a key beforehand, or I would have a setting on that caused the same problem this was super annoying and frustrating, at one point the same problem was happening but neither of those were the answer and it was a ram issue, so i had to restart 3DS. I also linked the chest wrong and then animated it, and had to delete it and link it correctly then animate it again, which was tedious but it didn't take too long. Another problem was that the coins fell through the board, my tutor helped me out and showed me that you have to set up a surface the coins collide with so they don't just fall directly through the scene. 

Documentation of Texturing Process

I really enjoyed texturing, it took awhile and could be pretty frustrating and slow at times, but compared to the UV mapping stage, this was very enjoyable. I believe I enjoyed it so much more because I was able to add my own style to the process, I feel having a Wacom really helped with the hand drawn aspect of the process which probably is what made me enjoy texturing so much. It was a very rewarding experience visually but it also gave me an insight into what it is like painting a 3D model in a software package. Below are screen captures of my texturing process with brief descriptions.

Finished texture on the 3D model.

Completed 2D Texture Map with fine detail & lighting on metal and wood.

Finished basic detail and lighting on wood and metal - without fine detail.

Finished basic detail and lighting on all wood - Starting the metal shading.

Finished basic detail and lighting of lid and base's wood - without metal lighting & fine detail.

Finished basic detail and lighting on the base's wood but not the lid's wood.

One of the first basic details I added in the process, after the base colours were established.

Week 4 3D Graphics R&D Blog

How Textures and Shaders can Affect how a Surface Appears in 3D

Despite what is popularly believed textures are not just rough surfaces, every surface has a texture whether it be smooth, rough or any other texture. Textures in reference to 3D graphics are two dimensional image files which are projected onto the surface of the 3D model, from there you can add colours, textures and surface details. Textures massively affect how a surface appears in 3D space, they are the main factor that divides things like clothes, hair, skin, and even on the broader spectrum of hard surfaces, soft surfaces, or rough surfaces. Almost all details on a model are created through textures an shaders. They are the difference between having a blank shape and a coloured, detailed shape which effectively communicates what it is visually. Excluding shape, textures and shaders make up the entire visual appearance of a 3D model.
Shaders are a set of instructions that are used on a 3D model, which allows the computer to understand how it should be displayed. Most 3D software packages include tools which let an artist tweak shader parameters in a very easy way. These tools give great control to the artist who can now manipulate how the 3D model interacts with light, this includes opacity, glossiness, reflectivity and more.
Combined Textures and Shaders affect how a surface appears in 3D more than any other process because they display the detail, colour and lighting of every 3D model in every medium, whether it be an animation or a video game.

References
Slick, J. (ND). Surfacing 101 - Texture Mapping Texture Maps and How They're Made. Retrieved from, http://3d.about.com/od/3d-101-The-Basics/a/Surfacing-101-Texture-Mapping.htm.

Slick, J. (nd). Seven Common Modeling Techniques for Film and Games. Found online, retrieved from: http://3d.about.com/od/3d-101-The-Basics/a/Introduction-To-3d-Modeling-Techniques.htm

Treasure Chest - UV mapping stage

(these are a few of the relaxing difficulties I came across, even the smoother UV I believe is slightly different to the tutorial's one.)

I found UV mapping to be pretty tedious and difficult at times, having problems that don't occur in the video tutorials even though I thought I did everything the exact same way was pretty frustrating at times. I think a lot of my problems were mainly just because I don't know the software or any form of 3-D modeling very well at the moment, but as I learn 3DS Max more I am sure all of this will become easier. As I worked through some issues I had I noticed that some of my UV's would relax in slightly different ways compared to the video, not knowing what I did wrong I just worked through this. This may cause problems later down the track, but I didn't have this issue for a lot of the UV's and for the most part I think it's all very close to the video tutorial's. Once I learnt the process of what tools to use on the first few UV's the process did become a bit easier apart from the previously mentioned problems. Even though UV mapping is apparently the most boring and tedious task of the pipeline, I didn't find it too bad, and finishing the task felt incredibly rewarding.

(finished importable UV map)

Week 3 - 3D Graphics R & D Blog

• Describe some highlights and pioneers of the history of 3D Graphics with visual examples.
  Ed Catmull, one of the co-founders of Pixar Animation Studios, he is probably one of the most famous computer scientist you will hear of in the creative industries. Catmull's greatest contribution to the industry would be the creation of texture mapping, he also developed anti-aliasing algorithms, the refining of sub-division modeling, and blazed the trail in working on the concept of Z-buffering. Catmull truly laid the foundation for the computer graphics industry as we know it. He is currently president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios.
  Ken Perlin is another industry legend, his achievements have been incredible. He made Perlin Noise which is a popular and flexible procedural texture that comes standard in almost all 3D software packages. He also made hypertexture, which is the ability to view the changes to a model's texture in real time, More of his achievements include, real-time character animation, and Stylus based input devices. It's possible that Perlin's advances in the field were not as earth shattering as the creation of texture-mapping, but they are things artists use every single day to make art which makes them just as worthwhile.
• Reference:
  Slick, J. (nd). 10 Pioneers in 3D Computer Graphics. Retrieved from, http://3d.about.com/od/3d-101-The-Basics/tp/10-Pioneers-In-3d-Computer-Graphics.htm. (Accessed 19/06/2014).
• Discuss the meaning and implications of the term “democratisation” in relation to the 3D graphics industry.
  Democratisation in terms of technology refers to the increasing availability of sophisticated technology and the decreasing price of that sophisticated technology. Innovation in the industry and consumer/user demand have become related with more affordable, user-friendly products.
  In terms of 3D graphics this means the massive divide between big triple A studios and the regular enthusiast is slowly getting smaller. Things like new technology, software and services will either limit or expand what the enthusiast, or studios can do. For example the regular enthusiast is limited by his system specifications, and whilst it is a lot cheaper to buy a powerful computer now then it was ten years ago it is still a bit pricey and can limit what a singular person can do, recently over the past few years online services have been appearing that allow for a little bit of extra expansion, still limited, but less. An enthusiast could animate a scene, finish a couple of test renders, then send their files to a dedicated render farm. This frees up a workstation for other projects, whilst it isn't the perfect solution, it shows that technology in general is moving fast and becoming more and more available to the public every year.
  
  Reference:
Unknown Author. (25/10/2013). The democratisation of computer graphics. Retrieved from, http://www.creativebloq.com/audiovisual/democratisation-computer-graphics-10135033. (Accessed 21/06/2014).

• Emerging technologies – What is Ptex and how do you think it will affect asset creation now and into the future?
  Definition:
  Ptex is a mapping system for textures, it was made for production-quality rendering by Walt Disney Animation Studios. UV unwrapping and mapping is not needed. The file format can store hundreds of thousands of texture images very efficiently fitting it all into one file. Ptex can apply separate textures to every face of a polygon mesh.
  How does it affect asset creation in the present and future?
  Ptex has been incorporated into the movie industry pipeline, beginning with Disney Animation, and Pixar. It is a lot more efficient than UV when it comes to texturing, however it is not the industry standard, further more Ptex can pose a problem for the video game side of the creative industries because games have to be rendered in real-time. Ptex is mainly used on animated film because they have got to make very high quality textures for pre-rendering and under limited deadlines. Ptex seems like it could be the way of the future, but there are a few problems however it's relatively early in it's life and could become more widely implemented.

• References:
  Unknown Author. (ND). Ptex. Retrieved from, ptex.us/. (Accessed 18/06/2014).
  Masters M. (17/02/2014). Understanding Ptex - Is It the Future of Texturing?. Retrieved from, http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-ptex-is-it-the-future-of-texturing/ (Accessed 22/06/2014).

Week 2 Fundamentals of 3-D Modeling - Treasure Chest Continued

I found modeling the lid by myself pretty frustrating and difficult to deal with at times, I noticed small details that differed from the video tutorial which I found annoying, for the most part I think it turned out pretty well. Although it was frustrating the experience was also pretty rewarding, knowing that the lid started out as a box and now it has form and interesting shapes because I modeled it is a pretty awesome feeling.