In the middle of SWOT-VAC (Study Week On The Vacation) facing WDA exam on Monday, 3 November 2008, I am doing the final rendering for Advanced 3D Imaging and Animation (AIA). This is one of the most stressful thing I ever encountered during my study period. Why rendering is so stressful? Well not just rendering, the whole course for me is so stressful.

At the beginning of the semester this year, I was so excited of taking this course (beginner level). But then, in the middle of the project I got a problem with my lighting setup which ruined the whole project till the very end. The result was not very good but then I was quiet satisfied at that moment. I couldn’t expect more to the result but then I realized this course, the 3D work may not be suitable for me. I enjoyed coding much more than doing 3D design. Here is the final result of my first 3D (ever). The title is “A boy who lives in the attic” (what a lame title…I know that). The story pretty much about Ron Weasley room (A character in Harry Potter). Here is the still image.

Attic_Final

There were several problems with the design. The light passes through my geometry shapes (Wall). I used flare effect but then it also passes through the wall geometry. The light does not cast shadows; this is the very significant problem with my design. The bed sheet texture is pixel-lated which then reduced my mark further in texturing part. But then I was quiet satisfied with the result.

This semester I am taking the same course but more advanced level in which we learn more about nurbs curve modeling (the first semester we deal with polygons most of the time). Doing nurbs curve modeling is not easy at the beginning, though it helps a lot when we want to model a very complex object, human head for example or human body; nurbs modeling can be your best companion.

The advanced level of Imaging and Animation has several assignments (I am not discussing all of them here). There are two assignments I consider to be significant. The first one is the character modeling the second one is the folio production. For the character I choose to model something that is a modification of NeoStream (www.neostream.com). The process of the modeling itself is quiet complex though, especially with the head because I am implementing the nurbs curve modeling which then requires a lot tweaking to create a nice simple head. The body part itself I modeled using nurbs then I converted all back to polygons for ease of texturing. Below is the final result of my character. The is Topcoder A-Grade.

Topcoder A-Grade perspective render

For the major folio project, I did a bowling alley scene with very simple animation setup. At the beginning, I didn’t have any idea of what to model for this assignment; I was desperate and still desperate with the result till the end. But then, what is done is done. I went with this idea. The final result wasn’t very satisfying but I should be proud of my work though. The technique I used to model here is pretty easy using polygons because they are just simple objects. Here is the final result.

Final Bowling Scene - perspective render

The conclusion I have here that modeling isn’t my thing. That means, I wouldn’t find a job in this particular area. I love to model a character though but that does not enough to push me back to focus more in this field. I prefer and enjoy more when I do programming. Well then, surely I learned new things here. Modeling in 3D is not easy, you should put your heart 100% + 10% in order to get everything works, believe me it’s not a simple as 1 + 1 = 2. There is a “X” factor that makes modeling comes to life

Cheerz,

~PeteRAoKi

Originally posted 2008-11-11 10:02:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter