As we come to the end of this project, all except the presentation done, I felt that as a group we worked well. We didn’t actually organise that many meetings between us but the few we had set out very clearly what we were to do and obviously we talked whilst in the scheduled lecture every week.
In our final meeting a voice-over was created by Adam for our presentation to explain our video. I was not present for this stage of the meeting due to having a presentation in another module, however once I had finished there I joined the group and we set about organising the animation in video format so that this sound clip could be added. All went smoothly and we even managed to prepare for our presentation by stating who would talk about what and the order we would speak in.
To recap the roles of the group members here is a list:
Craig – Modelling the ‘left’ or ‘small’ side of the pump and main research into pump workings due to having contact details of museum staff.
Adam – Modelling the environment/room that the boiler pump would be featured in.
Steven – Modelling and animating the centre of the pump (pistons)…Steven’s role also led into fixing the whole scene together due to having 3ds max 2009, a newer version of the program than even the Uni Labs had. This was unfortunate as with most programs the files are not backwards compatible.
Ryan (me) – The ‘right’ or ‘large’ side of the pump and fire/connections for power input. My role also extended into creating the camera for the final product.
Looking at the final product I can say that I’m not 100% pleased. Although I still believe that the final animation has come out in an acceptable standard it is not to the quality I would have liked. This is primarily due to rendering times, and the unfortunate circumstances that it all had to be rendered by Steven on his laptop due to having too new a version of the program. The predicted length of render when all materials were set to their original settings from our modelling was in excess of 36hours to my belief. Steven had to remove several material maps and even objects within the scene to cut this down.
The objects removed were:
My fire emitter and material, Adam’s bump map on the flooring and Adam’s Water Tank. I also believe that the lighting had to be adjusted to a lower level.
Although I can’t say I was pleased by this, I can understand why they happened. In hindsight if we had known that Steven’s version of 3ds was newer and not compatible with the Uni system, we would have agreed to work solely on the Uni computers so that we could split the rendering to several different machines and not have to compromise the quality of our final piece.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Evaluation Of My Work
Looking back on my work I am happy with what I produced. My favourite part of which is my fire. Having never created fire before and only limited use of particle systems before I am surprised at how realistic I managed to make it look.
As I went along through this project I found I was going back to different parts of it just to make slight edits until I thought the model was perfect. This was very much the case with the part of the pump I created. I actually created two different types when initially modelling. One from several shapes pieced together and the other made all from a solid box. The solid box gave the best image by far and seen as I actually started work on the other one first, I actually got frustrated with myself for not realising how much easier this would have been…Needless to say I deleted the first file in anger! Looking back on this I probably should have made some screenshots – or pushed myself to make an update to my blog at the time showing what I was doing.
I would have liked to included a liquid of some sort in my modelling but it just proved too much of a task to me. As shown from my initial modelling I had a concept but lacked the knowledge in progressing this into a convincing substance. I’m sure as I gain more experience with 3ds Max I will attempt to model water once again and succeed in time. For now though I feel as if I have become more confident with the program and much more time efficient in what I can produce.
As I went along through this project I found I was going back to different parts of it just to make slight edits until I thought the model was perfect. This was very much the case with the part of the pump I created. I actually created two different types when initially modelling. One from several shapes pieced together and the other made all from a solid box. The solid box gave the best image by far and seen as I actually started work on the other one first, I actually got frustrated with myself for not realising how much easier this would have been…Needless to say I deleted the first file in anger! Looking back on this I probably should have made some screenshots – or pushed myself to make an update to my blog at the time showing what I was doing.
I would have liked to included a liquid of some sort in my modelling but it just proved too much of a task to me. As shown from my initial modelling I had a concept but lacked the knowledge in progressing this into a convincing substance. I’m sure as I gain more experience with 3ds Max I will attempt to model water once again and succeed in time. For now though I feel as if I have become more confident with the program and much more time efficient in what I can produce.
In the Final Video
Although I stated that my work was finished for the group this did not mean i was now inactive.
I created the camera angles shown in the final animation, as the other members of my group were not entirely sure how to do this.
I used a free cam and key points to make the motion. We decided as a group it would make sense to start at the top of the stairs in Adam's environment and then pan round to show everything else. Once this camera was put in place, Steven could adjust the lighting to where he thought it best placed.
I created the camera angles shown in the final animation, as the other members of my group were not entirely sure how to do this.
I used a free cam and key points to make the motion. We decided as a group it would make sense to start at the top of the stairs in Adam's environment and then pan round to show everything else. Once this camera was put in place, Steven could adjust the lighting to where he thought it best placed.
My work for the group complete
This was my work complete for now, and so I decided to make a quick fly round render of my scene after throwing in a few quick components (a wooden crate and a floor) both of which I knew weren’t to be used in the final model and were created using a bitmap material.
Chimnea and Pipes
I created the housing for the fire originally from a sphere. I stretched out this shape by modifying the vertices placement. My rough aim was for a chimnea like shape. I felt as if the top would need to narrow to allow a pipe to join and channel the steam up and through. I also decided to flatten out the front port where you can actually see the fire so that I can easily affix a door on a hinge. I created this space inside the ‘sphere’ by using the Boolean tool subtracting a box.
I would also need to start modelling my pipes to connect the pump to the chimnea so I set about this. The beginning and end would both use a flat round plate to bolt onto either object to cope with the possible stress it could come under. Creating the pipes was simple, I created basic cylinders of the same radius and put them into position, obviously using the bend tool where needed to change direction. The main setback I found from making the pipes this way was that they looked as if they didn’t join into each other where I had made separate cylinders. I soon realised that in most cases with piping a larger cylinder would be present adjoining two sections of pipe-work. So once I added this I felt it looked much more professional and went about creating my materials. I used very similar materials for the pipes, chimnea, nuts and bolts; all using the same principle of using an anisotropic shader with a smoke map. The only adjustments were to the colours used and level of bump map.
I would also need to start modelling my pipes to connect the pump to the chimnea so I set about this. The beginning and end would both use a flat round plate to bolt onto either object to cope with the possible stress it could come under. Creating the pipes was simple, I created basic cylinders of the same radius and put them into position, obviously using the bend tool where needed to change direction. The main setback I found from making the pipes this way was that they looked as if they didn’t join into each other where I had made separate cylinders. I soon realised that in most cases with piping a larger cylinder would be present adjoining two sections of pipe-work. So once I added this I felt it looked much more professional and went about creating my materials. I used very similar materials for the pipes, chimnea, nuts and bolts; all using the same principle of using an anisotropic shader with a smoke map. The only adjustments were to the colours used and level of bump map.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The Right Side of the Pump
I created most of this part out of a box. I added multiple segments so I had more vertices to work with when it came to modelling. Once I had created the general outline of the pump I added in the detail. This specifically meant the cylindrical parts at first. I created these in two ways. The first, being the most simple, for the ‘side’ cylinders was to simply create the cylinders and weld points down the middle to make them one object and place it in the middle of the box. The second, for where a pipeline will join, I used the Boolean tool to unify the 2 object into one, creating a weld effect on the metal.
The next set of detail I went into was on the box where a groove appears. I created this groove/lip by creating more vertices and dragging them in. I felt that this effect came out very well. The final part to this pump would be the nuts, bolts and embossed text on top. All of which were very simple to make. All the nuts were created from one object and cloned, these were created from an Ngon. The bolts were simply cylinders and of course the text was created using the text tool and modifying it with extrude and bend to get the shape I needed.
Now that I had the general shape of my part of the pump I could set about making a house for my fire, since this would then need to connect up to my pump.
The next set of detail I went into was on the box where a groove appears. I created this groove/lip by creating more vertices and dragging them in. I felt that this effect came out very well. The final part to this pump would be the nuts, bolts and embossed text on top. All of which were very simple to make. All the nuts were created from one object and cloned, these were created from an Ngon. The bolts were simply cylinders and of course the text was created using the text tool and modifying it with extrude and bend to get the shape I needed.
Now that I had the general shape of my part of the pump I could set about making a house for my fire, since this would then need to connect up to my pump.
Fire!
To create the fire I would be using a particle system, in this case called Blizzard. The first step obviously was to rotate the emitter round so that rather than falling particles they were rising. I originally followed a tutorial to create my fire effect, which was very useful. However as with most cases I have found if I tweak little things from their tutorial I will end up creating something much more realistic in my opinion. This was the case yet again. The most important aspect for the fire was the material applied to it. The tutorial helped me get the basis of this but produced far too smokey a fire. Here is a screenshot of the material preview:
After much thought I set about reworking the material following the general structure of using smoke maps for multi layers and which map slots to include. The major change I decided upon however was to change from a Blinn shader to a Translucent Shader, this was my key to avoiding the smoke. Opacity and translucency were the key to this material as it needed be bright at the base of the flame but then the colour would need to fade away and become slightly smoke-ish. My material ended up being a lot brighter than the one from the tutorial and all the better for it, here is the preview of the material:
The emitter for the fire required a shape for the flames, since I did not believe that ticks or dots were good enough for this I set about creating my own geometry. This was created from a sphere that I added a noise modifier to setting its scale to 4.777, checking the fractal box and adjusting the iterations. Once I applied this to emitter and made a render of the fire I could see that the flames were looking good. Here is a screenshot of the tutorial’s fire compared to my adjusted fire.
A note to a problem in which occurred whilst i was working on the fire. It turned blue! Yes, for some reason when I added some lighting into my scene the flames turned blue. I managed to solve this problem by adjusting the properties for the emitter to not receive shadows. This solved my problem instantly and my fire was now red hot again.
For now I decided the fire was done, until I decided to create the housing for it and any other bits that might accompany it. I moved on to creating the ‘right hand side’ of the pump.
After much thought I set about reworking the material following the general structure of using smoke maps for multi layers and which map slots to include. The major change I decided upon however was to change from a Blinn shader to a Translucent Shader, this was my key to avoiding the smoke. Opacity and translucency were the key to this material as it needed be bright at the base of the flame but then the colour would need to fade away and become slightly smoke-ish. My material ended up being a lot brighter than the one from the tutorial and all the better for it, here is the preview of the material:
The emitter for the fire required a shape for the flames, since I did not believe that ticks or dots were good enough for this I set about creating my own geometry. This was created from a sphere that I added a noise modifier to setting its scale to 4.777, checking the fractal box and adjusting the iterations. Once I applied this to emitter and made a render of the fire I could see that the flames were looking good. Here is a screenshot of the tutorial’s fire compared to my adjusted fire.
A note to a problem in which occurred whilst i was working on the fire. It turned blue! Yes, for some reason when I added some lighting into my scene the flames turned blue. I managed to solve this problem by adjusting the properties for the emitter to not receive shadows. This solved my problem instantly and my fire was now red hot again.
For now I decided the fire was done, until I decided to create the housing for it and any other bits that might accompany it. I moved on to creating the ‘right hand side’ of the pump.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
