Kingsley's IN3D: 2011

Friday, December 9, 2011

Week 5

Track Material

Week 5 Research

All about hyper shade:

http://www.3dtutorialzone.com/tutorial?id=66

Hypershade

a cool Hypershade video

Week 3 Research

Using Mirror Geometry

using insert edge loop tool

Maintain position

The Maintain position options specify how new edges are inserted on the polygon mesh.

Relative distance from edge: When the Maintain position is set to Relative distance from edge (default) the dotted insert edge preview locator is positioned along the selected edge based on a percentage distance along the selected edge. For example, if you click and then drag the selected edge to a location that is approximately halfway along the selected edge, the dotted preview locator appears approximately halfway between all of the other edges along the selected edge ring.
Equal distance from edge: When Maintain position is set to Equal distance from edge, the dotted insert edge preview locator is positioned along the selected edges at an absolute distance based on where you click on the first edge. When the length of edges is highly variable, the tool uses the shortest edge to determine the maximum distance the preview locator can be moved. This option is useful if you want the new edges inserted at a specific distance from existing edges. For example, when you want to control any subsequent edge creasing you may perform on the mesh.

NoteThe distance the preview locator can move is limited by the length of the shortest edge on the associated edge ring. If the locator quickly snaps to either edge it may indicate a shorter edge in the edge ring that is limiting the placement.

Multiple edge loops: Inserts multiple equally spaced edge loops along the selected edges, based on the number specified in the Number of loops setting. The multiple edge loops cannot be manually repositioned. The maintain distance settings are not available when Multiple edge loops is turned on.

Create Polygon Tool

These are the options for the Create Polygon Tool. You can set these options before you create your polygon, or change the options as you work.

Divisions: Specifies the number of Divisions that are distributed along the edges of the polygon being created. The default is 1. Extra vertices are created along the edges. You can manipulate these vertices in subsequent operations.

NoteSetting the Divisions option is not the same as subdividing a polygons using Edit Mesh > Add Divisions.Divisions makes the polygon n-sided. Using the Add Division operation creates new faces by default. To create new vertices, you have to specifically subdivide the edges only (see Divide polygon edges for details).
Limit the number of points: Specifies the number of vertices required for the new polygon. The default value is 4, which creates four-sided polygons (quads). When set to 3, the tool will create three-sided polygons (triangles). The polygon closes automatically after you place the number of points specified in the option and you can continue to click to create new polygons in the view without re-selecting the tool.
Keep new faces planar: By default, any faces you add using the Create Polygon Tool lie in the same plane as the polygonal mesh you append to. Turn off Keep new faces planar if you want to append polygons in another plane.

What is Blinn?

The Blinn material type calculates surfaces similarly to Phong, but the shape of the specular highlights in Blinn materials reflects light more accurately. Blinn is good for metallic surfaces with soft highlights, such as brass or aluminum. Because Blinn is a versatile material type and generally renders without problems, it's the primary material type we've used in these tutorials

Using Align Tool

Week 2 Research

What is a Boolean?

Booleans in Maya let you take an object, subtract, add or intersect its geometry onto another object (merging). A boolean can only happen between two objects. The first selected object will be booleaned. The other piece will be added.

Booleans are great, but have some drawbacks. 1. The geometry is less than savory, but still usable, and can be re-worked with a little time. Edge loops will be hard to keep. 2. Prone to errors (we'll learn how to fix these later). 3. Due to the geometry that it produces, smoothing a booleaned object can become a pain.

There are 3 different boolean operations:

Union - This will merge both objects together. It will get rid of geometry between the two pieces.

Difference - Subtracts the last selected geometry from the first selected geometry.

Intersection - The geometry between the two objects will be kept and the rest will be removed.

Beveling Tool

A lego toy block modeling video

What does extrude do?
Extrude creates new geometry from a selected component. This selected component can be vertices, edges, or faces; most commonly used is faces.

After you click extrude, Maya will use the show manipulator tool to let you set the attributes of the extrude visually.

Anatomy of an Extrude
Step one - Repeat the set-up and create another extrusion.

Step two - Open the attributes editor by going to window>attributes editor.

Here's how the extrude tool works: Maya will create a node called polyextrudeface. This node contains all the attributes for the extrusion. These attributes are changed by visually setting them using the manipulator.

To see this, move the manipulator handle and the attributes editor will change.

When you're using the local mode for the move tool, the local translation attributes will change. If you're in world space, the normal transform attributes will change.

The Extrude Tool

Extruding:

Width (Vertices)

Controls the width of the base of the polygons created by the extrusion.

Length (Vertices)

The distance to move the extruded vertex along its normal.

Divisions

Controls number of sections along the length of the extrusion.

The Extract tool

Week 1 Research

Learn how to create primitives in maya

Basic modeling: Controls and Shortcuts

MAYA Tutorial - Creating a Robot

Page 1 of 1

In this chapter, we are going to summarize the knowledge learnt from the previous chapters. We shall be taking up an exercise to model a Robot in Maya. The process is simple and is designed to help a beginner to understand the concepts of modeling in Maya.

Our Robot shall be based on a set of primitives. We shall go through the usage of transform tools and few other modeling techniques.

To start, open a new scene in Maya using File>New Scene.

Select Modeling Menu set from the status line or press F3 as the keyboard shortcut.

We shall start the modeling by creating a polygon cylinder primitive by accessing Create>Polygon Primitives>Cylinder.

Fig 10-1

Now we need to switch to the component mode in order to make changes to the primitive cylinder that we just made.

Press F8 to go to the component mode and select the point option.

Fig 10-2 Component Mode options

Select the top vertices as shown yellow in the given figure. Use the Scale transform tool and using the middle yellow cube, click and drag the mouse to increase the scale.

Fig 10-3 Editing the primitive in component mode

Let us call this object that we modeled, “limb unit”. We shall be using this object by making copies of it and resizing them and then fixing at the required locations. This unit will form the limbs of our Robot. You can use the Move Transform tool, and Rotate Transform tool to position the object in the scene.

If you are already in component mode, press F8 to come out of it. First of all start by creating a copy of the existing object by pressing keyboard shortcut Ctrl D. Use the Move transform tool to move the new created object to a side.

Use the Scale tool to downsize the newly created limb unit and then use the Move tool and rotate tool to get both of the objects in the shape, orientation and position as shown in the given figure.

Fig 10_4

Use the Copy, move, scale and rotate tools to make 4 more limb units out of the original one and resize, position and orient them to form the 3 fingers and 1 thumb of the Robot.

Using the similar techniques explained above, this time create a polygon sphere primitive and use its copies to form the joints of the limbs as shown in the given figure.

Fig 10-5

Next, we need to make another similar limb structure as shown in Fig10-5 in order to form the other arm. You can rotate both the arms to be a bit inclined outwards from the elbows. Match the orientation and position of the two arms with the one shown in the following figure.

Fig 10-6

Now, that we have both the arms of the Robot ready, we are not far from developing the complete humanoid. We can continue developing the legs of the robot in exactly the similar manner that we have used till now. After completing the legs, the robot will somewhat look like in the figure 10-7. However, at this point of time you may want to use your own creativity and try different looks for the Robot.

Fig 10-7

In the next step we shall use few more spheres and a cylinder to make the torso of the robot as shown in the next figure.

Fig 10-8

The process had been pretty simple so far. We have been using just two basic polygon primitives i.e., cylinder and a sphere. Now, lets make use of another primitive i.e., Torus. Create a Torus from the create Menu. Resize and position it to form the elements of the Neck. You can go a step ahead by using the cylinder primitives to form the camera like structure that are substitute for the eyes in our Robot. A real small radius cylinders can be used to form something that can act as an antenna receptor. The final modeled structure of the Robot is shown in this rendered image.

Fig 10-9 The complete model

Now, we shall texture this Robot. Lets start by opening the Hypershade , Windows>Rendering Editors>Hypershade. Select the Blinn material and name it to Robotexture.

Create a Blinn Material - Create (on the Hypershade menu)...>Materials...>...Blinn, or use the side bar. Double-click the new material to open the attribute editor. Change the material name to Robo_Blinn or so. Click the box next to the color slider, a new option window opens. Choose Normal and click File to assign a bitmap as the material color.

Fig 10-11

You can select any metal texture image for the purpose. I have included one that we are going to use now with the accompanying source file for this tutorial.

Repeat the procedure to assign the same file to the specular color. Now, on the perspective view shading menu choose smooth shade all and turn on Hardware texturing.

Select the robot, shift select the Material in the Hypershade, right-click-it and "assign material to selection". Your robot is now textured.

Now, before we render out our robot, we need to setup a simple light rig for the purpose.

Create a point light Create>Lights>Point Light, open the attribute editor (control-a), expand the shadows options and turn depth map shadows on. Press 7 to view the lighting in the view port, duplicate the light 2 or 3 times and move them around the robot until you get the desired look.

Open the render globals window from Window>Rendering Editors>Render Globals. Select the anti aliasing quality to production. Ready to go, Render out the scene.

Fig 10-12 The Robot

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Reflection for Week 4

For this week lab exercise, it was E-learning. We had to read the long written articles and answer some suggested question and pen down our thoughts too. I learnt about the people's mind like what is the effect of multitasking and how well can you complete your task while multitasking. I also learnt about being able to focus in class and not get distracted by electronic devices like how students this days are.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

1. Story

My object is a macbook pro computer. It is used to test the speed of the mousetrap car and find out which part of the car is needed to be modified so that it can go faster and have a better performance since a race tournament is coming up next week.

2. Shape

The difficulties are the buttons of the computer and the correct amount of width or segment that is needed to bevel so that it will look like a computer. Some technical aspects i will be using are bevels, booleans and extrude.

3. Design

Wire frame MacBooks

Sketch of my wireframe keyboard

4. Research

This model is the keyboard of the macbook. The keyboard was made by extruding it downwards to form the hole. For my project, i will not extrude the keyboard. I will be using boolean > difference.

This is an example of a modeled macbook.

I will be using the same method as this to create the screen. Creating a cube to form the shape and then extruding the centre inwards to make it look like a screen instead of a plane rectangle.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

3D Mindset and Learning

I feel that taking laptops away can be a problem to solve distractions for students in class as they will definitely surf the web, do other stuffs and not listen to what the teachers say. But, not allowing them to take notes? I disagree in that. Making a student just listen to what the teacher is saying is never gonna help the student learn. There is too much for the student to take in. If the students are taking notes, they will be able to break down what the teacher says and write it down. This way, they are able to learn and remember better. They can even refer to their notes. I know students will miss out some things the teacher say. But letting the student just listen all the way, do you think they can remember every single thing the teacher say?

I think that multitasking gives you a false sense of having to accomplish something. When someone is multitasking, they are actually not giving their best. Their mind is not focus on the things they are doing. This will cause them to not do it well as they are not able to handle so many things at once perfectly. There will definitely be loop holes and things they didn't catch.

Learning 3D and design is different from learning programming. Not all learning are the same because different work requires different form of skill sets.

I agree that learning is actually a very complex operation for an individual. I feel that i approach my learning in the best way depending on what i am learning. As i said learning aren't the same as we learn different things. If i am learning something i am interested in, i would make sure my work is all up to date. I am not lazy to do, i am willing to do as long as i have the heart to do. If i have to learn something i don wanna learn, it will not be my best. The work will always be procrastinated and i will not learn it well either. Note taking is very important to me as i am not able to remember everything the teacher said. That is how i learn.

My thoughts for the last paragraph are that i agree almost every part of it. In the business world, everything is going in black and white. Being able to write a good and powerful email can clinch you a big deal or even get you hired. Using powerful words and points and knowing what to say and what not to say is a skill that is needed to be acquired. Being able to take criticism is something that will help you to improve. You cannot take what people say about you to heart because this way, you will never be able to soar up high. You have to listen to what people criticize about you, find out the problem and improve it. This way, you will be able to succeed and thank the critics. Last but not least is communication. Everyone communicates with one another in this world but there are different ways of communicating. Example, you can't to your boss like how you talk to your friends right? Know who is your audience and speak differently.

I think our lecturer should focus on our attitude and not leave us alone. Not all students are so independent. With lecturers that have the will to help their students and not just come here to teach can actually change the student's life. Leaving the students alone isn't gonna help anyone. With no motivation or anyone's help, students are never gonna succeed. Everyone needs help from one another, it is not easy to be alone. Lecturers are the only ones that can help us if we are willing to help ourself also.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Reflection for Week 3

For the lab 2, track modeling exercise, luckily teacher went through a little bit in class. If he did not do that, i think would have encountered a lot of problems. One example was pressing 6 as the shortcut to get the image on the polygon and using shading> X-Tray so that it is easier to see to connect the lines together with the create polygon tool. I tried connecting the lines without using the X tray and it wasn't easy at all. Those were just my main starting problems, the rest was easy to follow. I learnt about the bend tool and the setting of curvatures. I like the part when i extend the polygon and it really looks like a track already.

For the Lab 2, Washboard Modeling exercise, i got familiarize with the align tool already. When selecting two polygons, you have to know which one to select first to be able to align them nicely. I was able to find out myself which to press to get it in line after lots of tries. There were a lot of aligning in this exercise which helped me practice. I also finally understood the use of window > Outliner. In the past few exercise, i just do but i didn't understand the purpose of it till i asked teacher. It is just like the parenting tool in Adobe AFter Effects. This exercise wasn't difficult, it was manageable. After i created my washboard, it reminded me of the washboard my mum used to use very long ago to wash my shirts.