3D Fundamentals

I never imagined how quickly I would pick up modeling, especially since I never even dabbled in the software before (besides Blender). I know I still have a lot to learn as far as Maya goes, because I have barely even scratched the surface of everything that it's capable of. But this month was still eye opening, and fun to say the least.

This was our first blockout exercise. The mailbox was probably the hardest out of all of these because of the rounded top, and I just couldn't get it to fit right. I spent about two hours putting this together, although it felt like much less. My finished product was mind-blowing to me, because I had no idea how simple the concept was.

The final scene for the five objects I had to block out for the second project in week one. The razor is probably my least favorite, and the ladybug, jar, and tin can are my favorites. Each took a variating amount of time, but around three to four hours each for blocking, and a few hours each for planning and research. I learned to manipulate faces and expand or contract them while blocking the tin can, which was extremely helpful and made my objects more similar to the silhouette.

 It may sound silly, but this spray can is my week two pride and joy. It took me around four hours to complete, and was from the Level 2 downloads section (pretty proud of myself for that) I don't think I ever thought about what a spray can actually looked like until I started this asset, and as soon as I reached the top I cursed it for having so many intrusions and extrusions, and little edges. Even so, I love how it turned out, and this model definitely taught me some patience and attention to detail.

This little bottle stopper is entirely one piece and  made of extrusions. This, I will admit, did not even take me an hour to make, but in my defense it was three in the morning and I needed another model for the assignment (family obligations the next day, I wouldn't have time to make one). However, I liked how it turned out so much I used it as one of my assets. It really helped me understand how edge loops really encourage the curvature of the form in a model, and it also showed me how far I've come from never even touching maya to making curves and actual models with straight edge shapes.

 This was our practice assignment. At first, the highlighted gun was outrageously deformed, with hidden illegal geometry. The assignment was to clean it up to look like the gun farthest to the left, and the middle gun is the minimum completion requirement. This actually took a little over two hours because I kept messing up the cleanup. Instead of having the "select faces" box checked, I had the default selected, so Maya kept triangulating my geometry. I must have cleaned it up three or four times before I was fed up and turned it in. Moral of the story: when something goes wrong, double check your settings.

This beautiful little gum-ball machine was my favorite at first, until after I turned the scene in and realized I forgot to sculpt the little shelf in the bottom left picture! Considering it was one of my graded assets, I'd settle for a B+. But still, about four and a half hours, headaches from "N-gons" and going through my "Inspiration" playlist on Spotify twice, it was done. This one helped hone my skills in curving and slanting edges while attaining clean topology. Looking back, it's definitely not perfect, but besides the shelf I'm happy with it.

 The hard part about The scene was composing it. I found myself overthinking it, and when I was happy with the positions, I wasn't happy with the render. Even so, it was fun to put it all together, and it was really awesome to see my models in a finalized space. In total, the final scene took me almost three hours to finally be happy with it.

This is the marvelous ambient occlusion map for my spray can. The UV's took me about five hours to finally set up, and I will admit some of the time was adjusting the model itself. But while completing this part of week four, I had so much trouble with my textures baking incorrectly, and occlusion maps being saved over other occlusion maps. It wasn't until about two whole days passed and too much troubleshooting that I realized I never gave the AO maps different names. I felt both stupid and relieved. Note: always rename files.

The final render! I'm so happy with it. Like I said before, around three hours of work, and just in time, as it's due tonight. It really takes the ambient occlusion to the next level, and it softens and professionalizes my objects. I've learned so much this week, and I even started to model Spyro the Dragon for practice. I think this makes all of my struggles totally worth it.

          I'm going to be sad to be out of this class, but also kind of relieved because I literally could not have had a class like this at a worse time. Working retail during the holidays is nuts, on top of ten to twenty hours a week of assignments? But I did it. This class is perpetually invaluable to my upcoming portfolio class, and the readings that were assigned got me thinking about it, and how I think I'm going to do something unordinary instead of an average prop. I know how to put a professional spin on my models, so perhaps now I can play around with the hypershade and make some awesome models because, as Professor Bagsby says, textures can make a model stand out, and they're fun too. I have the upcoming weeks off for christmas break, but I feel like I'll be spending it making something awesome.