Week Twelve

This is the final week and it was spent creating the animation for my character. The animation is of my caveman character performing on the type rope in a circus environment. I created the animation in 3d Studio Max. I have learnt a little bit of animation in 3D max however not as much as i had to do here, which was a big success.

The animation starts with a close up of his face and his eyes have been animated to blink. it then goes into a short scene where the camera moves around him showing the full character, and then finally the last two scenes are of him performing his type rope stunt.



After i had rendered all the scenes in 3D Studio Max i then used Adobe Premier pro to put them all together and create a short video clip. I used transitions to link each scene and then finally I then added music.



Evaluation

This module has been a great learning curve for me and has made me so much more confident in using 3d Studio Max. I have not had much use of 3D Studio Max but i have learnt so much in such a short space of time. My modelling and animation have both improved so much and i want to continue these skills in the future. Looking back at past work i have gotten so much better and i am so pleased with the final outcome. I feel like i have really achieved something with this module and i like 3d Studio Max so much more now that i have a greater understanding of how the software works and can create something i am very proud of.

Week Eleven

Skin and Bone

The end of this week was spent boning and then skinning my character. I have not had much experience at all with this and it was a great challenge. I boned him using a biped skeleton, however had difficulty because the skeleton was very small compared to my characters body frame. i discovered how to re-size the bones on the skeleton and after playing about with the envelopes found it much easier to move him without him looking wrong or vertex messing up. After sorting the bones i applied a skin modifier which enabled the body to move with the bones.

Environment

After the character was finished i then created a simple environment, I created a circus environment for my cave man to perform a circus stunt.

Week Eleven

Almost all of the modelling is done now except for the clothing. I want him to wear like a cloth around his bottom section from his waist down to his knees. I am going to create this from his body not from a different object.


Over Easter i finished the modelling and added his clothing. To create his clothing I selected faces around his body where i wanted the clothing to be and i extruded them out slightly, i then had to move vertex to create a smoother shape for his clothing. once it looked how i wanted it to i the moved the vertex along the bottom of the clothing to create a rough zig-zag cut look.


After all the modelling was complete i decided to add materials. i did this using the material tool in 3D Studio Max. To get a realistic skin colour i searched on the internet for skin tones, found out the colour and created an image of the colour in photoshop. I then applied that image as a material in 3D studio Max. i did the same for the material of his clothing i found like an image of a dark brown fur material and then applied it to his clothing.



I also inserted the movable eyeballs into place and re-appplied the eye material so that his eyes look realistic.


Now that the modelling and materials are complete its time to skin, bone and animate.

Week Ten

Facial Features

This week will be spent creating the facial features for my caveman:


Nose

I created the caveman's nose by pulling out vertex and face on on and around the area i had left for the nose. I moved vertex until I got the desired shape and size and then it was time to created the nostrils. The nostrils were created by selecting faces under the nose about the size of a nostril. i then deleted these faces so it left a hole. i selected the edges of around the hole i had created and held down shift. i dragged the nostril up the nose to create a deep hole up the nose which created the nostrils.


Lips

The next feature to create was the lips. I selected faces on the front of the face in the space for the mouth and extruded them out slighty and then moved the vertex into shape to create the shape of the lips. I then used the connect tool to create a ringle line of thin faces between the two lips. i selected these faces and extruded them in the face. this created a gap between the two lips, creating the mouth.

Eyes

Then came the eyes, at first i just created still eyeballs using the sphere shape tool and then added an eye material to make them look more realistic. However when i get to the animation i want to animate his eyes so i will then create an eye which has eye lids which can rotate so they can open and close.


Ear


Finally I created the ear, i have created an ear in modelling before however had difficulty attatching it so therefore this time I created the ear from the side of the head so that it was already attatched. I selected faces on the side of the head in the right space for the the ear and of similar size. I then extruded it out, and created more faces withing the space of the ear. I then moved faces in and out to created the shape of the ear.

Next I am going to look at attatching the body and head and then creating the clothing for the caveman, I will also sort out the materials.

Week Nine

Neck

The next stage was giving my character a neck to go with the head and attach it to the body. I started the neck by selecting the edges around the back of the head at the bottom held down shift and dragged them out. This created the basis for the neck.

After the neck had been dragged out it then needed to be dragged into place so that it looked more realistic. This meant that the neck had to face downwards rather than out to the back.

After moving the neck into place I then smoothed the head to see what it looked like and to ensure the head and neck look correct.

Once the neck looked correct i then defined the shape of the face and neck further, this meant shaping the back of the head and neck and also shaping the chin some more.


After this I started working on the space for the eyes creating deeper indents in the face for where the eyes and eye sockets would be.

I then started working on the nose bringing out the shape of the nose slightly from the face, finding the position on the face of where the nose would be.


Finally for the modelling of the shape of the face I created the eye sockets where the eyes would be placed on the face.

Next week I will spend my time defining the face further by adding facial features such as the eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

Week Eight

After creating the body for my caveman character last week, this week I am going to start the his head.

I will create the head in a very similar way, starting with just a box with enough vertex to move creating the shape of his head.

Basic Head Shape

First I moved vertex around to just create the basic shape of the head with a slight bump for the nose and the concave area where the eyes will be.

I then applied NURMS smooth to see how the shape of the head was coming along.

Neck

After creating the basic shape of the face I selected a section of vertex on the back of the head at the bottom where I thought the neck should be a deleted them.

This created a starting point for my characters neck which I will create the basic shape for next.

Week Seven

After creating the basic body shape last week, this week I wanted to get the caveman's body looking like I wanted it to, this meant moving many vertex and then toggling NURMS smooth on and off to see if the body was looking correct when rendered.

I started creating the large tummy area, I did this by selecting vertex on both the front and then side of the caveman and moving them out to created the rounded shape of his tummy.

I made his arms and legs larger so they were in proportion with his body, and then scaled his hands and feet bigger to also make them a more realistic size to the rest of him.

I then changed the colour of his body to a more realistic skin colour so it was more easy to see if it was looking correct.

After trying to create the correct shape i was very pleased with the outcome, creating the body for me was very challenging and i feel that my 3D studio Max skills are improving the more i use the software which i am very pleased about.

Next I will be attempting to start the caveman's head.