COSC 260 Assignment #5: Last Gasp Revisited

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Link to max file: http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_5.max

Blog post:
This assignment was a lot of fun. I applied pretty much every aspect we learned through the course and even added in a few I figured out through tutorials and such along the way. I decided to not just keep the stuff where it was but make it look really, really run down. Everything has a rust to it like it hasnt been taken care of for years. There is foliage growing up through everything and the sands have started to make it all become a memory. A challenge I ran in to was in texturing the objects from the file, it threw an error everytime I tried until I figured out they all needed uvw maps in order to be texturized correctly. I found a truck mesh model off the net, and the foliage for the most part was also found on the net. They were untextured however, the truck was alot of fun making it look all beat up and run down and I think it came out great. I added in rain which I found a tutorial on and made it foggy and gave it an environment map for the sky. I was going to do the animated sea world option but I'm really glad it didnt work out for me and I went this route, this one ended up being more in my intended area of learning as I'd like to be a level designer and this texturing bonanza really helped me see how much work goes into even a small area. I added pictures of the models I got from the net, texturing made that truck look so freakin sweet haha. I think the lighting really made it in the end, its somewhat plain without it but the lights make it feel alot more real.

COSC 260 Assignment #4 Video for A

Above is my video for the A grade for assignment 4.

It was relatively simple but I had to do a bunch of pull-ups by a mirror to figure out a semi-realistic way to move the different parts. All-in-all a fun assignment.

Link to max file:
http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_4.max

COSC 260 Assignment #3

Link to max file:
http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_3.max

Blog for assignment:
This assignment was pretty cool. It was definitely more time consuming than the previous ones, especially towards the end rendering to find out what the end product would come out looking like. I found it funny that the model that took the longest (the krill) is the hardest to really appreciate given its size. I could have made it bigger but I felt that would have been unrealistic to what the image is about.

As for the mapping I used various techniques for different things. The rock in the foreground is a UVW planed image. The other rocks are multi sub mapped, had images on the bump and diffuse. The ship is Multi-sub objected, it has about 6 different defined areas. The whale shark is also multi-sub object with sections for the top, bottom mouth and eyes. The krill is also a multiple sub map complex material, it was really hard to come out with a krill look so what I ended up doing was using a image of about a million krill to get the look haha. I didn't get into unwrap uvw as I don't have photoshop installed on any of my rigs at the moment and was just lacking the time to get real into arting it up.

I am proud at how the end result came out. I think it came out alot more realistic looking then I ever thought it would. The whale shark look was hard to pull off and while I dont think I nailed it I think I came up with a good alternative look to the shark. I wish krill were bigger so that the massive amount of time I put into that model could have been more prevalent in the final product. I would say my biggest challenge was getting the fog/caustics and lighting the way I wanted to. The time to render and see the changes was what made this harder in my opinion. Call me impatient haha. A fun assignment, learned more than I could explain in words and came out the other end a better modeler.

Multi-sub-object Materials and UVW Maps class image

block man!

materials thing for credit

forgot to post this but you checked it at the end of class.

Box modeled objects underwater scene

Underwater scene before textures.

Sunken Ship model

Decided to do a sunken ship instead of a fishing net behind the whale shark and stuff on the sea floor, heres the model. Made completely from scratch. No plane image guide help or tutorials on this one.

Krill Initial Image

Krill Box Render. Pic looks crappy for some reason, looks alot better in max so meh. Created using planes with images on them as reference.

Whale Shark Initial Model

Whale Shark frontal model, used goldfish tutorial as a guide for this one.

Updated Sketch

Decided to do something different than my original sketch once I got modeling, heres the updated expected look!

Sketch for sea world

I think I have a future as a sketch artist.. haha

Fish Assignment for Participation points

Above is my fish

And heres the file link:
http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/fishClassSchaff.max

COSC 260 Assignment #2

Couple images of my creation.



Link to max file:
http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_2.max


Blog Entry for assignment:

This sculpture style assignment was pretty cool. I kinda feel like the games I've been playing influenced the direction I went with my abstract creation, been playing a lot of mass effect and star ocean so the bubbly spacey influence seems apparent when I look at it. Either that or the marble madness level from hell. Anyway, to break it down I started with a sphere. I extruded the living hell out of it, giving it the arm type platforms from the center base section. There is also a bevel on one of the arms holding an extruded platform, the right one as you look at the picture. I also used extrude to sink in around the top few levels of the sphere. It cant be seen and was minor but the underneath also has a bevel effect and is very sunk in for the base. The base piece holding it up was lathed. I basically drew a crazy line and then toyed with it a good bit to get a base-looking object result.

The blue egg shaped oval attachments were made using the union pro boolean. I tried to combine those using the union boolean to the original extrusioned platforms but it would not allow it. The other booleaned object is the spring-like attachment to the left arm of the extruded platforms. That one was somewhat tricky. I first started by making a series of torus and combined them using a union boolean. I then made a slightly larger set of torus in the same fashion and placed this section overlapping the original set of torus. Lastly I used the subtraction boolean to shave into the original torus arrangement to get the effect seen in my sculpture.

I think where I ran into the most problems was with the skydome surprisingly. I have the design 2009 version of max and for some reason it did not allow me to just place a sky material on my sphere. I had to open the one I had made in class using the school computers, make my own material category from that ones skin and then try to use that in my version. This was all after trying for hours to get it to work the normal way. And then, I ran into a problem with the way it was placing the material on the sphere. It was actually mapping one of the material to each segment and I had to putz with it for while to finally realize it had a checkbox checked that shouldnt have been (I think it was real-world mapping or something like that, at least in that section of the modify tab). I'll try and snag you after class this week to see if you can figure out why this version does what it does, but other then that snagup the sculpture making went swimmingly.

COSC 260 Assignment #1

Image 1.1 for C Grade














Image 1.2 for B Grade



Video for A Grade

Link to Max files:

http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_1_schaffhauser.max

http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_1_2_schaffhauser.max

http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_1_3_schaffhauser.max

http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/assn_1_movie.max

Blog about Assignment:

I think describing this assignment somewhat speaks for itself as it was more of a guided hand holding exercise modifying a pre-existing work. I thought it was a good example to work on to get to know some of the tools in max and certainly broadened my knowledge of how to get around in max and really even on a basic level showed how powerful the program can be even for a n00b. I had the problem with the libraries in regards to the material editing, which I figured out on my own before seeing the blog post about it on the class blog. (doh!) Other then that I dont think I ran into any problems, I guess a small one worth mentioning was that I got somewhat confused on the extend all viewport portion because I didnt realize if you held down the mouse over the one it had 2 different possible selections for the same type of tool. This led to a few parts where I was like "man mine doesnt really look like the picture in the book" when it showed how it would look using that tool, alas, I figured out my folly and was pleased with this small victory.

I would say I'm not super proud of this assignment as it wasn't an original work, I'd say I am more proud that I was able to complete it with ease without getting frusturated, as had to use max by force in another class and was totally lost. The book certainly makes it much less daunting and I am proud to say I'm not afraid of the beast that is max as much as I was starting into the first assignment. My assignment differs from the file on the cd in that it is probably not aligned exactly the same on a few of the max files, to name a small thing. The bigger difference is that I fooled around with the movie one to have the sign flopping around on more then one axis to make it seem like it was somewhat windy. Found it pretty hard to make this assignment feel "unique" or different as it was basically forcing actions and didnt allow for a ton of creative freedom until the end as it built upon steps it instructed previously.

All in all a sweet introduction assignment, I'm stoked to get my creative influence in on some more original works! A nice start!

First class links - movie, pic, max files

http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/animationTrySchaffhauser.avi


http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/class1Schaffhauser.max


http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/testSchaffhauser.max


http://student-iat.ubalt.edu/sde/students/schaffhauser/cosc260/testSchaffhauser.jpg