Shaken, Not Stirred. (Sorry)

Today has been devoted to making a Martini. I decided to make this, not only for it to potentially be used in my final piece, but for practice using lines and the lathe tool to create shapes, experiment with Mental Ray textures and to use a bit of gravity.

This Martini glass was shaped by drawing a vertical half of the glass with splines in the front view and spinning it with the lathe (found in the modifiers tab when the spline is selected). The Mesh Smoother modifier helps to make it look nicer. Ice cubes were then dropped in by using Reactor. Reactor is accessed by right-clicking any grey space on the main bar. The glass and cubes were set to be solid (so they couldn't pass through each other) and the cubes were given some mass. By previewing the animation, the cubes dropped in the glass as they should without the need for manually positioning them. For good measure I made an olive and a toothpick to enhance the image. The glass was then put on a basic table.

Using Mental Ray, some very good glass / liquid effects could be added to the scene. All of these effects were found in the materials panel by clicking 'standard' and navigating to the required texture.

Texture, Lighting and Animation.

After a little experimentation, I managed to get some texture on to the wheel from earlier. This was done by adding a bitmap image to the 'bump' property in the materials panel when assigning the tyre a material. More spokes have been added (to look more like an Aston Martin DB5 wheel) also.

Here is a video of the wheel in action. The wheel was just rotated a few times to a different position in a later keyframe. The active keyframe can be changed by using the slider at the bottom of the screen. Click 'autokey' to set the animation.

With this knowledge I went on to experiment with the gun I made earlier. An easy one to do was the Golden Gun. Set the diffuse to a dull yellow and raise the specular property. I also used the 'Metal' setting instead of 'Blinn'

To make it more realistic, I applied a metal texture to the gun, a darker one to the silencer, and a bumpy effect for the handle grip.

With the gun complete I created a scene for it to star in. A glass effect table and some cloned bullets had a good effect. The reflection of the objects in the glass table top can be seen better in the larger image.

Creating a floor and some walls, I tried to make it look like some form of gentleman's club with low lighting.

Needs more firepower!

OK, so far James Bond has...one wheel (see post below). Not enough yet! I think just after cars is guns when it comes to Bond so I am going to try and model a Walther PPK handgun which was the weapon used in a LOT of Bond films.

Firstly, I set up a reference image to help with proportions. It is a side-on view only so I will be estimating the widths. Using a box, I started and the end of the handle and built up by extruding each face and adjusting vertices to match the rough shape.

The image I used for the reference plate can be found at:

http://www.windhund.org.uk/attachments/Image/Walther-PPK.jpg

[Internet] [Accessed 26/01/2011]

A bullet was then shaped from a cone, and the barrel from a tube. A Mesh Smooth modifier was added to the handle.

The top of the gun was then created using the same extrusion technique as the handle and positioned accordingly. A cylinder was then placed into the model to round the top of the barrel. Sights were added by positioning boxes within the cylinder. A tube then made the hammer at the back. To give the hammer a bumpier look, I extruded every other face on the outer side of the tube.

The trigger was also created using the extrusion method.

Some edges were them chamfered, some faces scaled and some vertices moved to craft the gun into an acceptable replica. Here is the final rendered poly model and also a colour mapped image showing the different components.

I'm very sure there are much simpler and effective ways to do what I have done, but as I am just starting out, I don't know how to cut too many corners. I like it, but I am not happy until it has some texturing! This will hopefully be my next post...

Assignment thoughts

A 30 second trailer for a James Bond film using 3ds max. I have a few ideas. Cars, guns, Martinis and girls. In a nutshell I suppose.

As I'm still learning 3ds max, I am going to try and learn the software, while also producing assets which may be useful in the final piece. Since cars are almost surely going to be included, why not start with a small component of a car? A wheel for example!

Firstly, the tyre is going to be a cylinder.

To round it out to be more tyre shaped, I selected the outer vertices of the tyre, excluding the ones on the edge and stretched them out.

Add a Mesh Smooth modifier, colour it black, and there is a basic and very smooth tyre!

Next, I added a cylinder inside the tyre and gave it a metallic material using the specular property.

Then to create some spokes, I selected alternate faces of a cylinder and extruded then bevelled them.

This was given the same material as the other metallic cylinder, and there is my tyre!

Fruit Bowl.

After my mistake from before, I have rebuilt my scene.

Firstly, a sphere is changed to an editable poly, then moulded to look like an apple by using the soft select tool to add weight to the vertices while moving and scaling them. Adding some imperfections makes it more lifelike. I also chose a light green to make it clearer that it is an apple. The stalk was added by making a cone shape, with a flat top instead of a point, and using the 'bend' modifier.

The bowl was then created by inverting the top of a sphere and stretching it out the give it a more of an oval shape.

The apple can then be cloned, rotated and moved to make it look like a different apple. To create a banana, I used a cylinder and pinched the top and bottom surfaces together to give it a point. The bend modifier was then used along with the Mesh Smooth modifier to create a realistic shape.

These pieces of fruit were then placed in the bowl, which was placed on a table made from cylinders and cones.

By adding walls and a floor, it can be made to look like a complete scene. To add to the overall quality of the image, different textures can be added to the articles such as a wood effect on the bowl and a checked floor.

Done!

Oops.

A quick lesson to anyone who does read this. SAVE YOUR WORK FREQUENTLY. If you aren't capable of saving your work frequently, at least save it ONCE. Unfortunately I am not capable of either resulting in a nice, full and colourful fruit bowl sitting on a table being lost after Windows tells me 3ds max has stopped responding and closes. Oh well! Back to square one. My next post will be a completely new fruit bowl!

Rendered snowman

With a bit of light, a background and some animated snow (which this image doesn't do justice!) the image has a bit more substance to it.

The shapes have no texture assigned to them which makes them appear a bit dull and they don't reflect the light very much. However, the light makes the snowman look more 3-dimensional.

Snowman

He has a hat, a scarf, buttons and a face. All he needs now is a name.

The body and head are spheres stacked on each other. The eyes and buttons are also spheres, but much smaller in size. The nose is a cone shape and the scarf was made using a torus shape. The hat is a group made from a very flat cylinder and a taller one on top. The ground the snowman is sitting on is a flat cylinder. This creates an arch for the horizon making it look a bit more life-like than a flat one. Snow is added by placing a snow particle system above.

Rendered!

Here's a rendering of the castle. Looks...flat. Needs texture. I will be covering textures in future posts.

The background was added by going to render > environment and assigning a bitmap.

3ds Max Castle

Well, I've got something made.

I think I am happy with that for my first go, for now. Thrown in a few not-so-primitive polygons too like the trees to make it a bit more alive!

The castle was made using a long cuboid with two cylinders at either side. Each cylinder was topped with a cone. Some simple doors and windows were then added and aligned. Using AEC Extended pieces, the trees and fences were added.

Just starting out....

Every week I will be updating this blog throughout the module giving examples of work I have done both in University and in my own time. I will try and outline some of the methods used to achieve the pieces and also offer some personal opinions on the learning experience.

I have opened 3ds max for the first time and the task today is to get some primitive polygons into the viewport and use them to construct a castle. The interface looks detailed and may have a steep learning curve. I feel I should be able to adapt to it as I have a little experience in other 3D packages such as Blender.