experimenting with lighting

i have been looking at lighting and the way i would like my scene to look. i have added shadows for effect, but the room is far too dark and really needs more light. i have also puts light on the light fitting above the pool table.
it looks good, but still needs more work.

i also decided to add a banner on the wall, as i felt that this would give quite an unusual look as it fades into the walls. if i can find out how to do it i would like it to glow, but if not it will probably stay the same.

problems with the person/people

today we tried to rig the person together. we found that there were a number of problems with the person that we orginally made, as when the bones were moed the skin sprayed in all different directions creating a number of spikes. there was an obvious problem with the envelopes, in that they were over laping.


there was also a number of gaps and white parts on the person, so we decided to re-make the person, in the hope that these problems will not occur again, and we know how to correct them if they do.

all together

since i first started this project there has been a number of changes to the final layout.
the room has been made bigger on a number of occasions, this is mostly to accommodate the alleys, which take up about half of the room. and only just recently, i was advised that the alleys were not long enough, so i changed the length of them, and moved the balls closer to the front.
i also changed the size of the bar as this was originally a lot smaller. but as the size of the room got bigger, it only seemed reasonable that the size of the bar got bigger. so i also added on another shelf of glasses, some more stools and a lift up piece for getting in and out of the bar.
the main thing that needs to be altered if i have time is the pool table as there are no pockets on it at the moment, and so it looks a bit unrealistic. also, the guitar could do with something to stand it in.

as far as the animation goes, i will adding a reasonable amount of lighting into the scene, and plan to animate the character, or possibly characters.

dart board and darts

the dart board was made using a simple chamfer circle tool, i then adjusted the dimensions and added the material (picture of a dart board).

the darts were drawn by using the line tool and using the lathe modifier to make it turn into a 3d shape. i then created another line drawing, adjusting the points were necessary, this was the extruded, clone and positioned. the dart was then clone 2 times, and the material was then added to the various parts.

sofa and chair

the sofa and chairs are essentially made from one picture. the sofa was made by creating a chamfer circle, the dimensions on this was then changed to the desired amount. a clone was the made of this, by the dimensions were shrunk so it fitted inside the other one, this was then cloned and put to one side. a booleon was then used to cut the middle bit out. the clone of the middle was then brought back and made longer. this was then booleoned out, so that the arms were created. the cushions were made using the chamfer square tool, and this was then made to the desired size, and placed on the sofa.
the chairs were simple clones of the sofa and scaled down and pushed in, to make them smaller.
the tables were made using a box, and chamfer circles for the legs,all set to a reasonable size.
the size of the tables were then made smaller for the chairs.

pool table

the picture above was one of the first renders that i done of the pool table and cue. i created this table by using the chamfer circle tool, and changing the dimensions to the desired amount, as well as the fillets. i then cloned this part, and put it to one side. i then created another chamfer circle, and booleoned the side ball drop pocket out. i then took the clone back and changed the height of it. i then cloned it again, changing the lngth, and height, to make it so right through the bigger one. this was then booleoned through, to give the cut out shape in the middle. i then cloned the main part of the table once more, and yet again i changed the height of it. i also added a blue material to it. i then cloned the top part and scaled it to a more desirable size, and again the blue material was added.the legs were made out of simple chamfer circles, and made to the desired length.
to create the balls, i simply made a sphere, and made it to the desired size, using a picture as a reference, the balls were then cloned and put in a triangular shape. either red or yellow material was added to the correct ball. i later added a white ball, but this is not shown in the picture above.
i triangle was made by using the line tool to make the shape, this was then extruded and cloned. the cloned triangle was then scaled down to a smaller shape,and booleoned.
the pool cue was made by drawing half the shape using the line tool, this was then lathed, to create a 3d shape. finally a material was added to it, see below. the material was taken from a picture of a pool cue (and cropped out).the main problem i had with this was doing the pockets for the balls, so this has been left, for the time being.

to make the pool table look more realistic and pub like i added some lights above it, which i will later be adding lighting effects to. i also changed the uv mapping on the cues, to make the brown bits bigger on them. i also added a white ball to the scene. to make the table better, it still needs pockets, but when i tried to put them in, they looked very bad.

Guitar

As the microphone turned out quite successfully, I decided to make a guitar.

1) I created two planes, add pictures of top and side on then

2) I then create box, make it roughly correct size, (box must be see-through to make easier)

3) I then changed it to an editable poly, adjusted the vertex to the edges of bottom picture, to get the shape

4) I then selected the polygon mode, (I had to adjust the placing of the polys here), I then selected the poly where the hole is on the guitar and deleted it

5) I then select the edges on the top and bottom of the guitar and chamfer them 0.01

6) I then had to add a mesh smooth modifier with 3 iterations and a shell modifier inner 1 and outer 0.01

7) Using the pictures as a guide, it was then possible to start making the heel. A box was created to the correct height and width. The amount of segments was changed 5 lengths 1 width 7 heights

8) It was important to make the box not too big to begin with, as at this stage the box was changed into an editable poly and the vertex were moved to define the circular shape

9) The poly made was then selected as with the top row. The extrude tool was then used to pull them out. This can always be pulled in and out after extrude has been used

10) It was then just a case of selecting certain ploys and extruding them out to the shape at the bottom and the ploys were extruded out, to make sure the bottom of the heel was complete. The ‘hole’ polys were then deleted. The ploys were then moved down to create the bend on the heel.

11)Pegs – the pegs were made by creating a box and then changing the amount of segments to 3 in length. This was then converted to an editable poly, and the corners were moved in.

12) The two middle lines were selected, and using the connect tool to create two connecting edges. The pinch value also had to be defined.

13) The middle section was then extruded to the desired amount, then chamfered the edges finally a mesh smooth modifier was added to the peg. The pegs were placed in the positions (according to the picture) and cloned.

14) Bridge – I created another box and changed the amount of segments to 3 length and 2 width. It was again converted to an editable poly and vertices moved to create the shape.

15) Strings – these were made by creating very thin chamfer circles, and then they were given the desired length. To make sure the strings went into the pegs, it was important to bend them in the correct places, which was quite tricky

16) Finally materials were added to the guitar and the planes deleted

the microphone was made in the following way;
1. a cylinder was made, and adjusted to the appropriate size
2. a taper modifier was applied to the cylinder
3.a sphere was created and adjusted to the correct size based on the sized on the cylinder.
4. a tube was created around the middle of the sphere, the parameters were adjusted according to the size of the sphere. i was important to make sure the tube fitted neatly around the middle.
5. the tube was then copied 2 more times. one tube had to be placed around the point where the sphere and cylinder met, and the other quite close to the top of the cylinder. with both tubes, they had to be adjusted, for the second tube however, this had to be booleaned into the cylinder.
6. the next thing to do was to create small raiser circles, i used the chamfer circle tool for this. this then had to be copied 2 more times, and then booleaned in.
7. the sphere was then selected, and the material editor was also selected and the wire setting was turned on. the sphere was then selected once more, and copied. but this time it was made smaller, and the wire turned off, with a black material added.
8. all the other parts had material added, which was plain colours.
9. finally, a stand was added to the microphone. this was done by using the chamfer circle tool, and adjusted to the appropriate height. the tubes were then copied again, and added to the stand and microphone to have something to hold the microphone.

i later found that the height of the microphone was too short, so this had to be adjusted. overall the microphone was successful.

rearangement of alleys and adding tvs

when I was making up the room, i noticed how bare it looked, and that two bowling alleys was not enough.

to add more alleys I decided the best thing to do was make the size of the room bigger and increase the alleys to 6. i also moved them to the left hand wall.the next thing to do was to make TV monitors to show the scores.
i made these by creating a box, make sure I'd added enough segments to it. i then changed it to an editable poly, and moved the vertexes into the appropriate places. finally i cut a picture out for the score board, using photoshop, i then made a box in max and added the material.

the bar

the first thing to do was to create the bar area. this was done by creating a number of boxes and the attaching the required material to them.

it is possible to see that here, the wood material has been altered to the wood taken from the above website. the bar stools were made using the chamfer circle tool, this was then used on all three of the circular parts of the stools.

the glass bottle were also added to the scene. a tutorial was used as support and guidance as to how to make the bottles.

the first thing to do was to create a line picture of half the bottle, using the fillet tool to create the curves on the bottle. the lathe tool was then used to create the rest of the bottle. a green material was then applied, with the bottle label on top. in the material editor, once the material was applied to the bottle, it was important to untick the tile button in the u and v sections (under coordinates). finally, i had to use the uv map modifer tool to adjust the lable to the right size.


the final thing to make the bottles look complete, was to add a piece of wood for them to sit in upside down in.

finally, a shelf was created using various sized boxed to hold the glasses. tumblers, wine glasses and bear glasses were made. this was done by drawing half the glasses using the line tool. the lathe tool was then to finish the rest of the glass. finally a glass material was added to the glasses. they were then cloned and placed on the shelves.

bowling ball rack

the next thing to make was the rack for the balls to sit in. this was made using simple boxes set to the required size. the middle boxes had a mesh smooth modifier applied to them.


the picture below, shows the alley put together, with the pins being arranged in a triangular shape.

bowling balls

the next thing that i created was the bowling balls- this was done by creating a sphere, and then i used a shell modifier to make the inside of the sphere hollow. i then made another sphere, which was much smaller, and made a copy of this three times and placed then in a triangle like shape on top of the balls. i then used the bolleon tool to create the finger holes on top. once i had finished the balls i then copied it three times, so i could use a range of different colours/materials. i then found three different pictures online of bowling balls:
http://www.freebowlingtips.com/images/43396_PRETTY%20BOWLING%20BALL.JPG http://www.bowlingballs.us/images/bowling-ball-480.jpg
http://dsp.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pG01-1135021p275w.jpg
i then used photoshop to take a small piece of the ball off the original picture.each picture was then saved as a jpeg file, and applied to the balls in max.

ymca scene - pins

today was the start of building the youth club room for the ymca animation. in my room it was decided that there would be a bowling alley in it.
the first thing i created was the pins. i found a tutorial online http://www.3dm3.com/tutorials/pins.
first of all i started by drawing half of the shape of the pin. i did find this quite hard to do, so i used a plane and put the picture from the website on it, so that i could use the picture to get a better shape.
i then used the lathe tool under the modifiers toolbar, and then a mesh smooth. finally, i had to add the material on to it. i had to use the UV map modifier to arrange the stripe on the pin, i also had to change the size of it.