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Unit 13 FMP Relaxing Fireplace

Final Piece,  relaxing fireplace 

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Final Piece,  Inside of castle still images

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Final Pieces, outside of castle

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Video Render and Editing

I started off using Adobe After Effects however when I first rendered the video, it was choppy and I didn’t know how to fix it so I started using Vegas Pro 14. I also had a slight problem when rendering the video, it became too red as you can see in the video below. To solve this I put a levels video track fx layer on top of the video and changed the preset from default to computer RGB to Studio RGB. 

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Unit 13 FMP Initial and Development Work Part 2

My Decision on building change and not to do a walk through. 

My decision to change the building was due to me not finding any sort of structure to the building. I just kept adding useless rooms that didn’t have much purpose but to just be there. So I went onto Photoshop and mapped out a building design that I liked and put it in my material library. I used a plane and the top view mode to see the design as I build it. I used the line tool to trace the lines and checked the option for the line to be able to render in the viewport. I increased the lines size so it would become a solid object. 

My decision for not doing a walk through came around when I realised how much time I had left and the amount of polys I had already got in the scene without completing the garden area and the surround areas of the building. I completed the camera animation for the walk through and ended up with 5000 frames, just the rendering the frames that were showing the outside took about an hour to render. It would have taken me 41 weeks to render since there was 986 frame. And that is just with my computer at home. To combat this I tried to removed all of the lighting and objects on the inside of the castle leaving me with a polycount of around 200. This reduced the time significantly, but this was only for the outside of the castle and it would have taken 2 weeks to render from one computer. The inside of the castle would have taken 4 weeks to render. I didn’t have 6 weeks to complete the walk through in so I will be focusing on animating the fireplace in the library. I want it to be a relaxing and peaceful scene so I will have to look for appropriate music to go with the video.

Lights

For the lights I used a reference image of a chandelier I found on google images. I first started with a cylinder to create the top where it will be attached to the ceiling. I then used the inset tool to make a smaller circle on the bottom polygon and used the extrude tool to pull out that poly. This made the centre pole of the chandelier, I then used the line tool to create and arch for each of the lamps to sit on and duplicate the lines around the centre peace once I turned the show in viewport option on. What I did find the most difficult in this process was actually getting the lamps to light. Although the material on the lamp itself was self-illuminated, I needed to use omni lights so that it would light the whole room. 

Lighting Problems

A problem which I had face while lighting was having to set the multiplier really high in order to get any sort of light in the room. This was because I had exposure control set to ‘Physical Camera Exposure Control’, I set it to no exposure and I was able to bring the multiplier down to 2. However the lights were creating harsh circular outlines on the ceilings and the table in the dining room. In order to prevent this from happening I tried to turn of shadows from 3 of the omni’s and increase the softness of the shadow. However it was still creating the harsh lines, I turned all of the lights shadows on and dragged the omni’s just above the lights and the harsh lines were becoming softly. Although the lights looks like orbs on the ceiling, I feel like it looked a lot better than having the harsh circular lines. 

I had a lot of problems with the grass, I used the hair and fur modifier on a place that I had textured to look like dirt. At first the skylight in my scene was causing the grass to be overexposed so I changed the skylight from environment to a sky colour. It made the scene brighter however the colour of the grass didn’t change. So I used a presetting which had a grass texture for the hair and fur however that still didn’t work. When it was rendering, the grass was multicolored and still slightly overexposed, so I deleted the hair and fur layer and started over. With the new layer on the plane, I used the preset and changed the colour again. When it was rendered it was too dark and brown so instead of changing the colour, I took a grass texture and used that instead which worked. But in order to cut the render time down slightly I removed the grass and just keep the plane with a grass texture.

Kitchen

For the kitchen, I just wanted there to be simple objects since my main focus was the library and the fireplace.  I started off with the counter, extruding the polys on the front to make drawers. I used spheres as drawer handles. To create the top of the counter, I extruded upwards and then selected the polygons on the sides and extruded them outwards to create a lip for the marble top. For the pots and pans I took cylinders, I took the top poly and used insert to create a centre where I could bevel it inwards and create the pan. For the handle I just extruded a poly from the side. Another main part of the kitchen I worked on was the oven and the stove. I created the stove using a box, cylinders and the line tool. For the metal of the stove I draw out the lines before turning them into editable polys and then using the turbosmooth to make them rounded.

Dining Room

For the tablecloth I used the cloth modifier on two planes that I were above the tables. I made it so that there was 100 length and width segments, in the cloth modifier I chose the plan as the cloth and the table as the collision object. When simulated locally, it will move down slowly and wrap itselfs the collision object. 

Outside

For the stairs I used the stairs option in the create tool, I dragged it out to my prefered length and then created the rails and posts. To create the platformed area, I used a box and extruded the side polys to create a railing for the platform. To create this entrance, I used the same method I used for first entrance where I created an arch with the line tool, converted it to a poly and extruded the poly. I then used Proboolean to subtract the arch from the box to give me the arch way.          

Swing

This area was pretty plain when I first started modeling and I didn’t know what to put in this area so I googled ‘gardens’ and I saw a swing on a desk. I used that image as a reference to create a swing. First I created a single plank of wood and then duplicated it before grouping it. I duplicated it again and rotated it so that it was vertical. This created the seat and the backrest. To create the chain, I creates the shape using a circle. I stretched it out to create the shape of a chain link and duplicated so it would look like a chain. 

Hedge

For the hedge, I used the AEC Extended option in the create menu to create foliage. I removed the trunk and lowers the bush so it would look like a hedge creating a pathway in the garden. 

Window

To create the texture for the window, I went onto Photoshop and painted a gradient pattern in blue then used the stained glass option in the filter gallery. I then added the windows to the outside and inside of the castle. 

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Unit 13 FMP Initial and Development Work Part 1

These are my initial ideas for what I wanted to be in my castle and a few designs of how I wanted the objects to look like. At first I wanted to create the whole castle but knowing the limited time frame that I had, I had to narrow it down to a single floor. For the first floor I want to have a Library, a living room area, dining room and a kitchen. The annotation are just small notes which help me remember the measurements of different objects.  

Entrance

I started off with a simple box, extruding upwards twice in order to create two sections. The top half and the bottom half. For the bottom half I used the line tool to create an arc, then converted it into a polygon. I then used the extrude tool to lengthen the arc so I could use the Boolean tool. The boolean tool combines two or more objects into a single mesh. There is options in which you can subtract and add the objects to each other, I subtracted the arc from the box. This created the holes on the bottom half. To create the windows I used the connect tool to make several lines, moving the vertices of these lines to the shape of a window. I then selected the polygons, used the insert took to create the borders of the window. Selecting the inner polygons and using the bevel tool to make an insert for the glass of the window. 

For the texturing, I had to use the unwrap UVW modifier. In order to insure that there was no stretching in the texture I took apart the model and created a UVW map. With this UVW map, I took it into Photoshop and pasted the stone texture over the UVW layer. Using the layer which the uvw map was on I selected only the black areas and selected the layer with the stone texture on and deleted the areas that were covering the black. To create the bump map, I used the black and white layer mask and the levels layer mask to bring out the shadows and the highlight areas of the texture. The bump map will create the illusion of geometry and give the individual bricks the illusion of being 3D when rendered. This is where I learnt about Material IDs and the multi/sub-object in the material library. Since I wanted the windows to be transparent I needed to have them as a different texture. Using the Material ID, I gave the frames of the window and the glass itself different ID’s and used the multi/sub-object in the material library to give the polygon a different texture to the stone. The image above shows my UVW, Diffuse and Bump map for the outside of the building and the underneath where you would walk through into the castle.

Main Building Development 

I then went onto the main building, starting off with a box I extruded to the side and then outside. I then extended it so I could fit similar arch ways into the front of the building. I did this using the Boolean method again, however I did the texturing differently for this one. I used the UVW map modifier, in this modifier you can wrap the box using coordinates. I chose box option and change the length, width and height to 10m, 3DS Max was able to wrap the texture around the model perfectly. For the windows, I made them similar to the windows on the entrance way however they we not round on the top. 

Door

Moving onto the door for the entrance, I used the line tool to create the arc shape. I converted it into a polygon and extruded to create the width of the door. I then used the edge tool to select the middle edges and then used the connect tool to create a line going down the middle of the object. Selecting half of the polygons on one side, I detached them from each other and bridges the polygon them down in the centre. To create the indents of the door I selected the font and back polygons of each side of the door and inserted them 5m inwards. To create the indect in the centre of the insert I used the bevel tool to extrude and scales the polys inwards.

Door Animation

In order for the door opening and closing animation to look realistic I had to change the pivot point from the middle of the objects to the top left and right corners. This would allow me to rotate the door out and then back in, the videos below is a comparison of the door having the pivot in the middle and the door having the pivot on the top corners.

Library 

Next came the development of the library and the books to fill each shelf, this was a long and strenuous process. In the end I had 745 books on the shelves. I first created pillars to surround the room, extruding them up and using the bevel tool to create a design for the top and the bottom. I then used a box to create the shelves and duplicated them to fit between the pillars. For the books, I used the chamfer box to create a rounded box, using one side for the spin of the book and the other for the pages. I converted it into a editable poly and removed the other round side of the box so that I could extrude the polys for the hardcover of the book, leaving the inside for the pages. To create the page texture, I went onto photoshop and created a document that was 500 x 500 pixels. Then I used the noise filter and motion blur to create diagonal lines, then I used a layer mask to paint over and changed the mode of the layer to colour so it would change the colour of the image. Texturing the books didn’t take to long since there was a lot of book covers on google images that I could use, it was only a matter of using the UVW map modifier to wrap the texture around the object. 

Textured Book

Sofa

For the Sofa’s I used a tutorial to help me model. The model started off as a box, I changed the length, width and height segments so that they were 2x12x8. Then I converted this box into an editable poly and selected the vertices in a pattern of skipping one and selecting the one after. Then I used the connect tool to create lines between the squares, then chamfered the vertices so they become circles. With these circles selected I used the bevel tool to create the indents in the backrest of the sofa. Taking the remaining vertices, I pulled them forward to create a cushion like effect before using turbosmooth to soften the edges. To create the button I scaled a sphere to look like a button and placed them in each of the indents. Using the bend modifier I was able to create a round fold on the top of the backrest which hangs over the seating. 

To create the back of the couch I used the line tool to trace the outline of the side of the back rest then turned it into an editable poly and used the extrude tool to make it the length of the back rest. For the seating area, I used a chamfer box to create the seats cushions. Using the same technique for the backrest I creates a patterned cushioned strip for bottom area of the sofa. To create the cushions I created a box with 20 segments in the length, width and height. I then used the cloth modifier and changed the gravity and simulated locally. This puffed out the box and made it into a cushion like shape.  

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For my primary research, I took the opportunity to visit the Stockwood Discovery Centre in Luton.The Stockwood centre part of an arts and cultural charity called Luton Culture, that showcases art and artefacts across three sites. They have many galleries, showcasing various items which have been found in Luton dating back to the Roman era. I took photos of patterns and artifacts that I could use to influence my model. They also have really beautiful garden areas as you can see from the photos I have taken.The maze like hedge and the busts really caught my eye as soon as I saw the area. I want to use these photos as inspiration for my model. I want to have an outside garden area, seeing the hedge patterns in this garden really inspired me to add hedges into my model. 

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