Final Animation

This is the final animation.

I feel it is still in great need of improvement, but with the issues I have come across and time growing shorter, I have had to finalize the work so far.

Setting the Scene, Rocks

 I added a cylinder to be the first of the long rocks to be about the map for manoeuvring between.

Once it was changed to a editable poly, I moved the vertices at the top of the cylinder to give it a rough edge and then added a displace modifier, like for the terrain and added a height map for a canyon face which can be found here.

This looks ok, the result could be better with more clusters and mounds of rocks of this shape much like the original picture of Iego.

Setting the Scene, Merging the files

The merge function was easy to use and placed the ships in the scene ready to be used.

I grouped the files using the ship names, as they are put in the scene as the separate objects.

Setting the Scene, Sky Dome

To create a sky dome i first started off with a geosphere and enlarged it over the entire scene, leaving a little room around the sides to ensure that the sky dome covers the entire plane.

I then ticked hemisphere option to reduce the sphere to only cover that top as the bottom is not required.

After this i flipped the normals to ensure the sky material I used would show on the inside of the dome as opposed to the outside.

I then added a xform modifier to the sky dome to allow me to use the gizmo to reduce the hight of the sky dome as, as we have been told in lectures this makes it look more realistic.

Finally I added the material take from the VLE to the skydome to get the following effect. 

I am pleased with the outcome the sky dome looks realistic and passes for sky, there is a slight seam where the texture meets but it does not seem to be entirely noticeable so I will stick with it.

Setting the Scene, Terrain

To make a basic terrain I made a plane and increased it in size to be big enough for the scene, I then used the "Displace" modifier with a height map taken from here, and increasing the strength to 50.

Then I applied a sand texture taken from here.

Using the material slate editor and connecting the node to a standard material, I then scaled and tiled the image to make it look appropriate.

I'm happy with the result and it was quick and easy to achieve.

Texturing the Tie Interceptor & Slave I

For the tie interceptor and Slave I. I

used the same method as the X-Wing and used architectural metal materials and and and coloured specific polygons. I also did the same thing as the X-wing with the engines and the glowing architectural material.

I am happy with the result although like before much more detail is needed especially with the Slave I. This would be achievable by using UVW maps.

Texturing the X-Wing, Part 3

 After finishing the X-Wing I thought using non basic materials would be much better.

I decided to change all the standard materials to metal materials.

Texturing the X-Wing, Part 2

I used architectural material and increased the luminance to 30000, for the glowing engine lights this is effective an much like the actual X-Wing.

Texturing the X-Wing, Part 1

 At first I tried using UVW mapping to attempt texturing, this proved to be extremely difficult and because of the i resorted to texturing different polygons with basic colours to achieve almost the same effect. I am happy with the outcome but feel it could definitely be more detailed and this could be achieved with the UVW mapping.

I used the material slate editor to create my colour materials, 

Tool Test: Materials

Long overdue, After watching the tutorials on Lynda.com, I thought I would test the Slate Material Editor.

The slate material editor seems relatively easy to use and there a number of different material options and parameters to use to achieve different kinds of finished such as matte or metal, ect.

The 3 Finished Models

I am overall rather pleased with the final outcome of each model, I would have like to put some more time into my third model the Slave I  but I didn't have time before the deadline.

 Tie Interceptor

X-Wing

Slave I

Creating the Slave I, Part 2

This i how i finished the Slave I model, It was mostly modeled by manipulating vertices and edges. the only tools used were a boolean to cut the portion out of the main wing flap and a mirror modifier to duplicate the wing to the other side of the model.

I am pleased with how this model turned out, i am sure there a tools available that may have made this project a lot easier and this has highlighted to me i need to research more of the available tools in 3ds Max. As this model was mostly created from manual manipulation it seems to be fairly polygon efficient with 4560 polygons.

Creating the Slave I, Part 1

Much like the X-Wing model I have not taken many screen shots of the development of this model.
I started with the main body i made this from a cylinder and manipulating the vertices and the edges. As can be seen below to make the top part i just kept extruding the polygon and rotating it into place. I am unsure as to whether this is the best method for polygon efficiency but as far as i am aware this is using very few polygons and will work towards the efficiency of the model.

Below is the start of the modeling of the wheel arch like objects over the wings on the model, unfortunately this is the only screenshot i have of this process along with a picture of the final result.

This was also made with vertex and edge manipulation.

I am pleased with the end result of this, I feel like there may have been an easier way of achieving this but this method has worked just fine.

The 3rd Model

After planning my animation earlier on it occurred to me that i had not really chosen a 3rd model, up until now i have been thinking about what that model might be. Going back to my mood board I have decided to do the Slave I, Jango and Boba Fett's ship as it is one ship from the franchise.

Creating the X-Wing

Unfortunately i have very few screenshots of my progress for this model as I must have gotten so swept up in the making process. This was not posted until the model was complete.

For the most part this model was not particularly difficult,the main body was modeled from a box using simple vertex manipulation. The wings are made from boxes and the guns on the wings are made using a cylinder and the inset tool and the extrude tool to make different sized portions of the cylinder. 

I am happy with the outcome of this model the only thing i would have liked to improve is the cockpit window set up, which is currently achieved using the inset and extrude tools, I feel it may have been better to have used the spline tools much like in my Tie Interceptor model.

Tool Test: Melt

I thought i would test this tool as i see it on the list and was intrigued as to how it would work.

I don't know how helpful this tool will be but its definitely an interesting tool.

Creating the Tie Interceptor, Part 5

This is the final update to the modelling of the Tie Interceptor.

Here I have added a very basic gun to the wing, I plan to  make this look much better when i comes to texturing the model, at the moment it looks rater poor but I felt it was important to not add too much minor detail as this effects the polygon count and efficiency of the model, and can be achieved with textures.

I have also added the indented panels on the wing face using the inset tool, I am happy how this came out, some use of the connect tool and manipulation of edges was required for the middle panel, but overall I feel this went well.

The final thing to do was to duplicate the wing and mirror it to the other side, This tool is extremely helpful as it saves having to create another wing, i am very happy with the results.

Creating the Tie Interceptor, Part 4

For the next task I decided to reverse extrude the polygons behind the windscreen to make it look more like a cockpit.

After this I modeled the back of the, Fot the hexagon shape in the middle i used the boolean tool making the shape outline i needed and subtracting it from the sphere object. I am pleased with the outcome of this as it looks much like the actual ship.

Colleague Blog Review 2

I felt it may be useful to further look at another colleagues blog to investigate any improvements i could currently be implementing into my own.

http://etneeko3dmodelling.blogspot.co.uk/

This blog looks much like my own, although a couple of things I have noticed that i like that I have not done on my own blog. I like the inclusion of YouTube videos to show animation attempts, i have yet to attempt any animation, but when i do i will definitely be using this. I also like that the screenshots of the modelling process have been cropped this make it much easier to see the focus of the screen shot, although for some screen shots i do prefer showing all 4 view ports.

Creating the Tie Interceptor, Part 3

This one is a fairly small update, I have added the trim for the wing of the interceptor.

Using the same method as the wings i created boxes and manipulated and rotated them to fit the angles for the wing and then deleted the polygons between the boxes and collapsed the vertexes to make it one shape. I positioned the boxes to go through the wing to account for the trim on the other side, this should help to keep the polygon and object count low. I also created the hexagon shape for the middle of the wing using the shapes tool for a hexagon and using the extrude modifier and changing it to an editable mesh to manipulate it.

Creating the Tie Interceptor, Part 2

After starting the main body of the model i decided to try and get the main shape on the wing in place.

I started with two main shapes, one basic rectangle shape for the middle of the wing and then another for the portion of the wing that is bent inward, I made this shape into a triangular shape by collapsing vertices  of a box shape together.

To get the same shape for the bottom of the wing i simply duplicated the first object and the used the mirror modifier as can be seen in the screenshots.

I then created a cube to fill the gap between the objects and also mirrored it to the opposite side before, using the connect tool to allow for more editable verities.

After creating these objects i attached them to one another to make them the same object and then deleted the polygons between each gap and collapsed the vertices to connect the object together.

I am pleased with this basic shaped of the wing as it seems to capture the awkward shape well and makes good use of the tools available. There maybe easier ways to create an object this way but this seems to have worked as well as any.