Fun with 3D Studio Max and Tutorials

I have been furthering my understanding of 3DS Max with online tutorials, effects such as particle effects, environment, lighting and UVW mapping. I found many of these tutorials here.
Here are a few of my efforts.

Identities part 1 Assessment

Apart from the 2 aforementioned concerns I was very comfortable with this project. I got to grips with 3d studio max quickly and enjoyed using the application very much and its something I think I will carry on for years to come. The pretense for my video game character avatar may have been a little flimsy, but it was something I really wanted to do and as a result I think that in itself shows my identity. So everything was great apart from two major issues, the first is that my film was kind of like 2 different halves bolted together to make a whole, this a result of the second issue. I didn't allow enough time to review and revise my final render, i foolishly ignored the time management part of the assignment and as a result suffered the consequences. So in the end I learned the hard way, hopefully now I will be more careful and attentive with my time management in future.

Final Avatar

Here is my final render for the avatar part 1 project. I feel the short film is split into 2 parts, the beginning has a very different style to the end and these styles don't appear to mix. This is partly due to both parts taking along time to produce and my unwillingness to let them go and a lack of time preparation, not allowing myself time to review the film and correct it, I will elaborate on these errors in my next post about the assessment presentation.

Cogito ergo sum

I like to think my work for the first part of the identities project is based on René Descartes statement "I think therefore I am". This originally meant that if one doubted their own existence they were think and therefor must exist, this proved to be the foundation of western philosophy. I took this expression and made it more literal, if I think "x" I am "x", or, if I think "x" my avatar is "x". It was then just a case of what do I think about, I thought about where I had seen avatars before and i thoughtin video games.

Finished Avatar model, Original designs and bad internet

At the moment the internet where I live is terrible so I am unable to upload a bunch of video I was planning to post this weekend, it is most likely they will go live Monday when I can use the university internet. So for now I will post as normal and insert the relevent videos at a later date. Any way I finished my avatar model that you will see in the video below, its a short (about 10 second) video of the model rotating 360.



I am very pleased with the level of detail in the render but it still doesn't compare to my original concept pictured below.



The 3d render still looks a bit cartoony but otherwise I am pleased with it, I feel I have come along way since my first master chief attempt. This render will only be featured in my final animation for a short amount of time. I plan on a camera quickly zooming into the avatars eyes to reveal a more surreal avatar.

Cube Concept

Here is my 1st attempt at my cube idea. I'm very happy with it so far, but there is still much work to be done. Tomorrow I'll slow it down, add lighting effects and change the path of the camera in the later part of the film, Also I feel the original avatar doesn't fit in with the rest of the visuals so I may exclude it and present it as a separate video.

Goals

Today we had a lecture about careers in Multimedia, it was pretty scary thinking about how we are essential solely responsible for ensuring our future prospects. So I was thinking as I can't really go about work experience right now I should work on expanding my skill set, after all I don't wanted to be limited in my decisions next year because I am limited by my capabilities. So I thought I should get a little more Pro active, by the end of the term I will have wanted to start the follow activities.

- An advanced flash tutorial, the basis of a platform game in order to recreate the amnesia series (my video game) in flash.

- Export a film from 3D studio Max and edit it in premier.

- Expand on my HTML script.

- Find a popular multimedia blog and read it... every day.

That's it for now.

EDIT: I've tried finding a blog but it is proving a little difficult, I want to find something similar to Kotaku but about multimedia in general not just video games.

Cubes

I just thought of a an idea that I had to get down on paper or the internet or something. I will recreate my original pixelated video game character exactly as he is but out of "3d pixels", each pixel used to make the sprite will be a 3d cube. These cubes can then fall away and create new forms, for example the chess board, or the other way around.

Passage: A Second Life In 5 Minutes

Today I found An art game called Passage by Jason Rohrer, he says :It presents an entire life, from young adulthood through old age and death, in the span of five minutes. Of course, it's a game, not a painting or a film, so the choices that you make as the player are crucial. There's no "right" way to play Passage, just as there's no right way to interpret it."

You can find the game here...
and read the explanation by Jason Rohrer here.

My Own Avatar

I decided to stop pursuing the "perfect" Master Chief and start doing something a little more personal. I decided to keep a video game character, but one i made myself, a very long time ago. To the left you can see a little sprite drawn guy with a rifle, thats a 2D video game character I devised about 5 years ago, he doesn't have a name but was in a game I made called Amnesia that I have remade many times over (mainly because the files get corrupted or there are too many bugs to iron out etc.). So I decided to finally attempt to make the jump from 2D to 3D now that I have the skills to do it. I feel this character is appropriate because I made him and have developed him for a long time and also its something I enjoy (making and playing video games). So i started off with the head...



So he has the spiky hair, head band and face/jaw guard thing but he doesn't have that cold calculating look I imagined him having. I decided to give him some goggles so you can't see his eyes making him appear distant, I also added some bump mapping and started the body...



Now he is starting to get there. As for making him significant to me I created him and developed him over a long time, I'll also animate him running through a level with objects, memories and thoughts relevant to me sneaked into the background.

Flash Seminar

Friday was my first Flash seminar, we are now starting to move into areas beyond cutting and pasting relevant terms into templates.



Apparently there has been a fairly recent shift from Action Script 2.0 to 3.0, people familiar to the older version will have to forget what they know and relearn the new Adobe code. I suppose its fortunate for me I didn't know the older way so I feel less like I'm taking a step backwards, although I think 2.0 was largely based on Java, another useful tool. Anyway a lot of code is involved and I can see it taking me a long time before I can create something without having to look up every other action on a help tutorial. For next weeks seminar I need to create a set of multiple choice questions that tally a score at the end.