Project T
Evaluation
Stage 3
This is the post production stage of Project T. This stage was set for creating the final product which was a 3D animation in Maya. The animation had to be handed in on a DVD.
All the work had been planned out from stages 1 and 2. All the research and planning was for this single animation. For example, showing what audio and camera shots will be used for the animation. I also visited several museums and exhibitions that were linked to my vehicles and animation.
The main thing I watched out for in the building process was keeping everything low poly. Also labelling each object in the out liner and labelling each texture in the Hyper-Shader.
This is an explanation of how I built and my Trike: The first thing I do is make sure that the file will be set to the right project. I then plan what parts of the Trike I will build first. I start with building the body. I choose the polygon cube and then scale it to a thin tube shape. Inserting the edge loop tool gives me extra faces so I can extrude each part I want. When I have extruded, I rotate the polygon to the angle I want it. I do the same process with the rest of the frame work and engine. If you don’t do the tires as low poly as you can it can add too many faces to the vehicle. So I chose to bump map my tires which gives a good grip effect. It is important that you keep saving the scene in case the software crashes.
Once the model is built I texture it from the Hypershader. It is important that you name every texture you do because it will cause confusion and also if you are importing objects in to another environment, you may have two textures with the same name and they could overwrite each other. I chose Blinn’s for the entire framework. I added a file to one Blinn using a rusty texture which was a jpeg. Once that file was placed I used automatic mapping which sets the UV texturing in the right place It is also important that you change the components of the texture so it is right for what you have built, for example, Reflectivity. There was a light on the front of the Trike so I added a glow texture. Once everything is built, I want my Trike to be rendered in the best quality so I turn on the Mental Ray option from the plug in manager. Once it’s rendered I can save the image.
What I have achieved:
The main thing I have improved on in Maya is setting up my rendering option so there are no problems and faults. Also what components were to be changed to get the best quality render. I used Mental Ray for my renders because it uses ray tracing and final gather which gives a realistic high quality render. I Managed all the time and motion from how many frames on the time line in Maya. The animation was 1 minute long and that’s what it had to be.
The problems:
The main problem with this project was my time management. I did get everything finished on time but it is always best to give yourself time to really refine your final product and make it perfect. I also had stage 2 given back to me because I thought it was not up to the standard of stage 1 and 3.
Overall I think project T went very well and I enjoyed the processes and development work building up to the modelling stage.
