Week 4 - Part 2 Si's kitchen gets a makeover!

Whatever I may say, I do quite enjoy designing furniture and adding textures onto walls...in 3DS Max anyways! This post also includes the structural changes I made to the previously bland four-walled-no-window-or-opening themed kitchen (its an archway for the moment!)

The interior of the Death Star in Star Wars may spring to mind, but this is close to what I had imagined in the first place (to this, I will also be adding a window looking out onto a view of Earth from the Moon - the famous one where you just the edge of the Moons cratered surface at the bottom of the image!)

The Kitchen


A couple of weeks ago while I was getting to grips with controlling camera paths and constants, I came across a small number of textures with which I created my Space Room with the teapot inside (theres a video a few posts back)
Well, I thought to make use of these materials again as they perfectly suited my actual assignment now, which I didn't plan for surprisingly...
Under the 'Mtl Editor', I re-discovered a texture ('Specular Level Map #43) I previously used on the 'pot itself, but now it was a candidate for the flooring in the kitchen; the alternation between varying shades of grey geometric shapes really grabbed my attention!

^ The texture now applied, I could alter the maps characteristics for that polished look! The map was applied to the 'Specular Level', Glossiness' and 'Reflection' channels, all at 100% The enlarged sphere in the floating window allowed me to see my subtle alterations easier^

^This is the kitchen floor rendered - note the ideal amount of reflective detail from anything that may be standing directly on its surface^


I then returned to designing the archways that would connect the two rooms without unnecessary doors and making sure they open within the animation (too much hassle!)
I began the process by choosing 'arc' under the splines tab, and then pulled out the shape you see to the right...
It was, of course, too circular in appearance, and so I needed to pull up the center in order to truly form an archway to fit the walls correctly.

Therefore, I selected the re-size tool from the upper menu and
re-formed it into the shape on the right.

I was then needing to, in order for 3DS Max to recognise it as a proprietary object ready to be used in the 'Boolean' procedure I had planned, 'lathe' it into a smooth cone so that the 'arc' will still keep all its original dimensions
Although, I had no idea to what the shape would end up as let alone on what lateral direction I was to 'lathe' it in...


^The resulting shape/form when the 'arc' is lathed in the 'z' axis. I thought this would be the ideal shape for 'Boolean-ing' out an archway, but Max just wouldn't recognize it as a constant object on screen and, as the image shows, I tried a few options before I decided not to continue^


The only other possible way that I knew of was to add a cone onto the stage, creating it 'from center'. I adjusted the dimensions that that it would work much along that same lines as my previous lathed arc, but this time I made sure the shape had enough depth to completely transcend both sides of the wall's depth.

Once all three aspects of the cone were constructed, I could then set about altering the default settings; adding extra sides and height segments, as well as 'smoothing' the whole form.

I made small adjustments to the height, mainly because it needed to avoid cutting into the floor, but also not coming into the contact with the walls uppers section, thus making the wall look far too brittle or unworkable for future reference (see below)

^The position in which I placed said cone in between both wall surfaces. Making sure rear wall was selected, I then went to 'compound objects' selected 'Boolean', picked 'OperandB' as cone01 and then 'extracted Operand' as an instance, subtracting A from B
Below is the result - note how the wall takes on the form of the preexisting cone all on sides, and how the side walls are almost bevelled due to the angle I made the cone from^



Now I was finished with the basic spatial area in the kitchen, my thoughts turned to the decoration.
I was lucky enough to rediscover the texture I talked about using for my previous camera-path tutorial scene, in which an individual in the class remarked on it looking like "the interior of the Death Star", which I was surprised to hear at that time, but now I think about it, its seems to fit this brief to a tee.

Due to the wall having so many angles on which a basic texture-application could look very untidy, I knew that best way was to ensure a 'UWV Map' was applied as soon as I had re-configured the texture to the use I intended for it in this context.

As the images on the left show, the tiling of the default material needed to be tweaked in such a way as to appear natural and no too artificial. I was pleased wit the outcome (especially when increasing certain attributes only enhances the metallic properties of this material!)

^Here is a slightly remodeled archway, which was adjusted by taking the wall in 'Sub-Object' level and adjusting the vertexes so that it smoothly curved over (reminded me of a doorway from Star Trek: Next Generation for some reason!). In the scene, you can see the beginnings the of the camera path that I had began experimenting with during this stage!
Below is the wall with the 'android texture' (as I call it) added and its seemed to apply just as well with the box mapping as it has with the other walls...^


Next post will focus on the addition of the lounge area, and the start of the kitchen furniture, which will of course be suitably quirky and certainly space-age enough!

Week 4 (technically, but carrys on from last weeks work!) Creation of the interiors...

Of course, every alien needs a home, and what better way to make an alien feel at home then to have one created for him, all with the aid of a few metallic and space-age materials within Max's library...

Oh yes, and heres the second storyboard for the second Ident (the ironing needs to be done on this one) - its housework Jim, but not as we know it!

Si's house/space-age apartment with only two rooms(!)



In order to create the kitchen, first of all, I needed a total of four walls - any less and there would be the problem of attaching a roof to the place!
To make sure I didn't get a screen full of red walls, I decided to construct two first of all and align them as shown.
I was to use the 'Align-Selection' tool to allow the positioning of all four walls a mite easier; especially due to Max relying of all three axis to keep order within the numerous objects
So, I made sure that the first two were crossing directly and then I moved on...

^ The image shows the default settings that the align selection tool uses as a starting point
note: I have also made sure that I selected the bisecting wall before attempting this^


The wall marked '1' has now been re-positioned as shown. The 'world align position' chosen was 'X', with current object set as 'min' and target object set to 'max'
Because Max recognises that the lateral movement of the object is attributed to the figure of 'X', then all the wall has done is shifted along the lateral path and stuck to a predetermined course
By using this tool, I then take a copy of the settings used for use with the other wall if, as a precaution, the cloning of these two walls did not allow the 'align' tool to be used...


^One last alteration; by un-checking the 'world align position', the wall now moves into the exact place (the wall in the rear is where the sink will be, and the wall that has been re-positioned is the supposed 'garden' or 'side' wall)^


My theory of cloning the two walls actually paid off and, with only a couple of minutes of minor adjustments, the walls seemed to line up when brought together on a defined axis...
Now, I was able to concentrate on the design of the walls. I didn't want just plain, flat walls, as this would appear far too human.
I decided to use a tool I hadn't tried for a while: 'taper'
Once the wall as a poly had been selected, I used the taper modifier the create a wall that was characteristically rhombus-like in its form; a flat edge, with four other angled sides behind it - very nice, I thought, and very space-age too!

^I moved the wall into the centre, as a guide to where it could be, especially since the idea that whatever I adjusted on this original wall, all the other walls, since I had cloned them as 'instances', would mirror those actions. This saved me quite a bit of time, I'm glad to say!^

Now, all the walls has been automatically adjusted in exact the same settings as 'wall 1', I could simply bring them together like so and make sure it was a plausible modification, and that it wouldnt hinder either further re-scalign of the room itself, or create far too many surface which artificial lights sources in Max's pre-sets would simply glare over.
Luckily, Max will allow any trials of possibilities and, although I didn't take a screenshot of them, I tried a few versions of artificial lights, with spots, omnis and targets, all of which did not create too many unwanted extremes in exposure (I'm aiming for natural looking ceiling-lit rooms at least)

^The creation of the floor, which I carefully made sure measured up to the sides of the walls - using the cloning tool and changing the graphical view to 'wireframe', I could see the outlines of all the wall (shown in red and white) as well as the floor (just a generated plane given depth, shown in green)^

Part 2 will be on the way - a chance to me to flex my interior design muscles, even if having no experience in space-age interiors could cost me at the start...

Week 3 - Part 2 Si gains a body (of sorts, coz I may change it slightly!)

This is straight to the point time, I'm afraid, due to the excessive amount of blogshots I have taken, but then its only because theres alot to cover in creating Si's 'out-of-this-world' abode!

Once I had finished with Si's head, I decided that in order create the body I imagined in my head, I would need to 'extrude' and 'bevel' selected polygons from his head.
Firstly, due to his head being circular, I needed to select, with 'ignore backfacing' checked, a similarly circular area of polygons at the base of the head and flatten them out by shifting them upwards until they were almost parallel.
By doing this I then had a clean area from which I could accurately begin 'beveling' (I planned to use a repetitive process of beveling and extruding outwards and, as I went further down, his body would appear more bulbous and bloated.

^The image shows how beneficial choosing a wireframe view is when a user is in the process of selecting so many individual polys and vertices!^


Once all the relevant polygons had been selected, I then chose the bevel tool and began to pull out the required amount of material from the wire-framed head of Si.
I was trying to create him into what would almost instantly be recognisable to a average viewer and giving Si this bulbous appearance, with exposed tentacles at the base of his body to aid his mobility (very 'sci-fi'!) and two short, stubby arms (that will possibly only have the wrists, shoulder and three-finger joints moving!), I feel that the persona he portrays with his facial features certainly displays an attitude of dislike of the situation, if only for these three scenarios...

^As you can see, the 'bevel' tool allowed a greater degree of control over even the extrude tool, as I was able to pull the existing form outwards and create this almost canopy-like coverage as his body took shape the further I went along^


The process was actually a very interesting method in which an individual could almost create a whole 'form' from just a sphere, using the 'bevel' tool.
In the image, I have gradually tapered the shape and tried to be as uneven as possible, but also still intend on making the lower section as expansive as possible (a big foot/tentacle print!)
The only thing I was worried about at this point was that once I have re-selected the 'Mesh-Smooth' mod, would I just become a over-sized blob, with a disjointed and disproportionate head atop...


^The finished form of Si in wire-frame mode. At this stage I tried to create the tentacles, but unfortunately they weren't turning out the way I hoped they would, appearing as slim blocks sticking outwards, even with the 'Mesh-Smooth' mod on...^


As stated in the title, this is the finished form, but I'm not completely happy with it(I may not have time to change it drastically, but it could just be a case of slimming and enlarging certain areas!)
Just at the base you can see the tentacles at their baby stage, even though it is pretty simple for me to revert to the 'Editable Poly' level and increase their length without too much hassle.
The texture used here is, of course, the same as whats on Si's head, and I do still feel its suits the overall effect and art-style of the Sci-Fi subject matter. And, again, the cylinder mapping parameter was used, but I unselected the 'cap' for the body to avoid discrepancies in his neck

^Shown above is the example of why I un-checked the 'cap' within the cylinder map parameter - I may also point out the specular detail I added in to make Si's skin appear slightly moist or smooth enough to reflect any generated light sources I will be adding into the scenes...^

That is enough of Si for the moment; next post concentrates of the creation of the kitchen (and how well the mapping and lighting seemed to go for me, even if the creation of the archway needed to be restarted a couple of times!)

Week 3 - A Storyboard (and a tutorial!)

*A tutorial will be shown nearer the end of this post* By now, I have decided on the three clear ideas of what my animations will include and they all involve a recurring theme of the alien and his housework/chores which he carries out in his house (apparently on the Moon!), where he also have a scenic view out of his kitchen window of Earth below him - I may include a window in the lounge as well so that it shows up in at least two of the Idents. This almost certainly gives the viewer a more believable edge to how possible this could be - especially watching the Sci-Fi channel!

The first will involve Si the Alien washing up in the kitchen. He will put a plate into the drying rack on the side and, (there are two possible versions: whichever is easiest!) as he goes to pull out the plug, the soapy water drains away and the soap suds left in the bowl will spell out Sci - Fi

Here is a small storyboard to demonstrate;

The other two ideas involve Si in the lounge where, in the second, he is ironing a pair of his undercrackers, burns a mark into them, pulls up the iron and places it onto the ironing board, where the Sci-Fi channel title will appear at the bottom.
The last one, again in the lounge, Si will be either dusting or hoovering (I'm sure him dusting will be alot easier to demonstrate!) and, as he cleans, he will chuck up dust/dirt in the air and the titles will appear in either the air or on the floor/shelve surface.

I shall update the storyboards for these ideas as and when I continue...

The Tutorial

Creating characters which are intended to become animated means applying the use of bones to the characters limbs, thus allowing them to be manipulated. Each 'bone' that is created should be named appropriately as so to avoid any mistakes, as well as creating a series of 'bones' that are measured for your desired purpose e.g. a upper-arm and fore-arm, with a wrist joint and finger joints for a typical homo-sapient, but other characters may need other parts too...

^Upon choosing 'Mechanics' along the top menu, you are greeted with five options, with the 'bone' option chosen here. Using a 'click-and-drag' system, I created this string of bones that are immediately connected to each other, and act as if they were tokens part of a typical human arm ( options with this item include altering the dimensions of a particular bone and adding in 'fins' to any of them for ease of movement/selection, as well as adding bulk to the required limb is you should wish^

^ Creating a cylinder and lining it up against the upper-arm 'bone' (which, incidentally, I pulled upwards to straighten them out ready for this step!), I began to clone the cylinder the same number of times as there was 'bones', lining each one up against its requisite 'bone' (I also later learned that all I needed was one cylinder/cube per limb, rather than cloning several)^

^Ignoring the sentence I finished the last point with, the next I took was to integrate each cylinder with the bone I had lined it up next to - I had thought that having a separate object for each bone would have allowed a greater degree of flexibility, but this isn't that case (3DS Max is clever enough to contort a single object through many deformations, without the need for too many at once!)^

^Once the cylinders are lined up and all equal in spacing and are considered parallel, I then went to the modifier list and chose the skin modification, to which I was presented with the window of options on the right of the image above. I then went to 'Add' and selected the bones in the scene (you can see the easily-memorable names I gave them!) and clicked 'Select' - there are many check/un-check options of how to order the bones if there are many of you are not sure which have been used or not...^

^Finally, the 'Edit Envelopes' button. This handy tool allows precise alterations to each section of the cylinder that you have chosen and, as shown in the image, I have checked the fins options from the previous window to show how exactly the bones will change with this option engaged. The vertices and loops of the bones will alter in accordance and in direct relation with the envelope modifications - definitely a tool which can come in useful when their are alot of bones attached with the HI Solver ( a device which allows the joints of each of the bones to connect with each other, so pulling one up will directly alter the others in that chain...^

I will present a handful more posts within this week, especially since I have completed around 60% of Si and the Alien now, and since the stage for the animations contains two rooms, one of which will be used for two of the Idents, I may be able to say that the constructions of them are almost halfway too....

2nd Week - Part 2 The Creation of 'Si' (well,his head!)

As promised, you will now have the pleasure of understanding the lengthy process it took me to create my alien character. He is particularly special as he will be the only living item within each of the idents, so he will have to portray some semblance of physical and physiological intelligence (in other words, I gotta make him look as good as possible early on without too much hassle for later!)


I have a few sketches which I will show, and also the original image which definitely sparked an idea of which persona and attitude I was going to follow for him - as it happens, the disgruntled look suited his physical features pretty well, I feel

I think by my subsequent scribblings, its pretty plain to see how I intended to show the alien life form, even if it wasn't the most flattering, it certainly was the most enthralling aspect of the
project at this early stage!

Varied I know, but I felt it was necessary to give every possible idea a chance, even if a certain one wouldn't be easy to accomplish on in 3DS Max, but hey, that's what lecturers are for-to give you their honest opinion of whether something would work, and I have learnt to go with the most likely-to-happen design, which just so happens to look pretty good as well...


I then took my ideal template into Max and began to create my idea - which I can bet will develop more on-screen than what I had drawn out!

^ After creating two spheres, I adjusted the purple one with the 'squash-mod' resizing tool, which enhanced its appearance to appear as a more natural almond-shaped eyeball (this would then fit inside the socket I would create as the next step.

Also in this scene is the aqua-coloured sphere, which having adjusted a row of vertices' 3x4, it was able to push some of the material inwards to create the brow (afterwards, applying a 'smooth' modifier helped with the natural-appearance of a deeply,inset brow as you will see in the next image...)^

^ Now the brow has been created, I re-adjusted the eyeball into something similar to my original idea - almond-shaped and bulbous to an extent! I then managed to find a suitable texture for the eye (a monitor lizard's eyeball closeup) I then applied this Bitmap file to the 'diffuse-colour' channel, and began to alter 'specular levels', reflection and refraction properties of the texture so that it could appear to be moist and wholly plausible^

On the right-hand side is a description of the UVW map settings I used, which included, a this stage; a box map, as well as alterations to the default Max settings for the U, V and W tiling

^ This image is to show the slight alteration I made to the axis on which the texture was to be applied according to the UVW map, which I altered from X to Y, meaning the pupil was now on the horizontal, again appealing more to the odd nature of a being from outer space! To finalize this part, I also decided to apply the Bitmap to the several other channels as part of the default window; specular level, glossiness and the two translucency shaders - this allowed a greater level of detail in the texture (I believe it was in this image I had deliberately selected the 'faceted' property within the material library function, as to give the eye greater depth of realism...

Now that the eye has been rotated and given that specular highlight shown, I then wanted to add in the semblance of a mouth for Si.

Using a similar technique to create the eye socket, I pulled out a selected number of vertices, and pushed another selection downwards to create that scornful look. Adjustments such as this at the corners also improved this.

The 'subdivision-method' is now a 'quad-output' with adjustments made to iterations and smoothness

And now I moved onto the aliens skin texture, would would be used throughout his body. It was found through a search on the Internet, had just the right resolution without and need to crop, and so I Bitmapped it into Max, and began to repeat a similar process as with the lizards eye.

As the image shows, the target was to get as realistic as possible, with a high bump map and specular highlights in select places, but as the image shows, I perhaps had the incorrect parameter from which to start the adjustments (its too shiny even with reflection at 100)

^ Above is a much more appropriately-modified image, which shows how changing the basic parameter to Oren-Nayer-Blinn (giving the texture a more matte finish) really improves the scaly-rough texture I'm aiming for. Small alteration to the smoothness and glossiness levels, keeping roughness at 100, meant this is the ideal texture for Si! On the right, you see the settings for the Map, with the texture alignment on the Z axis and the box mapping parameter selected^

Unfortunately, even though I had thought I had got away with not having to faff around with alignments too much with the tiling of the skin texture, rotating the head around showed me that that tiling was all too obvious to ignore.

I then decided to save the settings before experimenting and, having done that, I then tried out other other UVW mappings. Cylindrical was interesting because while all round the face it was exactly what I was after, the top of the head was as shown, pulled together like a pinched piece of latex..!

I was going to go straight onto another setting but, in a strange twist, I saw the 'cap' option at the side of the point, and so clicked on it just to see what would happen.

As the image shows, I no longer had the crown of the skull pinched inwards and the texture just spread out evenly. And I even managed to highlight the drawn mouth a bit more with use of clever lighting!

Next week, I will finish him off...seems alot of work, I knwo, but once hes done, Si will appear without hesitation in whatever scenario I choose for him (even if he knows it could end in a way he wasn't expecting!!)

2nd Week - Part 1 Mighty Morphin'

This weeks lecture/tutorial was based on a video a past student had made on Morphing - a skill in 3DS Max which may come in handy for our animations...

Though initially complex, the students video was narrated and was easy to follow, meaning that everyone could get a hang on which buttons to press and which numbers to put in.

This is the method and objects which I used to demonstrate what I had learnt...


^Started off with a cylinder, named it 'green' and then cloned it as a 'copy' twice, naming the two copies 'red' and 'blue' respectively^

^ I then converted the red cylinder to an editable poly, went into sub-object level, selected vertices's, highlighted its upper section and then pulled it outwards, as the image shows^

^ As a direct opposite, I then followed the process as described above, but I pulled the lower section outwards, like so...^

^ I then returned to the green cylinder, selected the 'morph' option from the modifiers, where I was presented with the menu you see on the right side of the image above. I double-clicked on the first marker tab, and then the 'pick object from scene' button. This meant that I could click on the red cylinder, which added it to the marker tab, with the bar on the left going green to indicate its selected - this process was repeated for the blue cylinder

^I moved onto the next part. Selecting 'auto-key', I pulled the 'frame-bar' along to 50 and then pushed the percentage of morph next to the red cylinders marker tab up to 100% (this meant the green cylinder's upper half would mirror the movements of the red cylinder!)
I then moved the 'frame-bar' to 100 frames, again upping the percentage on the blue cylinder to 100% ( the green cylinder now has both section mirroring the respective coloured-cylinder)^


I could then alter the percentage of both of then along the timeline, so that the green cylinder would alter its morph-state to appear more or less like its clones

To illustrate my perhaps slightly convoluted explanation of what I learnt, I have included the video created with this process...