Learning Experience.

My learning experience within this module has been quite concise rather than the spread of knowledge gained in the previous year. It has been a nice change of pace to focus in on areas and work hard on learning the in and outs of specific tools.

One of the most valuable things learnt was the fire particle system. I had touched on particle systems in the past so knew a little about the particle side of things. However I had never experienced the material utilised to create a decent looking fire effect, thus it was fascinating to learn the method of doing it then manipulating that basic method to create many alternate effects.

Alternate particle related skills I got to use once more was the ability to have particles form shapes, this was seen when both forming the quote and having the quote blow away in a mist of particles. 

The discovery of inserting a vertex on a line was illuminating and provided a vastly greater ability to create interesting shapes via polygon modelling. In the past I had always used the insert loop or slice and quick slice, however these methods tended to make unnecessary polygons around every other side of the shape. This new method proved highly useful throughout the modelling process, which included multiple buildings, odd props, and an entire island.

One of the more astonishing lessons learnt was about the Loft tool; this was due to the revelation of how much more it is capable of than I had been aware of from previous learning. This primarily revolved around being able to take multiple shapes along the single path therefore creating unique 3D shapes from simple 2D ones. 

The locks and linking were something I had been aware of being possible but was unsure precisely where they were located or how they functioned. This led to me being able to control the motion of cameras via linking their target to objects they were to focus on and also the vehicles were able to be linked rather than grouped meaning the independent parts could be moved without having to remember to open the group. 

A useful part of the graphite tools I have a new appreciation for is the smooth and smooth 30 options. This is because models tend to look better when given a Turbo or Mesh Smooth because it gives a flat surface and can take out the obvious signs of a model’s polygons; however these Smooth modifiers do exponentially increase the polygon count which is something that ideally needs to be kept as low as possible.

One of the more negative experiences was the unfortunate server issues which equated to the loss of work and to a gap where 3DS Max was unavailable. At first this didn’t seem too much of an issue, with many locations to which my work was saved I hadn’t lost anything and ultimately I had access to 3Ds Max at home. The problem that occurred was that it caused a mass break in work as we couldn’t meet as a group and do things in a central location. Losing the week or two interrupted the flow of work and that flow never really came back. It seemed to be the case for everyone to at least some degree, the abrupt nature of the event really violently halted work and returning to that was immeasurably difficult.

Leading on from this, another downbeat point was the unfortunate lack of resources we have access to. This is usually felt most when transferring work between University and Home, as the University is still using 3Ds Max 2011 and we have access to 2014. This meant always remembering to make the saves back compatible or else we would have come in with files we couldn’t access. It was inconvenient but nothing too bad; the real issue was how large some of our assets became. We ended up having to seriously adjust a lot of the textures or else the active viewport just couldn’t handle the size. This was an unfortunate situation owing to the inevitable hardware limitations an institution such as a University has.  Another constraint of the program itself was the restricted number of particles from a particle emitter, however it  was eventually worked out that multiple emitters would allow for thicker particle emission whilst maintaining the lower number to meet the limit placed into 3Ds Max.

Group work has never really been my specialty; I find working on my own a lot easier as usually I can dictate my own timings and actions with greater comfort. However as a group we managed to get along quite well, the design process went smoothly and we were able to incorporate ideas from everyone and the allocation of jobs was an easy task. Unfortunately towards the end of the project everyone’s mood had begun to slip, this is likely due to the issues mentioned above where everyone lost momentum, it did however mean group meetings waned and communication between group members faltered. We also ended up doing things quite autonomously which led to scenes being created that didn’t necessarily match up with others. This is perhaps one of my weakest points, compounded by the university machines being slower than my own, I frequently remained at home and was able to do things efficiently but alone thus not fully being part of the group.

Improvements to some of the scenes I created were realised after they were past the point of being changeable but are worthwhile noting for future endeavours. 

When dropping the bomb onto the island I think one of my original shot ideas would have been superior, it was to have the plane with the bomb go over the camera and the camera rotate following the bomb, until the bomb was now heading downward, essentially gaining an undercarriage view of the plane and then what would potentially be an upside down view of the island, it struck me as this might be quite a nice shot, however with the target camera I was unable to gain such a shot as the camera constantly tried rotating which gave a very jarring animation, possibly with a free camera the effect could have been gained, it is difficult to say if it would have been better or worse than the one that was used but I never got time to try.

I didn’t push myself into experimenting with an alternate renderer on this occasion, witnessing that people were having issues with certain elements using MentalRay I chose to stick with the Scanline default renderer, maybe with more time I would have tried to get to grips with the MentalRay and the power it holds to adjust lighting etc with exposure control but with the limited time it proved difficult to justify potentially longwinded test sessions to find the ideal settings with the MentalRay renderer.

Although the island did look quite good and ideally I would have liked more buildings and more detail on those buildings and a greater variety it already proved a nightmare to work with when trying to animate anything. This meant the inevitable conclusion that the island could have done with less detail and perhaps been smaller to allow an easier time when working on animation elements.

The Japanese takeoff was another thing I would have rather liked to have dedicated more time to as I was never completely satisfied with the fly away part. The camera angle was a little off, I did attempt others but I just couldn’t manipulate a shot that was any better than the one I produced first. 

Ultimately I feel that this project has taught me a lot and has been quite good preparation for expecting the unexpected and I feel I will be better prepared to deal with issues such as that in the future.