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Here’s a simple animation and lighting test I did exploring the differences between materials and physics. I did a similar exercise several years ago in basic 3D animation class, but it sounded fun to give it another shot.
Spheres Bounce Test from Todd K on Vimeo.
Not many guys get to say they’re teaching their girlfriend how to 3D model and render, but fortunately I can (it’s how we met, actually)! Along that journey, I discovered a pretty nice plugin for Google Sketchup. IDX Renditioner unlocks loads of possibilities that the average Sketchup patron never dreamed of. No longer will your architectural spaces or mechanical parts look like something out of an instruction manual.
With virtually zero rendering or lighting experience, a newbie user can install the plugin, change a few environmental settings like the north facing direction & time of day, and start generating images like this. Albeit it’s no VRay, but not bad at all for being completely free. That image is literally about 5 minutes of prep work (not including modeling; room downloaded from 3D Warehouse) and 5 minutes of rendering time.
IDX can designate textural attributes to standard Sketchup materials, including reflection type (glass, metal, polished, varnished, etc.), bump mapping, and glow. Indirect illumination and basic image based lighting give the image a more realistic feel than you’d otherwise get out of Sketchup.
Here is what I did with the original render with a bit of tinkering in Photoshop:
I first created this mech in 2008 as my final in a Maya class. I’ve just resurrected the project and have plans to transform this into a full visual effects shot. Here it is in its early stages.
This will be set in ~2020, where a post-apocalyptic world defends themselves with an army of salvaged and hacked together machinery. This concoction of a mech trots down the street stomping on cars and fighting off insurgents. An RPG and aerial bomber unsuccessfully attempt to stop the onslaught. It hasn’t gotten to this point yet, but the idea is that this mech is escorting a VIP truck to the extraction point where a drop-ship will scoop them up.
One of the most important parts of design, particularly 3D modeling in my case, is how you think about a project. The way you develop and hold the information in your head will change your work flow.
What really got me into 3D modeling and animation was that it gave me to power to bring ideas to life. My overactive imagination would be responsible for conjuring up an idea and molding it into shape, while the computer software just does the job of bringing it into reality. Most of the planning and problem solving takes place in my head before I begin, leaving the act of creating it to a simple conversion from brain to computer screen.
I’ve attempted to describe this concept before, but was unable to find a suitable metaphor before stumbling upon the article below. Although it was written with a computer programmer in mind, the concept is exactly the same for a 3D artist or any graphic designer.
“A good programmer working intensively on his own code can hold it in his mind the way a mathematician holds a problem he’s working on. Mathematicians don’t answer questions by working them out on paper the way schoolchildren are taught to. They do more in their heads: they try to understand a problem space well enough that they can walk around it the way you can walk around the memory of the house you grew up in. At its best programming is the same. You hold the whole program in your head, and you can manipulate it at will.
That’s particularly valuable at the start of a project, because initially the most important thing is to be able to change what you’re doing. Not just to solve the problem in a different way, but to change the problem you’re solving.
Your code is your understanding of the problem you’re exploring. So it’s only when you have your code in your head that you really understand the problem.”
-Quoted from Holding a Program In One’s Head
