Problems Problems...

I am really struggling to put what I want into practice. Looking at the wedding man icing figure, the coat is quite easy to wrap around the body, but recreating it in Max is proving to be a real nightmare. It should be easy, it probably is, but I just cant figure it out. Downloaded a cloth tutorial, but my results were just HORRIBLE! I also tried adding a biped to the figire and everything started going wrong. All in all a disaster. So in the end decided that only the arms will move, so I am happy that it won't affect the animation needed for the idents, but unhappy that I wasn't able to figure ot how to add the whole thing.

ALSO manipulating shapes as editable polys is also turning into a real problem. See below my aborted efforts at ahand. I realy need some help to get this finished in time to the level that I will be satisfied with. Don't want to end up with a half-arsed job. Need to speak to you Joe on Monday!

Playing with Max

Playing with Max

I must admit I am a novice at 3D Max, so this week realising how quickly the end of semester is looming I sat down and worked through some of the tutorials in Max 9, and it was a real eye-opener. Firstly the range of possibilities is enormous, but secondly, how the heck can someone learn all the different hidden menus! The bouncing ball tutorial had me opening up sub-boxes to show different things that I would never have ever found on my own. The layout of the programme is definitely NOT HCI friendly!

Still, it gave the confidence to explore different shapes, and was delighted when I started playing with the Extended Primitives in the create section. It made modelling the cake, and the table much easier than anticipated with better than anticipated results! I am especially pleased with the use of the ChamferCyl for the table, which makes it look as though it has a pleated edge, very much like a lot of table cloths found at weddings.

Things are not all they seem!

These are a couple of the margritte paintings that inspired me for the sunject ina subject - really clever stuff!

Camera Moves

Think I've finally got the camera moves sussed. I've been having terrible trouble getting the camera to move smoothly, as every mistake I made moving it has resulted in the camera following the mistakes on the final animation. Think I've got it sussed - no more auto! This is keyframes made by using the set key & key 'key' at starting and closing point. I had avoided the circle on the initial mapping, but on the animation it went through it, so the computer had worked out the most direct tween, so just needed to add an additional keyframe at frame 40 and I had a controllable camera. This is a real breakthrough for me and SOOOO EXCITING! lol