Presentation of my 3D world
The interesting part of this project is to tell a story in three frames of modeling. My narrative is about one character riding on a hot air balloon to celebrate another character’s birthday. So, I gradually zoomed in to show different scenes and use characters in the foreground, middle and background to tell the story. I like the concept as each frame shows something unexpected and tells the story gradually.
When I was drawing the sketch, I did both front and bird view of the initial sketch to have an overall understanding of the environment in 3D. This helped me when I’m modeling on Maya. I used the skills I learned in class such as how to change the shape of an object by adjusting the vertex or extruding the shape inward and outward to do my final work. Also, I applied different materials and textures on the objects to make them in the condition that can express their properties most. For example, I adjust the metalness and roughness to make it reflect light like balloons. At first, although I adjust the property of the balloon, it couldn’t reflect the light as in the reality. I finally overcame the problem by adding an area light from a different perspective and with different exposure. This is what I find useful for 3D modeling as a proper light source can help us to make different objects disrobe their materials and reflect the light as they are in real condition. The material and style of the model made my whole environment and characters match each other, showing they are from a specific fantasy world.
Overall, the problem I have now is I cannot control the Maya to make the exact shapes and appearance in my mind. Most of the time, I can only adjust the shape to reach a certain standard but still way too far. To improve my skills, I want to study from the online resources that teachers provided us and practice more to better model different objects. After looking at peers’ works, I found out that modeling realistic objects such as architecture and vehicles is a way to practice skills in modeling difficult 3D environments. Although two weeks are already passed by, I will do more 3D work on Maya in the future.