CSCI 140 Final Gallery

3-D Computer Modeling 
CSCI 140 Fall 2002

Stokes, Katie

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Project
Katie StokesFinal Scene
African Savannah
 
Inspiration:

I have always enjoyed watching the nature programs that take us to Africa, especially the African Savannah.  Animals such as the lion, zebras, gazelle and various birds caught my attention.  However, my favorite has always been the giraffe.  At the zoo I spend the most time watching the giraffe tower above me.  One time I even got to ride on one around the little track.  While trying to decide what kind of project to do, I realized I should work on something that I am familiar with or like.
 
 
 
Objects
TreesKatie
GiraffeKatie
GroundKatie
 
Elements:

I knew that I would need at least three main elements.  First, I knew that I need to make a giraffe, second a tree to duplicate, and third the ground.  There would also have to be a sky.  I had originally planned to create a nice sunset background and some other small animals and other vegetation.

Creation:

Actually making the objects took more effort than I had planned for.  I had decided to make the tree first.  I looked up tutorials online and found some.  All of them required different plug-ins.  I spent some time understanding the tutorial only to be disappointed by not being able to successfully download any of the plug-ins that I needed.  So trial and error was the method for the tree.  I created 4 different trunks before I settled on the one I used.  Then the leaves, those took me a while to figure out the best method for my project.  The giraffe, although time consuming, was not so difficult.  I was able to use one of the techniques taught by one of the students: sub-patches.  This was very helpful.  Finally, the ground.  It would have been nice to have a source of water, but I could not figure out how best to place it in the scene without jagged edges.

Problems:

The main problem I had was related to the actual program Lightwave.  I have a lot of difficulty finding out how to make the program do for me what I want it to.  I spent hours trying to utilize what some tutorials explained to be helpful, only to realize later I could not make it really work and wasting time.  This kind of pattern typified much of my experience with this program which frustrated me greatly.  When I was finally instructed on how to make some different kind of objects from other students in their presentations, I could make more of the objects I needed.  I used sub-patches for the animal and tree trunk and I was able to utilize Point Clone+ for the leaves on the tree.

Overall I am pleased with what I was able to learn from this project.  Texturing is my next lesson to learn.  It is obvious in this work that texturing is still a source of frustration for me.  I had even downloaded a nice horizon for the sky, but could not get it to properly cover the surface of the sky  next time.