CSCI 140 Desk Gallery

3-D Computer Modeling 
CSCI 140 Spring 2003

Haren, John

Previous     Next
John HarenDesk Scene
It's clear I'm not an artist
 
Inspiration:

How about "I wonder what Bilbo Baggins' desk would look like if it were made by a brain-damaged dutchman?  Oh, and he somehow has an electric lamp and a modern #2 pencil."  I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, that's for sure, but it describes the design of my scene nicely.  P.S.: I mean no offense to either the brain-damaged or the Dutch.  The Dutch are really fine people.  Salt of the earth.
 
 
Objects:DeskJohn
 LampJohn
 pencilJohn
 ringthe dark lord Sauron. No wait, John
 glassJohn
 roomJohn
  
Textures:lampshade textureclothTab.jpg (lightwave)
 desk textureteakWood.tga (lightwave)
 ringwritingringwriting.bmp (www.hades.org)
 lamp bodypewter preset w/tweaking (lightwave)
 floors, wallssmokey and brick presets (lightwave) [yuk]
 glassglass inside/outside presets w/tweaking (lightwave)
 
Problems & Solutions:

Chief problem: How to use lightwave.  Solution: I'll tell you when I find one.

Other problems: Carving the the top of the desk backsplash was way more of a pain that it should have been.  Lightwave's boolean tools are supposed to be among the best in the business (shudder) but frankly, I prefer Maya.  Oh, and don't even mention the drill tool.  The writing on the pencil has been obscured due to it looking simply asstastic.  Lighting is still a trial-and-error prospect.  I've had little to go on but intuition, and knowledge of how OpenGL does it.  In other words, not much.

On the plus side: Oddly enough, the best-looking stuff here (aka the ring) was the easiest to make.  The geomtery is simple, just some smoothed disks swept around an axis.  The nice part was that for once lightwave's surface presets came through (gold reflection).  Then I ganked a bmp of the ring's writing off the web and tossed it into the bump layer, and voila.  Well, kinda; the gradient tool kept crasing on me when I tried tweaking the reflection mapping.  That was a hassle but I think it came out okay.  The glass was a nightmare, mostly due to my stubborness.  I *had* to have a multifaceted glass.  Humph.  Reflection/refraction was so problematic that after 8 tries, I gave up and went with a smooth model.

Resorces:

Flay.com had the link to the ring tutorial at hades.org, but it's 404 now... wonder if they got hit with a cease-n-desist.  Wouldn't surprise me.