CSCI 140 Group Gallery

3-D Computer Modeling 
CSCI 140 Spring 2003

The Tin Man Revenge

Previous     Next
Charles Cooper
Laura Marshall
Elizabeth Thomsen


The Tin Man's Revenge
by
The Winged Monkeys		Group Scene
 
Inspiration:

When we first formed our group, we had a hard time finding common interests, or subjects that we all wanted to work on. Through discussion, however, we realized that each of the members of our group likes the movie The Wizard of Oz, and we felt that it would be an interesting and creative basis for our project. However, as time progressed and we worked on creating our scene, we felt that it was lacking something and needed an extra little twist. Therefore, we decided to present an alternate view of the story, where the Tin Man is truly heartless. Basically, he is a homicidal maniac, who slaughtered Dorothy, Toto, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, who, as you can tell by the severed head, happened to be his latest victim. In our scene, there are missing signs posted along the yellow brick road for each of the victims, and the Tin Man is on the yellow brick road walking toward the Emerald City, where he plans to continue massacring the people of Oz. Many may also think that our inspiration comes from the fact that we are simply a bit morbid and disturbed.
 
  
 
Objects:Emerald CityLaura
 Landscape/GrassElizabeth
 Missing SignsElizabeth
 Severed HeadCharles
 Sky & CloudsElizabeth
 Tin Man & AxeCharles
 Yellow Brick RoadElizabeth
 Hillshttp://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/tutorials/surface/environments/
   
Textures:Brick TextureElizabeth
 Metal/Tin TextureLightwave
 Sign Paper Texturehttp://www.timp.net/clipsgallery/backgrounds/gingers/PAPER.jpg
 Sign Wood Texturehttp://www.i-tex.de/smp/Wood/Wood_Laminate.htm
 Straw Texturehttp://www.aptgrafix.co.uk/tex_library/textures/organic/organic.htm
   
Images:Cowardly Lion Imagehttp://thewizardofoz.warnerbros.com/movie/cmp/frameset.html
 Dorothy & Toto Imagehttp://thewizardofoz.warnerbros.com/movie/cmp/frameset.html
 Scarecrow Imagehttp://thewizardofoz.warnerbros.com/movie/cmp/frameset.html
 
Problems and Solutions:

As mentioned above, halfway through working on our project, we made some significant changes. We were going to have a large field of flowers leading up to the edge of the grass on the hills, but this proved to be quite difficult, and would not have added much more to the story aspect of our scene. Therefore, rather than model the flowers, we decided to build the Tin Man, in order to add a bit more life to the scene. There were no specific problems with the modeling of the Tin Man, other than its textures disappearing and having to be reapplied a few times. While constructing the Emerald City, however, one main problem occurred. Each of the city's towers was created by combining two separate shapes, a disc and a sphere. At the intersection point where the two objects meet, a thin line would become visible when the values, specularity, glossiness, and reflection were manipulated. There was no real solution to this problem; however, it is not apparent in the final scene renderings.

There were also a few problems with the modeling of the brick road. For instance, it was very hard to get it to be the correct size and height. It was either not large enough and too flat, or too big and too tall. In addition, it was difficult to make a realistic brick texture. The careful tweaking of settings and the use of an accurate and thorough brick texture tutorial solved these problems. There were also some problems experienced in layout. For example, it was very hard to line the road up to where it would lie correctly on the grass and terrain. Patience and careful tweaking, however, also solved this problem. The Sasquatch plug-in for the grass also did not want to work correctly, however, starting over with the grass and re-creating it as described by the tutorial remedied the situation. Lastly, it was also difficult to get the brick texture to tile correctly on the road; however, re-sizing in the texture box fixed this problem.

Resources:

No resources were used to model the Emerald City, the Tin Man, the severed head, the missing signs, or the brick road. In order to create a realistic sky and clouds, as well as lifelike grass, the Creating Environments in Lightwave Using Sasquatch and Skytracer Tutorial <http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/tutorials/surface/environments/> was used. This tutorial also allows you to download the components necessary to use Sasquatch and Skytracer for realistic effects. For instance, the background hills in our scene were downloaded from this site. It is a very helpful tutorial, it allows room for adjustments and changes, and it is very user-friendly. In order to create the yellow brick texture for the yellow brick road, the Photoshop Tutorial on Creating Brick by Vikki Dawson <http://photoshopresource.com/Tutorials2003/January/PSBrick/default.asp> was first used. Following the steps in this tutorial, however, did not result in a realistic texture, and it was pretty much a waste of time. Therefore, to create a yellow brick texture the <http://www.webinfractions.com/defender/tutorials/tutor5/index.shtml> Creating a Brick Texture in Photoshop Tutorial was used instead. While this tutorial was long and included 33 various steps, it was very worthwhile, user-friendly, it allowed for adjustments, and the result was a nice and realistic brick texture.