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2007 Spring ->3D Computer Modeling ->Galleries ->Desk Gallery ->Christopher Funk
| | | Christopher Funk | | Desk Scene | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Beginning an End | |
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| | Inspiration
As the eight ball sinks into the corner pocket, the game draws to a close. Consuming another mouthful from the quickly emptying glass, she couldn’t help but re-visit the ‘Dear John’ note one last time. Maybe it’s just the wine talking, after all. “Because in the final moments… ”. A fretful pause. “No”, she concluded, “an ending is inevitable.” Reflecting on their waning relationship with an uneasy queasiness, a tear escapes as she boldly creases the letter, signing her name to the bottom with forced resolve.
In the hopes of originality, I tried to figure out a creative but fitting and viable desk scene that didn’t involve a traditional desk. With the idea of a pool table in mind, I remembered an old friend’s pool table and lighting setup, which lead me to ideas for the look and colors of the table, lights, and even the scene in general. All that was left at that point was creating a scenario in which the pool table might be used in a desk-like manner (READ AS: why would there be a pencil on a pool table) while in a depressing mood.
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| | | Objects | Cue Stick | Christopher Funk | | | Cue Ball | Christopher Funk | | | Dear John Letter | Christopher Funk | | | Light Fixture | Christopher Funk | | | Pencil | Christopher Funk | | | Pool Table | Christopher Funk | | | Room | Christopher Funk | | | Wine Glass | Christopher Funk |
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| | | Textures | Dear John Letter | Scott Washington |
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| | Problems and Solutions
In order to completely avoid the problem of losing an altered layout between saves and/or constantly using the ‘Create Key’ command inside layout, I make sure that every time I am using layout, I turn on ‘Auto Key’. While I can see problems doing that with animation, it has been great when modeling.
Never underestimate the power of raytracing and its effect on render time – especially when glass is concerned. The main problem that I experienced with this project is trying to get an accurate representation of the lighting, and to a greater degree, the glass contained within this scene, without waiting for 3 hours to get a render. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought of an easy way around it until the 11th hour. Essentially, the idea that I had was to merely set the item properties of some of the objects in the scene (wine glass, for instance) to be not rendered, but still keep a reasonable level of raytracing recursion so as to get a good idea of how things should turn out… (it doesn’t save as much time as I’d hoped for).
Lighting. After a smattering of test renders, I managed to change an option just prior to requesting a high quality rendering which resulted in a nearly black scene, in spite of me thinking that it was going to be lit perfectly. For any wondering, if the ‘caustics’ option is turned on, your lighting will be very different than just with raytracing.
Not having more time available to devote to this assignment, specifically for textures, is something that I regret, however, I felt that lighting and colors were more important to the scene, and in the end, I was pleased how nicely this nearly texture-less scene turned out.
Then, of course, we have Lightwave – it will crash, enough said. In spite of usually being the kind of person who saves neurotically, I managed to loose a modeled wine glass and light fixture. Save often, and keep backups. Having gotten more used to the interface and short cut keys, I’m back to my neurotic saving habits, and haven’t since lost any more than a few steps of work due to this issue.
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| | | Time Frame | Planning | 2 hours | | | Modeling Light | 2 hours (with 2+ hours lost) | | | Modeling Pool Table | 3 hours | | | Modeling Wine Glass | 1 hour (with 2 hours lost) | | | Creating Textures | 0 hours | | | Working with glass presets | 5 hours | | | Lighting | 3 hours |
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| | References
Pencil tutorial given in class by Professor Steinback
Room tutorial given in class by Professor Steinback
“Liquid in a Glass” tutorial by Jinsheng Li.
Answers to questions starting out with “Hey how would I go about doing …?” provided by: Scott Washington, Winston Thrasher, and Nathan Harling.
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