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2005 Fall ->3D Computer Modeling ->Galleries ->Final Gallery ->Michael Steiner
| | | Michael Steiner | | Final Scene | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fugitive in the Desert | |
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| | Inspiration
A murderer has been on the run for nearly 2 months. Police have finally caught up with him. He was hiding out in Las Vegas. Several helicopters have been called in to keep up with his truck. The chase has been taken off road, deep into the middle of the Mojave Desert. The fugitive has finally run out of gas. Helicopters hover around his truck waiting for the patrol cars to catch up so they can make the arrest. Helplessly, he waits patiently inside, pondering his future.
I was inspired by my group project murder scene to depict the capture of the murderer. Leaving the murder mystery unsolved made me feel uneasy. I also wanted to model something challenging and my truck seemed appropriate.
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| | | Objects | Truck | Michael Steiner | | | Cactus | Michael Steiner | | | Helicopter | Michael Steiner | | | Terrain | Michael Steiner |
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| | | Textures | Dodge emblem | http://www.jcwhitney.com /wcsstore/jcwhitney/ images/imagecache/ 10011607.gif | | | Hood (bump map) | Michael Steiner | | | Sky | Lightwave |
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| | Problems and Solutions
Problem: Each part of the truck consisted of several sections of spline patching. Because I turned “double sided” on initially, I didn’t notice that my spline patches were facing in different directions. When I did my first render, I noticed ugly dark squares placed randomly on the truck. When I turned “double sided” off, the squares went away, but there were holes all over the truck where the backwards faced polygons were.
Solution: I ended up having to select each polygon that was faced backwards and flip it. This is when I learned that the direction you select the splines when making the spline patch, determines what direction the polygon will face.
Problem: I didn’t have enough time to finish the truck and still make an interesting environment.
Solution: I gave my truck a bed cover, so that I did not have to model the inside of the bed. I also did not model the tailgate. I had to position the camera such that the rear of the truck is not visible. I felt that having a decent environment is more important than showing a rear view of the truck.
Problem: There were too many volumetric lights for practical render time.
Solution: For the headlights, I faked volumetric lighting by modeling the light, and changing settings so that it looked like real light.
Problem: The tire tread tracks were not texturing in the right place on the ground.
Solution: I made a “tire tracks” object, which was just a 2D plane that looked like the treads on the tires. I placed it slightly above the ground in the appropriate position in layout and gave it a similar color to the ground.
Problem: When I saved the image after a render, the sky was blank.
Solution: Although I’m sure there is a more graceful way to deal with this, I did a “print screen” after each render and cropped out the image in the rendered window.
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| | | Time Frame | Planning | 1 hour | | | Modeling Truck | > 50 hours | | | Modeling Cactus | 1 hour | | | Modeling Helicopter | 30 minutes | | | Modeling Terrain | 1 hour | | | Layout | 2 hours | | | Textures | 3 hours | | | Lighting | 3 hours | | | Preliminary Rendering | 20 hours | | | Final Rendering | 5 hours | | | TOTAL | > 88.5 hours |
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| | References
Albee, Timothy. Essentials Lightwave 3D 7.5 (Fake “Volumetric Lights”).
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