3D Digital Literacy (Final Presentation-Week 12)

Finally, I finished all my models and had decided to create them on the software Maya. I had the choice of Mud-box or Zbrush, but after learning Maya and continuing to improve within it during the two semesters. I wanted to show and see for myself how much I had improved on my modelling skills and what techniques I could learn from creating my final fruit models on Maya and learning the software more.

The first model I created was the lemon, this was a simple 3D model to create and I felt I wanted to do something a little different and decided to half the lemon down the middle. In the chance that I could do this again I possibly would have either done multiple slices of the lemon or added in a full lemon, just to give a difference to the end result and show more substance to my design. I am happy with the final design and feel the ‘fractal’ effect and textures on the lemon centre are some good finishing touches.

The second model I created was the strawberry and it was an easy enough process, however with some slight challenges. The final strawberry I had created within Maya, I felt had all the small and intricate details of an accurate study of a strawberry and was a good effort in creating a 3D model. I had the help of some tutorials, first-hand imagery and was happy with the final outcome. The only problem I had so far was the realism of the model and am not too sure if this is a factor I can improve on. However, I will be trailing exporting to Substance or straight to Sketchfab and will be playing around with the lighting.

The pineapple was the most complex model, but the most enjoyable for me to design and create. I noticed that spending the time, having trials and errors and working hard on a lengthy project, gave more satisfaction towards the end.

Creating this pineapple and the entire fruit bowl was really an enjoyable process and one that I had learnt a lot from, but I am sure that I could also improve on my model in many ways

I enjoyed the project so much and after the stress of the first ‘3D Literacy” assignment, I am eager to continue growing my abilities and working on the software’s we have learnt and have set myself a summer task. I hope to create a model, rig and a short animation of my dog Pebbles and hope I am as proud of the outcome as I am with my previous 3D models.

As I had created all of my 3D models on different Maya files, so that when creating each model, I could work on them separately and not have the added work of moving multiple models of fruit around the scene. I then had to import each model into one single file and arrange the fruit bowl, with all the fruit I created. This was an easy enough step to complete and really tied all my work together.

I thought the best Maya file to import my 3D models into was the pineapple file, as I had already set up a background and lights on either side of the model. I imported the ceramic plate to begin with, positioned it under my pineapple and was going to use it for the final base of my fruit. Next I imported the lemons and was able to duplicate the models to make a few pairings of the fruit and scattered them around the sides of the pineapple. I completed this arrangement with duplicating the trio of strawberries I imported and rotated them each to fit the curves of the plate.

As I had already set up a scene within my pineapple file and tested the outcome with the render ‘Arnold’, I wanted to test this again and see how the final version of my files on Maya were showing up. I think the final look in Maya looks really good with the arrangement and light fixtures and is good enough to export straight to ‘Sketchfab’, however I am still unsure if this should be the final step or if ‘Substance Painter’ could improve my model.

The entire process of creating my 3D model of a fruit bowl arrangement, was the most enjoyable, yet stressful assignment I had completed so far. The actual process of creating and modelling the fruit, was more a learning process and encouraged me to improve on my skills that I had already learnt within Maya. However, it was the uploading my files and exporting them from different software’s, that actually caused the most stress for me.

I had created my fruits, textured and completed them on the software Maya and had the idea to possible move them over to ‘Substance Painter’ and then to ‘Sketchfab’. As from research I had done, I thought that this would be an easier method and I could put some final touches to my model during the process.

I had arranged all my fruit and labelled all of my textures, ready for exporting and thought I would take the last day of my assignment and export my files and make sure everything looks well before uploading. I spent hours going between YouTube tutorials, to emailing lectures and was going back and forth from the software’s ‘Maya’ and ‘Substance Painter’. To come to the end of the day more stressed than I had been throughout this entire process.

I had the struggles of files crashing within substance painter, textures becoming missing within substance painter and even when I tried to export straight from Maya to SketchFab the file I had created was too much mb. I continuously worked and finally got my 3D model uploaded to Sketchfab and am happy to say I’m satisfied with the final look.

The first year within university was really enjoyable for me and more fun and interesting than I could have imagined. I enjoyed the different subjects of various topics within animation and how they were spread out throughout the course and we were able to show off our knowledge and understanding with regular assignments.

This semesters 3D course was maybe the most difficult course and set of assignments I had come across this year and this is just down to the fact that I am terrible within computers and anything within them. However, I know 3D animation is a popular and growing industry and learning all of these skills that we were able to practice and be introduced to within our animation course, I’m confident that they will really help me within my own journey to becoming an animator. I am grateful to be able to learn these skills within a supportive environment and that each difficult hiccup in work, is just a new skill to overcome.

Overall, I’m really enjoying university and all the different sides of animation we are being introduced to and I am eager for year two and to enhance my knowledge even more.