Holli Rausch

This month, the themes are Winter and Christmas. Feel free to download any to your computer to use as your background! Find them at this page.

This month, the themes are Fall and Thanksgiving, but less of Thanksgiving. Feel free to download any to your computer to use as your background! Find them at this page.

At the beginning of each month [except this month] I’m going to upload some themed wallpapers to this page. This month, the themes are Fall and Halloween. Feel free to download any to your computer to use as your background!
I will be doing illustrations, photos, etc. and expect for them to get better as I go. No guarantees.

UPDATE: I won 1st place in the 2D competition for my picture of Marissa…! Good thing I left that 2% chance!

I again submitted two pieces into Beadlemania. It’s called Beadlemania because 1) Beatlemania is the term used to describe the era where The Beatles rocked (it still hasn’t ended!) and 2) the College of Arts and Sciences is in Beadle Hall. Beadlemania is to 1) showcase student work over the past year and 2) award those pieces that are most outstanding.

Last year, one of my pieces won 1st place for the 2D category. I’m 98% positive I won’t be winning anything this year for my entries. (I left 2%; just in case it’s a Cinderella story). It’s not that the things I submitted weren’t good…I just know they aren’t as good as others’ work. They judge tonight or tomorrow, but I’m not hopeful. One award is good enough, right? I mean, it’d be selfish to win another. Anyway, I submitted that picture of Marissa and my Ping-Pong animation from last semester.

I submitted my Ping-Pong animation, as opposed to my exterior environment (see below) for many reasons. 1) For some reason, the DVD decided to stop working right when it needed to most. So, I didn’t have time or $ to try to reburn it on a new DVD. 2) Since I lost so much time from the remaking of corrupted files, I had to sacrifice many artistic endeavors I was going to try. Here are a few of them:

• Every frame would have been black and white, except the flower would be in color
• This would require bringing in over 2000 “pictures” and outlining the flower by hand — at least one more week’s work
• I would have fixed the glitch in the animation of the flower, right after it floats in the air
• I would have made the trees sway in the direction of the flower’s movement, to show it’s a windy day and the flower just isn’t a magical flying flower
• I would have done this to the yellow ribbons, too
• I would have focused more on the “back story”
• More focus on the yellow ribbons, support our troops signs, words on gravestone
• Confetti on ground — suggestion a parade the day before
• Not even done this exterior and done the island from Lost instead
• Would have needed at least another 2 weeks, just for rendering time
• There are a lot of trees on the Lost island
• Trees take for friggin’ ever to render

The thing I do like about it, is that I animated the camera as if it didn’t know where the flower was going. Kind of like if a human saw it start floating away and wanted to film it…one just can’t anticipate where the wind will blow. So I am happy with that. Anyway, watch it. If you don’t have anything nice to say about it…that’s OK. Apparently, neither do I!

I know it seems like I only post when I’m angry or frustrated. But those are the only times I have something “interesting” to say.

My previous post showcased some of my 3D models for my exterior environment assignment. I have a sad announcement. Most of those files have been lost forever.

It began on Friday. I was going to start merging my buildings (because I had finished them all) into my landmass, but needed to see what the sizes were for each one; so I started opening up each .max file. To my horror, the Post Office failed to open. Then, the church. Fortunately, I had saved sequentially (postoffice-01, postoffice-02, etc), so I was able to open up the second to last most recent file. Unfortunately, I didn’t save sequentially as often as I should have (I saved every hour, at best). On the Post Office, I lost about 45 minutes. On the church, about two to three hours (needless to say, I ended up remaking it). I tried to remap these objects, but the png files I had mapped on the object were not working.

I went into Photoshop and tried to open the .psd file of the .png. It failed to open. So did the .png. So three related files failed to open. But these files should not affect each other. I mean, the .psd file isn’t linked in any way to the .max file. The .png is kind of linked, but still should not be affected. I know it isn’t coincidence that these particular files don’t work, but it just doesn’t make any sense because they’re not connected to each other. I remade the Photoshop file and the png and once the .max file was done, I remapped it to these files. Annoying.

Today I worked on it a little during another class (with the same professor) because I was done with my project in that class. I tried to open the pharmacy, negative. I tried the Rausch TV Shop, rejected. The only common denominator for all of these .max files is that they have an “unwrap UVW” modifier on them. But that shouldn’t cause the problem. To remake the Pharmacy and TV Shop would take about 30 minutes because of their simplicity.

Then, the unthinkable happened. My brown house (the one with curtains and lamp in the windows) failed to open. There isn’t even an “unwrap UVW” modifier on this file, so now there is no common denominator. I immediately went to Photoshop. Every single .psd and .png failed to open. I went back to Max and opened the second-most-recent file. It worked, but it’s far behind. You don’t want to know how many hours “catching up” on the house will set me back, so don’t read the next sentence. Six.

I went to the green house. (Last Wednesday when Miles, David, and Dan went to 300, I worked on this house. I added curtains and a couch in the windows.) The file opens, and it looks the same as the picture I have of it in my previous post…no curtains and couches! I go to Photoshop, and those files don’t have curtains or couches in them! But they work, at least. Remaking them will set me back another three hours.

So, I have at least nine hours of work ahead of me, just to get to the point I thought I was at last Friday. I know none of you know anything about 3Ds Max and can’t offer any help for recovering these files so that I don’t have to remake them. But I’m hoping on the very very very slim off-chance that someone runs across this blog by tomorrow morning and knows how to fix it.