Holli Rausch

So we’ve started to dabble with character modeling in 3D class. Right now, we’re all following a tutorial so it isn’t too challenging (technically or creatively) and they’ll all end up nearly exactly alike. But it’s quite fun. I wish we would have been doing this a long time ago. The body is all one object, made of a few hundred polygons (probably around 300 before making it smooth, far more with the smooth modifier). Obviously, he is missing a head, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. And, I fear my head might ruin the body, so I better post about it now, my audience can focus on the good!

The most difficult part was working on the hands. I had some vertexes crossed on the fingers and they looked weird and paper thin. I fixed them. (Yes, there were only supposed to be 3 fingers and a thumb.) So I’m a little proud of how they look at this point. Soon, I’ll be adding the collar to the shirt, a head, and materials to the character. Anyway, I was thinking I should name him. Any ideas?

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!

Well, I went in to the 3D lab on Wednesday and basically spent about 4 hours making up 10 hours of work. But I did it. The reason why it went so much faster is because I’d been through it all and basically needed to be in a rhythm to finish, it was just going through the motions. It wasn’t so bad — it was more of the mind game of thinking “I already did this and could be getting AHEAD instead of playing catch-up”. But I’m now at the point I should have been on Monday, which isn’t so bad. The project is due a week from this Monday…which is unfortunate because there’s a lot I want to do. I really want to spend a lot of time on the animation part of the project. I’m on duty next weekend, so that’s to my advantage that I’m stuck on campus anyway, so I might as well go in to work on the project, rather than sit and watch TBS (which isn’t all bad!). The upcoming deadline is not advantageous, but it’s doable.

Also on the plus side, I won two eSIP awards, which is surprising and exciting! (Click the pictures to take you to the winning posts!)

More bad news, though…I’m in Big Stone this weekend. Just kidding! Well, I am in Big Stone. But that’s not bad news. Just thought I’d trick ya’ll! GOTCHYA!

And it’s not even April Fools’ Day! GENIUS!

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.

Right now, in 3D Modeling, we’re working on creating an exterior environment. Our assignment was to create a town with at least 5 different buildings. I have made 4 houses, Post Office, Church, 6 businesses, a Bank, and still need to make a school. I also will have a cemetery. Then we need to create the terrain and roads, etc and animate it. I’ll show you a few of my creations today. I don’t have them in any kind of environment..just a black hole. So there is no special lighting or anything. But in a few weeks, I’ll post the animation.

These first two pictures are of my small house. The textures were created in Photoshop (windows, garage door, siding), but the stone and roof textures were ones that we have in a stock of pictures. So they are not original. I won’t go into details as to how it was mapped, but I really like the way these houses turned out. I spent a lot of time on them, and I think it paid off. I especially am proud of the curtains and lamp in the first picture. My thoughts with the interior of the house (although we don’t make the interiors) was that it was split-level. So if one were to walk in the house, they’d immediately choose to go up one flight or down one flight.

This is another house I’ve made. I called it the big house. It’s called that because originally, the square footage of this house was quite larger than the small house. However, once I started making the small house, it pretty much became the same size as this one. This house is decent. It will be better when I add shrubbery along the perimeter. It was the second building I modeled, and so figuring that into the equation, I’m still pretty proud of it.

This church is called St. Thomas Catholic Church. It was the first building I made, and I think it’s pretty obvious of that. I made it before we were actually taught how to. Considering that, it isn’t that bad. But because it just isn’t at the same level as the others, it will probably be re-modeled and re-mapped as long as I have the time after creating the terrain and such. The cemetery will be next to this church and will have a gate along its perimeter. I’ll have a sign in front of the church as well, I just haven’t gotten around to making it yet.

I made 6 businesses, pretty much using the same model but using new textures and maps for each one. I have made Hair, Inc., Rausch TV Shop, Our Town Cafe, Hardware 4 U, Family Bakery, and Pharmacy. They all have a different brick pattern. I plan to put items in the windows for most of them (such as TVs in the TV Shop, or tables/chairs in the cafe). These I made fairly simple, since my houses were pretty complex.

I made this 1st State bank based off of the building I work in, with some creative liberty. You might have noticed some of the signs and ribbons on my buildings. My storyline is going to be somewhat patriotic-themed…basically when the animation starts, it will be right after a Welcome Home parade for local service men and women. I’m hoping to have some confetti remainders, although I think that rendering just one frame of confetti takes over a minute. So we’ll have to see. I might need to use the lab as a rendering farm for this animation.

Anyway, that was your sneak peak.