Tie Fighter Practice

I have started work on a practice model of my tie fighter model this morning, I have completed the basic shape and a little bit of basic detail of the wings. Currently it has taken around 2 hours which is longer than expected, this was mainly due to trying to figure out the best methods to create the shapes that I wanted. Thankfully apart from that there have been no problems with creating what I needed once I figured out what tools to use and how to go about doing it, admittedly a lot of this was down to trial and error. One minor annoyance that keeps cropping up is my inability to align and snap different shapes to each other at times, to rectify this I aim to do some more research on the various snap to and alignment tools available in Maya 2016. Overall I think this practice run has helped me to better understand a way to create my tie fighter.

In-Class Exercise 3

For this Exercise we had to model an F-16 fighter jet, I was given a set of technical drawings of the top, front and side of the aircraft, importing these images into Maya I could set up these images so I could better shape the aircraft to its real life dimensions. Overall it took just under 2 hours to recreate a basic model of the aircraft.

I had some troubles along the way mainly due to accidentally joining 2 vertices together somewhere and not realising this error meant that later when I discovered the problem it was too later and I could not undo all the way back to when the problem arose. Due to this I have decided to double check any action I take and every so often have a look over the model as a whole to check if any errors have been made.

In-Class Exercise 2

For this exercise we had to model the basic shape of a ships wheel, in order to complete this we were given a document containing a lot of helpful tools along with how they work and what we could use them for. After reading through I learnt a few new tools that I could use to improve the quality of the models I made and with this knowledge I set about planning the basic outline of my ships wheel. I managed to make the model a lot quicker than I expected to, using the new tools made the process quicker, the live snapping tool was great in helping me place the primitive shapes where I wanted them and removed the awkward fiddling trying to get something exactly in the center.


The finished model.

Animation Storyboard

I apologise in advance for the child-like drawing quality of this storyboard. This is to showcase the basic plot of the animation I will be making with my ships.

Star Destroyer Practice

Just a small view of the Imperial Star Destroyer I am working on for my project, this is only a

practice run to help me familiarize myself with Maya and to help visualise the scale and proportions of the ship. I hope that learning from the mistakes I made whilst working on my practice model that   my final Star Destroyer will be of much higher quality.                                                                           

In-Class Exercise 1

I have recently completed one of our in-class practical exercises, for this I had the simple task of creating a basic house in Maya 2016. I was given a rundown of how to go about doing this and merely had to recreate to the steps on-screen and achieve the desired goal. This did however take longer than expected, at the time this was my first experience of using Maya and I was lost in a sea of buttons and gizmos. I slowly trundled through the tutorial making many mistakes along the way, in a way these were a blessing as I slowly learned the basic interface and how to simply manipulate the objects in front of me.

The main issue I faced was at the very end of the tutorial in creating the roof, I was having difficulty creating the edges where I wanted them and I became quite frustrated by this so I decided to take a break and come back to it later. In the lecture the next day I was delighted to learn some new tools and methods of doing things that then enabled me to finish my project.




This was the finished product.

A great website for viewing models

Whilst I was looking for an image of an Imperial Star Destroyer I realised that it would be rather difficult to view all the details from the angles that I wanted, with this problem in mind I went about trying to find somewhere that I could view a 3D image of the ships that I wanted to create. I eventually found a the website Sketchfab (https://sketchfab.com) and it was exactly what I was looking for.

The website allows anyone to post a 3D image of anything they create and I was quickly able to find an Imperial Star Destroyer, being able to rotate and zoom around the ship I could much more easily get an understanding of the depth and detail of the ship and using this as my reference point I got to work attempting to create a basic model of the ship. I would recommend this website to anyone who is attempting to model something and needs a point of reference to get a better idea of what it looks like.

Ships to Model

3D Modelling and Animation - Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog, my name is Kain Foottit and I am a second year student on the Computer Games Technology course at Anglia Ruskin University. One of my modules this year is 3D Modelling and Animation, hence the blog title, for this I have been tasked with creating 3 models of spaceships from Star Wars and then texturing them and making a short 30 second animation.

The three models I am planning to create are an Imperial Star Destroyer, a Tie Fighter and an Imperial Shuttle. I will be posting a image shortly showing these ships from multiple angles along with a short storyboard/plot for the animation I will be creating.

The software I will be using for this project is Maya 2016, I have no previous experience of 3D modelling or using Maya so I have a lot to learn in a fairly short amount of time. I will be posting any of the work I do in my practical sessions to my blog showcasing what I have learned and managed to achieve, I will also be posting any progress made on creating my 3 models for the project.