Tuesday, March 23, 2010

In the Third Dimension

DERP! I got overloaded with work for the past few weeks. Misha and I took a trip to San Francisco earlier in the month, and to prepare for it, I had to finish a deadline 5 days before it was actually due, which is like a 1/4 of the work time I have for each quota. I was literally working all the way up to just a few hours before my brother Mark picked us up for the airport (thanks again, Mark!). Ever since, I've been having to scramble getting work finished, preparing our condo for sale and working on my 3D class finals, one of which got lost by me accidentally saving over it. So I had to recreate a whole new figure for my 3D modeling final last weekend on top of finishing a deadline for today. And that's my lame excuse for not posting anything for a while :D

So because I just finished my 3D animation final, I'll post one of those...

This is done using the Biped tool in 3DS Max...for those who don't know the program, basically the program itself creates a pre-made skeletal structure of a human so you can attach it to specific 3d models. I didn't have a 3d model to attach to, so I just animated the skeletons.

My final also included a walk cycle of my design...

I spent a long time trying to understand the intricate details of this program, and there are a lot of weird technical flaws and things that just don't naturally flow for a 2D animator. So I had a hard time picking it up. I've started to get the hang of actual movement of the biped, but I'm still working out the kinks of object interactions. This walkcycle doesn't necessarily interact with anything, but it was difficult to keep his feet from going through the ground.

"Swing" 3DS Max
"Pirate Walk" 3DS Max