Dva 201 Final Essay - 3d Modeling Concepts

DVA 201 Final Essay

3D Modeling Concepts

In the class DVA 201, I learned a lot about 3D modeling and ways it can be used. The class first started on September 6, 2005, where I was introduced to Klee Miller, a man that actually had worked on a motion picture, The Polar Express. I have to say, I was quite impressed, considering that’s what I wanted to get into at the time. I came to UAT thinking that I wanted to work a lot with 3Ds Max and create many special features for movies, such as Klee Miller did, but now things have changed. As you can tell, in this essay I’m going to be brutally honest about my entire experience in this class. I feel that is the only way I can truly write this essay.

The class first started out by teaching us the history of 3D modeling and how it was first used in movies such as “Superman” and “Terminator 2”. This definitely had my attention, considering I wanted to do exactly what we were talking about, or I did. We then moved into actually modeling things in the 3Ds Max program. Talking about such things as making basic shapes like circles and squares. We also learned how they were polygons, and how each object can be changed by adjusting the smaller polys within it. All this was so new to me and frankly quite boring. I mean making circles and squares were cool to me when I was in first grade, but being reintroduced to them while in college just didn’t have enough going for it to keep my interest. Thus my attention span started to decrease a tad. But then we went into one of the subjects that I did find to be very interesting indeed.

Next we talked about how you could put a “skin” like feature overtop of your models. I became quite interested in this because without a good skin to your model, it’s just bland and hold’s no real life characteristics. Because real life has things are alive and vibrant and when you first begin modeling in 3Ds max, I’ve noticed that things are dull and boring. You are required to give your objects life, and I learned that you do this with mapping. We learned that there are ways of mapping to have stunning visuals with low poly counts because of different game engines that can handle different amounts of polys. I feel that this is the best thing that the 3D world has to work with. Doing this mapping gives your image, animation, or game a feel of life. Really I think that is the main goal that all people dealing with 3D technology are trying to achieve, a feel of life. A new form of life that they can mold and change to anything they imagine. It’s sense of life that people can use to express themselves in new ways. An art form if you will. Thus, it is in my opinion the best 3D modeling practice there is.

Continuing on with my essay, we next talked about different ways of editing your model. Such ways included