3D House Screen-shots

These are some images of the 3D house that I created using 3ds Max.

E-zine: 3D - The Basics

3D is quite quickly becoming one of the more popular areas of the media industry, becoming a more major part of the film industry, as well as evolving more within games, in fact most popular games will use some sort of 3D rendering. 3D modelling isn’t just linked to the more popular parts of the media industry though; 3D models are constructed for construction companies, and estate agents also to show how a house will look when it has been constructed. Today, the amount of realism that you can achieve using 3D programs is certainly impressive, and it would be difficult to tell the difference between a real image, and a high quality 3D render.

Although 3D programs can be unbelievably complex and difficult to get your head around, there a few basic techniques that need to be mastered in order to get a good 3D scene. They involve modelling (building objects out of shapes), texturing and lighting. In essence to be good at working with 3D, you need to think 3D. What I mean by this is that to create an interesting looking vase, you have to start off with the absolute basics. Probably by drawing an object such as a box, or cylinder and further shaping it using the options available to you in whatever 3D program you are using.

3D objects are implemented in animations and games in the same way effectively, objects are generally created separately to allow the 3D program to run faster, then they are put in a scene together, this is called merging. When objects have been merged, textures are added to them, as well as lighting. Beyond this, would be sort of going beyond the basics of 3D modelling. For example if it were an animation, key frames can be created to move objects in different ways, and for games a physics engine might be added.

I will be referring to a popular 3D program called 3Ds Max in any examples given. 3Ds Max is extremely popular in the computerised three dimensional world, more in terms of gaming and modelling. The program does boast quite an impressive animation system; however, other 3D programs are more commonly used for film and animation. If you are a student, you can get 3Ds Max free for four years here - http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=14185424

The first thing to try and understand with 3D objects is that they are made up of sides, or faces. The most basic item to visualise is the cube; it has 6 faces (or sides). In terms of 3D modelling, these are called polygons. So, polygons make up objects. Now, on as well as polygons, objects have edges that can be manipulated (as well as polygons). Obviously the edges just connect the faces to each other, they are on the edges of the polygons. The last basic feature of a 3D model to understand is that the corners of an object are called vertexes. So basically objects are made up of polygons, edges and vertexes, all of which can be manipulated in different ways using various tools to achieve a shape that you want.

If you have 3D software, it would be good just to select different shapes (such as boxes, or spheres) and have a play. A lot of what you learn in terms of shaping objects comes through practice; there is no textbook way to create an object you see in your mind.

There are many online tutorials to show you how to create certain objects, but creating your own ideas is obviously essential for your own work. The point I’m trying to make is that you need to be able to use your own thinking and skills to create objects. A good thing to do would be to start simple. For instance, start with something like a table or a chair. You could very basically draw a cuboid, with four longer boxes for the legs of the chair, and another tall box for the backrest. Even the most complex objects can be broken down into smaller, simplified objects. Perhaps before even opening up a 3D program, it might be a good idea to try and just draw the object you are trying to make.

There are many ways to manipulate 3D objects, these include converting objects to an editable polygons, this basically means that you can then change the shape of it by selecting the sides, vertexes or edges. In order to create more complex objects, we need more polygons then we usually start with. The amount of polygons can be set as you create the object, or later on as a modifier. This is again referring to the program 3Ds Max. For an object you can put a long list of different modifiers on, which all do different things. In terms of modelling perhaps one of the more important modifiers would be ‘edit poly’ modifier. It just allows you to move the shape around in almost every way, for the shape that you want.

Lighting can be achieved using 3D programs in several ways, but there are two major categories; lighting from a source (like a 40w bulb) and environmental lighting, such as the sun. Depending on how you want your scene to look, will depend on the lighting to choose from. For example if you would a room to have sun coming in through the large patio doors, you would implement a sun system (you can even set the time and date to your location for precise lighting). Or perhaps you would like a basement type model that has a few ceiling lights, you would implement regular photometric lights. Lighting is an important reason to keep your models to the scale you would want the model in real life. A 40 watt bulb isn’t going to light up a room that’s completely off scale.

The amount of polygons that a shape has will directly affect how quickly that object renders. The more polygons an object has, the slower the render time will be. What I mean by ‘rendering’ is basically showing how the object will actually look in what is called the output window. If you were to be working with a full quality object to edit, it would take a considerable amount of time and you would need an extremely high spec system to work on!

Speaking of rendering, when working on a project it is common to turn all of the render setting right down to what is called draft mode. This is just because when you need to check how a texture looks or how the lighting will work on a scene a high quality render can take a considerable amount of time, having low render settings allows you to just take a quick, or basic look at the object or scene. When rendering the final scene, this is usually when the render settings are turned up to a higher value.

I am of course talking about rendering as a whole; there are in fact many elements that are involved with rendering, that achieve different results. These elements include the amount of reflections and refractions. Bear in mind that when a scene is rendered (well one that has textures and lighting) the program has to calculate to the light will react with the textures, and how where the light will reflect/refract depending on what you have the settings to. Along with this comes the image precision, as well as the shadow precision. All in all, if you turn down a setting it will generally decrease the rendering time, but for a lower quality image. As with the object shaping, it’s a good idea to have a play with settings, to get a feel for them. Just be prepared to wait a while for the more high quality settings.

In terms of animation, the same programs that are used to create 3D objects are also generally used to animate the objects. The beauty of creating your own objects to animate is that there really is no limit to what you can create for yourself. Obviously there are some constraints, for example an object with millions of polygons (or sides) will take too long to render, or even edit. But other than the program constraints, it is a free sort of process. Referring back to 3Ds Max, there are a couple of ways to animate. Firstly you can turn on ‘smooth animation’ in which the program automatically calculates a smooth path if you move an object from one point to another. Another type is of course just the classic animation, which involves moving an object without automatically calculated smooth movement. The two methods of animation that I have talked about all concern key frames, the animation is made up of frames and key frames are selected frames on which movement can take place. The painful part of the animation process is the rendering. One high quality will take several minutes to render on a system that is reasonably good, but this is in effect only one frame. A twenty second animation at twenty five frames a second will amount to five hundred frames. So a high quality animation can take many hours, even days to fully render. So it is a generally a good idea to do a few low quality renders, and to double check everything before hitting the ‘render’ button, because if something needs to be changed slightly it could become very time consuming. In terms of export types, there are two set methods. You can export the animation as an image sequence or as a video type (such as an .avi file). The advantage of exporting the render as an image sequence is that should anything go wrong during the render stage, you have all of the frames up until the point of corruption; however you will have to use an external program to export all of the images as an image sequence. By exporting the animation as a video type, it is already ready to play when the render is finished, but should the render corrupt mid process; the whole render will be lost.

To further understand the implementation of 3D objects within the interactive media industry; let’s take a look at a popular game, inside an increasingly popular area of the interactive media industry. ‘Portal 2’ (an award winning 3D puzzle game) has perhaps some of the most impressive 3D models seen in 3D games, but they had to start somewhere, right? Correct. Even the most complex models are made up from the more basic techniques. Granted, they may use more complex methods with different interfaces and game engines but the whole concept of 3D remains the same. 3D games have been said to be much more immersive, as they are so much more realistic. In fact, I strongly recommend trying out a 2D game, then going to a 3D game. Many more 3D games will have more in-depth storylines, and interesting features (this is not all of the time though).

Although you create almost anything from your imagination using 3D programs, there are constraints. We have already talked about the time issues on higher quality renders, and that having too many objects in the same scene can cause problems when editing them. These are some of the main constraints of 3D programs, but others will include the 3D file types. 3D programs that create 3D file types can obviously only be read by that program. This is fine when sticking to the same program, but you wouldn’t be able to for example create an object in 3Ds Max, and then use a different program to animate it. Other than this the only major issue is processing power. For a program such as 3Ds Max to run, it needs a relatively good system. That old laptop that has been hidden away for the past four years is very unlikely to run it. Even the more advanced systems whilst rendering will not be able to run any other programs during the render. This is because so many calculations are being made at one time, and possibly for a long amount of time.

Computer generated 3D modelling is certainly a difficult subject to get your head around; it’s definitely not something that can be understood overnight. But as with many parts of the media industry, it is best to try and research the computerised 3D as much as possible, whilst giving it a go yourself. Experience has much to do with a good modeller. In the industry today, as with many parts of the interactive media industry, it is rapidly expanding, with more and more 3D films and games being released with better results.

I did it.

Apologies for the later blog post, but I have finished the modelling for all of the objects for my house, they have also been textured. The most difficult objects to texture included the walls, and elements of the television stand.

The walls (well, the external ones) were difficult to texture because if I textured the walls with bricks, the internal walls would also show bricks as their texture. I learnt that you can set an ‘id’ for each face of the model and add a multi/sub object texture to it. This basically means that you can add many different textures to one object, on different sides of it.

However, this still did not work as I would apply a set of textures to the walls and whilst one texture would work with the size, or mapping I had on it, another side of it wouldn’t as it had a different texture.

So in the end I had to completely detach in the inner walls from the outer walls, and just apply separate texture maps to them.

Now all I need to worry about is the lighting, and I’m good to go.

Furnish...ment

The objects for the house are a work in progress. Needless to say they are taking much longer to shape and put together than I first thought. In terms of texturing, this has been perhaps the easiest stage of creating the objects.

I have started with the objects for the lounge area; this includes the television table, sofa (which I made a few days ago), the table and a chair. I also have a basic counter set up for the kitchen as well as a fridge, but I will need to obviously make the furniture for the bedroom and bathroom. From my current I can tell that making the furniture for the bathroom will be the most difficult part, with so many odd shapes!

Right, back to work…. Wish me luck!

Progress

I have finished the planning stage for my house for the most part, except for some furniture that I will need to fill in the rest of the house. The final floor plan design that I think I am happy with (after quite a few ideas) will be a one story, one bedroom house with more of an open plan design.

I have actually begun (after many hours of classroom learning sessions) to create the structure of the house in 3ds Max. The exterior and interior walls as well as the floor of the house and the roof have been made. All I really need to do now structurally is put in holes in the right places for the doors and windows. I will be trying to have as many larger windows as possible, so when I put in a lighting system, the house will have a nice amount of light shining in (using a sun system).

Also, I have found out that it will be a lot less time consuming to create the objects in separate files, to work on only one object at a time. This is so that the program will run faster. When I have finished an object, I can merge the file into the house file, then obviously adjust and tweak it to fit into place. 

3ds Max House

For my next assignment at college using the skills that we have been taught in class, we have to create our dream house. With such a flexible brief set, a 'dream house' could literally entail anything, so in depth planning is definately in order of which I have started.

I have the ground floor planned out, with more detail about where the main objects will go (television, appliances etc.). All there is left to do planning wise is really create the plan for the first floor and decide on the measurements to use in 3ds Max. The measurements will have to be realistic as I will be using photometric lighting, meaning that the lights will relate to the power of real bulbs.

The design of my house is quite open plan, the kitchen will be slightly raised and there will be no walls between the kitchen, dining area and living room.

I will be updating this blog as I progress further with the house, by finidhing the planning stage and actually start with 3ds Max.

Delving in to the world of 3D modelling

Today at college, we got taught how to use the basic primary sort of interface within 3ds Max, a program to create 3D CGI models, and animations. I have to say, upon opening up the program it all felt a little daunting. This wasn't just because it was a new program, and that I was alien to it, it was because I had never seen a program with this many tools and options. It was a complex web of things I didn't even know existed.

However with the help of my lecturer and trusty laptop, I managed to gain a very basic understanding of the program and proceeded to build this table type object. But as my lecturer put it, 'We have only scratched the surface of this program.'

For my next assignment with this particular lecturer, it will be based around 3D architecture using the program. So in the coming weeks, I will be learning more and more about 3ds Max, scary yet unbelievably exciting.