Tuesday, November 19, 2013

[Project 6] 3D Modeling



Single Object
My single object is a big penguin plushie. The body and beak are made of spheres that I scaled to look more blobby, and the wings and feet were made using the extrude tool in small intervals then scaling each piece to form curves. With the feet, I made the middle toe and left toe separately so there would be an indent, then mirrored the left toe and put them together to make a foot. Overall, it was really fun to make and I'm satisfied with my first ever object in 3D. SketchUp was a bit difficult to learn, and some things were harder to me than they seemed, but it turned out good for a first try.

The wing was probably the hardest thing to make because of the bend. It was difficult to rotate the extrusions to make it look smooth, and for some reason certain angles make it look staticky. Another thing that was very difficult was the textures. On the beak, the texture tiled randomly, so instead of having darker straight orange lines, it looked more like a checkerboard. With the fur, I used a black fluffy texture but it's not that visible because I think it's too small. Scaling up the texture didn't solve it. Also the white belly isn't as accurate because all the textures tiled, so I created it by intersecting then deleting a square.

I chose this object because it has sentimental value to me. It's one of the first things my boyfriend gave to me, and we've now been together for almost four years. 

Collage Object
My collage objects are inside a glass bottle. The bottle has a pink tag attached on the outside, a cork lid, and a pink paper crane, three different origami stars, and two beads on the inside. The hardest thing was the crane. Because I couldn't actually open the bottle, it was hard to use my own object as a model. So I referenced a crane component from the SketchUp library. Even with an existing reference, it was incredibly difficult to make and looked nowhere near as nice as the reference. I think the crane alone was just as difficult as the penguin. But I'm overall very happy with the outcome, especially because it's my first time using any 3D modeling.

The hardest part was rotating and attaching the shapes together. A lot of the time it would get stuck and start dragging something else, or be just a few degrees off.  The tail got stuck inside the body before I could manipulate it to be realistic, so that part isn't accurate. 

The stars, beads, and bottle were overall pretty easy after I had practice. The stars were very fun to make and I think that they bump out like actual paper stars do. The bottle was made from a sphere that I intersected with a square to make a flat base. The bottle neck and cork was made from extruding and scaling. The tag was made from a square that I bent and rotated to look like paper. 

I thought it was really cool to see everything come together. I made the pieces individually then put them together when I was done. Even though it's not perfectly accurate, I'm happy to have a personalized digital version of something important to me. And creating something complicated like that makes 3D seem a lot less intimidating. I will probably try to learn more. 

I picked the objects because it was made for my by my best friend. I can't personally do origami even though I've tried repeatedly to learn, so even basic things like cranes and stars are pretty to me.