Week 5 Lighting Exercise

Today's exercise is about shading. I had to learn the process of making an object made of blinn and setting the reflective settings of the object. Through this exercise, I can learn the different lighting modes and the reflective setting (how reflective are they when light shines on it) while playing around with the program.

Week 5 Dice exercise

The dice exercise we learnt today was a brand new thing that I had never tried before. Putting texture into a dull polygon object was new to me and I had doubts of actually trying to complete the exercise at first. The tutorial videos given to us were so boring as the narrator had a monotone voice and I almost fell asleep twice going through the video. However, when doing the dice, I found out that it was quite interesting and realised a few factors that needed to be taken care of in the process of applying texture to my dice. One of them was to remove the history after completing the process as failure to do so will result in the texture being inconsistent and the dice will not get its definite pattern.

Assignment 1 Sketches and Storyline

Sketch of gun object for Assignment 1

Descriptions of making the gun object are stated in the sketch book.

Storyline

The engines of both cars burst into life. Rat ignited the first gear and maneuvered his mousetrap car towards the starting point, together with his opponent. Soon after, the blast from the air gun signified the start of the race. Both cars surged forward at lightning speed. The two drivers drove through loops and dangerous curves skillfully. Out of a sudden, Rat heard one of his tyres pop and realised that something had actually punctured one of his tyres. He turned just in time to see that someone had actually taken a shot at his tyre with a pistol. As a result, the opponent was able to outrun him and not surprisingly, won the race. Rat was devastated. He had never lost a race before, and now he had lost one because unethical methods were used by the opponent.

Week 4 E-learning reflections

Does multi-tasking give you a real or false sense of having accomplished something?

Ans: No. Personally, I will try to avoid multi-tasking as my brain 'Random Access Memory' (RAM) isn't very high. I cannot do multi-tasking very well or else the efficiency and effectiveness of my work will drop. Hence, as a result, I think that multi-tasking doesn't give me a sense of having accomplished something. It will in fact backfire, as the quality of my work will drop and I will have to re-do it again.

Is learning 3D and design different from learning programming? Or is it all learning the same? Why?

Ans: To me, learning 3D and design is different from learning programming, but at the same time they are the same. 

Firstly, 3D and design is actually quite flexible. If there is any obstacles in making a model, there can be other ways to make the same product by using other tools in the design program. However, in programming, once we are stuck facing an obstacle, the programming error can only be solved only be altering some parts of the code using the programming language. To sum up, programming can only be solved using one or two (rarely) methods while in designing, the same product can be made using different tools. 

The next point is that both 3D and design and programming needs to be practiced in order to prevent the knowledge from rusting. Programming and Design sometimes need to be taught by theory but it is the practical (hands-on) part which actually facilitates the learning process. Hence both learning methods are the same.

The articles states that "Learning is actually a very complex operation for an individual". Do you agree with this? Do you feel that your approach to learning is the best way? If yes, how? If no, how can you change your work style?

Ans: I agree to a small extent. For me, I will prefer self-learning compared to a lecture session. I will tend to be distracted during lectures as my friends will be talking to me at the same time. When we hit an interesting topic, I will end up not listening to the lecture. Hence I will prefer self- learning as my learning method. However, I will also not say it is the best method of learning because when I hit an obstacle while learning, I will have no teachers or lecturers to turn to for advice. I will try to change my learning style so that it will become a win-win situation during lectures and when I'm doing self-learning.

What are your thoughts about the last paragraph in the extract?

Ans: I think that the importance of communication is really important. Without communication, many things cannot be solved easily as people might have a hard time trying to understand one another. I also agree that students for the current industry have talent and the personality to fit in with the team. However, it is up to the student if he/she wants to make use of his full potential.

Should your lecturers also focus on your work attitude, or just leave you to sink or swim on your own? Why?

Ans: It depends on the situation. If there is something important, the teacher should provide at least a little help rather than to leave us to sink or swim on our own. However, if the matter is quite manageable, the teacher should give us an opportunity to swim on our own so that we can learn to be more independent.

Bucket exercise

Bucket side view

Bucket perspective view

Bucket top view

For this exercise, I learnt how to revolve a 2D polygon plane to a 2D images and transform it into a 3D bucket by using the revolve tool. It is quite awesome to find out how much this program can do. Using the CV Curve tool, I was able to crave out the shape of a 2D portion of the bucket image. It was a little tough to always keep the curve tool outside the lines of the 2D image as it need accuracy. If not, the bucket would look very weird. 

Throughout the entire exercise, the toughest part for me will be the handle of the bucket. I had to redo the handle 3 times because either my Curve tool wasn't accurate enough or the handles were done wrongly.

Overall, I will say that the bucket exercise is one of the toughest exercise so far among all the other exercises.

Week 3 Lab 2 Washboard exercise

Washboard perspective view

Washboard top view

For this exercise, making the washboard is fairly simple for me as it teaches me how to align the objects properly. Compared to the bucket exercise, this exercise is much easier as it does not have many complicated steps in the pdf file to adhere to. There are also many beveling and extrusions needed to make the glass part of the washboard. Hence, it needed much concentration to avoid clicking on the wrong edges and resulting to mistakes appearing all over the washboard.  

Box exercise

Box exercise in Week 2's exercise. There are some extra lines on the box and I didn't know how I got them. I have done up till the rotated flaps currently. Will update the final product as soon as possible once I have completed it.

The final product is finally done. I had to re-do my box as I had problems scaling the vertexes at the earlier stage. This part was really challenging as I had to select all the correct vertices, else my box will turn out weird like the one before. The rotating of the side flaps are also quite hard due to the vague instructions in the pdf guide. I had to think of other methods to rotate the flaps. 

Week 3 Lab 2 Track exercise

This are the 2 different tracks done during the Week 3 2nd lab session. Through this lab session, I have learnt how to make a straight track. I also learnt how to make a curved track by setting the Status line to Animation: Create deformer, then selecting the nonlinear, bend function. I also used the Edit UVs (normalize) method to produce the initial shape of the track in a polygon shape before extruding it out to make it longer.

Week 2 Lab 2 Train Exercise 2 (Part 2)

Train perspective view

Train top view

Train side view

Through this exercise, I am able to refresh on what I did during my first lab session on week 2. Although I am quite used to the Maya program now, I still think there are improvements to be made in my future models.

Lab 2 part 2 (Gear exercise)

The gear done in lab 2 part 2. Perspective view.

The gear done in lab 2 part 2. Top view.

Robot done in week 1 lab

Original robot front view

Original robot perspective view

Week 2 Lab(Wed)

Done during lab lesson on Wednesday. Complicated, but awesome (especially the gable with the semi- cylinder hole).