I Was Having a Little Trouble...

     ...With 3DS Max (so rare, I know) until I reread the instructions and found step #3: "Sacrifice a small village's worth of the elderly to appease the 3DS Max gods so they will actually generate meshes properly." Aha! I had missed a step! And only a few hours later I had cleaned up and started back to modeling to see the improvement. Turns out it still sucked.
     The fruits of my labor did produce something I was happy with though, and here it is: My lovely Snowspeeder:

     I like the way it turned out, and I finally learned how to properly apply Ambient Occlusion to models. It is one of the dumbest ways I could conceive of doing it, but I figured it out nonetheless. Also, everyone, this is not made to be an exact 1:1 copy perfect realistic movie-identical indistinguishable from the movie magic copy, so please do not respond telling me that "Your control scheme doesn't leave much room for de-icing nozzles, and without repulsorlift engines, that hull modification would drive it right into the ground!" BECAUSE I ALREADY KNOW.

     I'm only one person, you know?

          -VV

5 Things I Love About 3DS Max

     1. As a student, I get it for free.
     2. Ran out of things to say while writing number 1.

     Now if you love ridiculous folder hierarchies, an aneurysm-inducing UI, and nearly inaccessible meshes, you'll LOVE 3DS Max!

     (Ahem) In any case, I have been able to struggle through its many menus and finally come up with something beveled that was more or less how I wanted it to turn out. My original design (which came out very cool for a while) was a Smart Car. It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. It was made entirely out of cubes intersecting cubes, no manual mesh editing, nothing. Just simple, delicious bevels. Now, this was true until all of a sudden, just when it felt like it, 3DS Max would spitefully bite chunks out of my mesh and refuse to put them back. Now I thought I was clever, and I just clicked, "Force double-sided" which should have made it work no matter WHAT. And it did! I was so happy. I continued to work, when before long I noticed whole faces missing from my mesh yet again. Force double sided? Yes, it was on, 3DS Max was now removing faces altogether!
     And that is why my awesome smart-car looks so much like an easel. Simply because an easel is easier (easelier?) to make with the bevel tool.

     May god save my soul for putting that awful stucco texture on the wall. Do you see what happens when you give 40 drunk nine-year-olds a bucket of plaster?? Oh but I drew that painting on there, I think it looks pretty neat. It distracts from the rest of the room with the stuff in it...

     Damn nine-year-olds drank all the vodka...

Posting In My Modelling Class

     So I suppose this is what happens when you don't post at the appropriate time.

     More to come, at some point.
          -VV

Blowing Things Up With Class

     This project was very similar to the one before except with more advanced lighting. I had already apparently gone above and beyond with my previous render, so I decided to do a little extra. I thought to myself, what would a crazy, potentially murderous bomb maker want in his isolated hovel? Why, an antique lamp, of course! I made a little lamp of my own and added it in. I think it looks nice.

     It really adds that touch of personality to the piece, something that I feel was missing before. Now you can really connect with the murderous rage felt by the bomb maker.

     Now one has to wonder why there are bars on his windows? It seems like with dynamite right there he would either like to protect it from rain or just people reaching in and taking it. Why, crazy bomb guy!? Why must you torment us with your ill-formed logic!

          -VV