Creating my Scene

The first aspect I created for the environment was the sky dome. I chose to use the skydome to create an effective backdrop as it allows for a 3-D world effect though is very simple to implement . This was done by creating a basic polygonal sphere and editing a few of the attributes. This first attribute i changed was the sub divisions to allow for a more natural and smoother looking sphere. I then proceeded to delete the bottom 1/2 of the sphere to reduce the clutter on the view panel. The next step was to reverse the surface normals which allowed me to turn the surface of the inside out, this allowed me to texture the inside rather than the outside. I then set the back face culling of the sphere to full. This allowed me to only view inside of the sphere which helped tremendously when editing other aspects inside the dome. The final aspects of the sphere I changed was the cast and receive shadow options in the render stats. This will stop the sky dome from casting and shadows onto the terrain once the scene is rendered.

For the texture of the sky dome I chose to use a surface shader materiel, I chose this because the surface does not respond to light in any way so none of the lights used in the scene would change the effect. For the out colour I chose a Ramp option. The ramp option was used to give an effect of the sky appearing darker as the sky gets further away from the horizon.

For the terrain I chose to use 4 separate polygonal planes and arranged them into a box formation to give me a terrain field to create my animation on. this was created inside the sky dome to give the feel of a natural world. For the four outer walls of the terrain a surface shader was used the the texture so the light would play no part in its display. I then used a bitmap file to for the colour of the texture to give a mountain range effect. For the base of the terrain a simple Lambert texture was used, I then used the pipette tool to gain the closest colour match to the mountain range to create a more unified feel. A bump map was then placed on the texture to give the terrain base more detail. I chose a bump map over a displacement map to keep the rendering to a reasonable speed. 

ARC-170 Fighter

The ARC 170 proved to be the most challenging model out of the 3 created for the animation. The main issue I had with the model was the main body. This was due to the face that the 170 is an abnormal shape with curves spilling into straight edges. The first technique I attempted was to create a cube and bevel the entirety of one side to give it a natural curved look. This worked well until i tired to use the mirror geometry tool to get the same effect on the other side, when using this tool I found I would get a line down the middle of the model where the geometry had been mirrored and this ruined the entire feel of the model. The second attempt was done by using the edge loops and the symmetry tool to model the shape I wanted on either side. The only main issue I had with this technique was that the symmetry tool would not always select the edge on the opposite side meaning I had to check the opposite side of the model after every change.     

I created the wings of the model by using the Bezier curve tool and extruding the face. I chose this method because I found it much quicker to just draw the object I wanted rather than trying to side a pre existing object into the shape I wanted. The turbine was created by modifying the edge loops on a cylinder shape and using the boolean difference tool. For the main gun on each side I simply combined basic polygon shapes with the boolean union tool.

Here is the Final Model

AT-ST Walker

The Head of the AT-ST walker was created from one main cube object. To create the open lids and view ports which resemble the eyes I used the add face divisions tool and deleted two of the faces. I also used the face extrude tool to create the detail around the head as well. From the gaps left by the deleted faces I then used the edge extrude tool to create the "eye lids". The outer edges of the 3D facial detail were also moved inward slightly to make the detail more obvious when looking at it head on.

For the side and front turrets one face a combination of simple polygon shapes were used and combined to make turret like shapes. Rather than using the boolean union tool how ever I decided to group them. This was to done to help me animate them since the AT-ST walker has far more moving parts than spacecraft, it will help me with the rotating of certain objects on group centre points.   

The neck and base of the head was a simple combination of cubes and cylinders. I decided to keep most of this simple since very little of it was on show when viewing the model. I decided to use the boolean union tool over the group tool on this segment of the model since there were very few moving parts and it makes the model more efficient. The legs of the model were mostly simple shapes combined to give the look of a leg, I decided to keep the leg as simple as possible to help the animation have as few problems as possible. 

 

Here is the final model....

AAT Battle Tank Model

The base of the AAT Battle Tank was created by scaling a a sphere to make it a disk shape. From this shape I used the boolean difference tool to remove the bottom half of the sphere. For the torpedo bays on the sphere I again used the boolean difference tool. One of the main issues with this method was trying to place the torpedo bays symmetrical on either side of the base. I resolved this by placing the base on the "0,0,0" co-ordinates and using the translate to place them precisely. For the gap at the bottom of the base I used the boolean difference tool with a large cube. The only issue I would change with the base is the end torpedo holes, because of the height and the positioning of the torpedo bay the hole removed too much off the top of the base. I had issues trying to remove the boolean difference effect and is a skill I will endeavour to learn.

The top entrance hatch of the AAT Battle Tank was created by simply combining spheres and cylinders and using the boolean union tool to join those objects together to form 1 object. I chose to use the boolean union tool over grouping them to reduce the total amount of polygon's in object making it more efficient. For the main turret hinge I created cylinder and moved the edges and vertices to create a hinge like shape.

The main body of the AAT Battle Tank is a mix of curves and straight lines, I found the body to be the most challenging part of creating the model because of this. I tried a few different techniques to achieve the final result. The first attempt I tried was making a square in the rough shape that the main body needed to be in and then used the mesh smoothing tool to give it a more rounded shape. This technique however did not get the results I was looking for, although it was a smooth shape it did not fully capture the shape i was after and used far to many polygons to justify the end result.

The second technique I attempted was creating the same rough shape as in the first attempt but using the bevel tool on the two front edges to give it a curved front. I believe this was the more accurate looking result and used far less polygons to achieve it. For the main Turret I also created a Bay with in the two hinges, for this I used the add segments and face extrude tools. 

 The detail such as the smaller side turrets and the Front guns and icon were all created by combining cylinders and cubes. From this I then used the boolean union tool to create them into whole larger objects, again this was to reduce the over all polygon count and make it a more efficient model

Here is the final result.....

Mood Board And Reference Material

Mood Board...

Reference Images for AT-ST Walker....

Reference Images for AAT Battle Tank...

Reference Images for ARC-170

First Impression on Assignment

The assignment for 3-D Modelling and Animation has asked me to create a 30 second animation based in the Star Wars universe with at least 3 vehicles from the films. I am not overly familiar with the star wars universe though I have watched all of the movies at least once. I believe this assignment to be very flexible and versatile, There is wide range skills that could be employed due to the wide range of vehicles in he Star Wars universe. The vehicles include walkers, hover craft and spaceships, Because of this I want to employ one of each in my animation, I also want to use smooth and square shaped ships to demonstrate my modelling skills.

I will first have to gain some reference materials on each of the ships I wish to create and also a setting from the Star Wars universe to make the animation as authentic as possible.

House

For the house only one simple polygon cube was used and then a variety of tools were used to transform it into a house. The face extruding tool was used to create the windows, extra areas of the house and the area for the bevel.  The bevel around the top edge of the house was created by using the edge bevel tool, I found that I could not get the desired amount of protrusion on the bevel until I turned on the legend option, I also found that 5 segments were enough at with width used to create a smooth enough edge. For the roof the edges and vertices were connected to create the design. After the design was etched on in edges some of the edges were selected and moved on the z axis to create the apex roof.

I found a couple of area on this project difficult and it required me to start over a few times. If edges were removed from between two faces then I could no longer add segments to the now joint face. The other major issue that I had was as edges were moved they would move other edges connected to them even though I did not have them selected,