Study Task 5 - Modelling Skills

In class, we continued to expand our knowledge about Maya. We were tasked with creating a wooden truck using basic shapes and tools we had covered so far, as well as rendering the scene by adding lights and textures.

I didn't feel confident with the outcome I produced in class because I didn't have access to the reference image at the time, nor had I completed adding the wooden texture. So I decided to restart a different day and I am now much happier with the result.

We also had to recreate a simple object on our own so, I decided to make a lava lamp as I have one in my room and I felt this would be difficult to render yet the shape itself is simple enough to work out.

I found some textures online for my lava lamp however, I thought they looked too flat so instead, I invested more time trying to find a higher quality image to map out on my UV net.

Keep On Truckin'

Above is the finished outcome of this task. I feel a lot more confident with breaking an object down into elements and then breaking those elements down into simple shapes. I also don't find Maya as daunting as I first did when I started the inductions and as a result, I am currently planning on using this software to build the sets for my end of year animation.

I feel the wood texture I sourced is accurate to the reference, and the size of certain parts are also pretty accurate.

Do It Yourself

This is the finished outcome for my lava lamp. I decided to use the blue on black liquid as I felt due to the background, this meant the wax looked more three dimensional, and not as flat. I feel however, that the metallic texture I rendered has lost some of it's shininess due to the angle so in the future, I need to work on better lighting my pieces.