To sum up this
project in three words, I'd use: creative, frustrating and rewarding. Overall I
am very pleased with my progress throughout the five weeks, looking back I can
finally see a difference and a change as I have progressed. At the beginning of
my five weeks I had no idea how to use 3Dsmax or where to start, but several
weeks later and I have a finished project, complete with textures, lights and a
camera. I have managed to plan, develop, create and finalise my project .
For me, planning and
developing is a very big part of my project, exploring different ideas. At
first I struggled to think about what way I would proceed. I knew that it was
important for me to build something which was related to me as a person. The
brief states: 'that best represents your secret alter ego'. At first I could not relate anything about me
to being 'super', this is when I deciding to take a step back and look at it on
a different level. I have lots of various interests and thought I could pull on
this to make something which is secretive and interesting. Vintage,
architecture, books and looking at interiors are all interests of mine, this is
how I began to think about creating a character to match this. Over Christmas I
watched an adaptation of Great Expectations and was compelled by the character
'Miss Havisham' there is something fantastically haunting about her. This is
where my idea stemmed from, I also looked at other influential female villains,
such as wonder woman, Miss Adler from the Sherlock Holmes films and Constantine
from Underworld. Each of these character possess dark traits in the their
personality. Based on my interests I began to develop a character which had
once been jilted at the alter, she uses persuasion to persuade grooms to leave
their brides.
After developing my
character, I had to think about how I want the environment to look, I explored
different ideas and themes, from Egyptian pyramids to English churches. After
developing for some time I decided on creating a lair which would be based in
the back of a church. I have four rooms and one corridor which has a set of
stairs. My main theme is gothic, so it was really important for me to convey
this, I chose to have stone walls and
floors to really emphasise how it is underneath a church. When I have visited
churches before I immediately feel cold, I think that is because of the how so
much of the space is made out of stone, this is something I wanted to visually
transfer into my four rooms. From the feedback and comments people have given
me , I have achieved that goal; most people have told me how it reminds them of
a church without it be directly obvious. To convey the theme further I added a
shrine, this has been lit in a way which makes it the focal point of the room
and also pinpoints the connection with the church and gives the audience a
little more insight into the villains character.
Using my online blog
and my project book has helped me greatly through the journey of this project.
I use my project book like an sketchbook, it helps me manufacture my ideas and
make sense of them in an ordered and chronological manner. Looking at my finished
project leads me to think about what areas I could improve, I have talked about
this previously in my project and I definitely would consider adding a couple
more rooms, although my space was intentionally quite compact, I think if I had
extended and added a dungeon it would portrayed an obvious evil dimension to my
character. Another improvement I'd like to make would be to add an outside presence, so that it could
be visible through the windows.
Leading onto the
software: 3Ds max. When I first saw the interface I found it daunting, however
as Andy spoke us through different parts I began to familiarise myself with
different commands. I wish that I could have had another week, as I would have
used it to simply play around and practice with building different structures.
At the same time as building the environment I was still getting to grips with
how to use it. This caused me to make silly mistakes, which I could have
avoided if doing the project again, for example; the camera path. However
looking at it from a different perspective I feel that I have achieved and
learnt a lot about virtual environments and I have grown interested in
modelling and creating realistic spaces.
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