Continuing my self directed studies

After the hand-in of the Film Room project on Thursday I've had the luck of having a short break before we are given the brief for the next project, which is the Turret project (sounds awesome). This space has given me the time to mop up a 3D personal project I have been working on and unwind over the weekend.

During the film project I started working on a personal 3D project that takes me through some of the elements of 3DS max including high poly modelling, animation, particle effects (in max) and rendering. I've been following a digital tutors video to make a drop ship animation but now that I've finished I am going to apply some of the knowledge learnt into the turret with a high to low poly bake for the finer details. I will also start my next 3D project which I haven't fully decided on yet but might be a more organic model to also test high poly modelling, rendering and baking on.

Here is the finished animation of the drop-ship. (I didn't texture it because I knew the rendering would take a while and my laptop couldn't cope with the unwrapping of a high poly model.)

The other thing I did this weekend was on Sunday I carried on with  my side project to redo exercises from the first year in a couple of hours because its possible and very fun. This week it was the New Walk Museum rendering exercise using the bones on display to study light.

I've been having lot's of fun with these projects and it has definitely recharged me and allowed me to relax more in the face of the new upcoming project and the prospects of being essential industry ready for possible intern-ships at the end of this academic year.