BUILDING MODEL

Here are some finished images of my building project. Just to refresh everyone's memory, each of us in my class had to pick a building back in the New York area of Universal Studios. The building I chose housed an Italian restaurant and a Starbucks. I spent a lot of time there taking zillions of measurements and photos. If you scroll down to the February 7th entry you'll see a photo of the real building.

Here you can see the building in wireframe. The 3d model wasn't terribly difficult to build, but it was a lot of work and the further I got into the project, the more details I realized I had to include.

Texturing was obviously a big part of this project. I'm pretty pleased with my brick textures, but I think the others could be better, and at some point I'd like to go back and work on them. I had worked some texture maps that included more dirt and some bird poop [sure that's gross, but what building doesn't have bird poop on it?] but a last minute computer crash kept me from using those textures.

I'm already working on my next project at school. I know I already mentioned this, but we're building the Imperial Walkers or AT-ATs from The Empire Strikes Back. This is a really cool project, but it's crazy just how many tiny details and moving parts there are in this model.

Now I just need to avoid catching this nasty flu that a lot of people at work and school have caught. I simply cannot afford to get sick. No way, no how.

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DONE AND DONE

The building project is finished and it went very well. I'll post some images and give more details later this week. For now, check out this tiny frog who was sitting on the railing near my front door when I got home tonight. He didn't seem to mind me getting my lens right in his face. Now, if I could just see an alligator...

"Well, you know what they say... don't give up the spoon that feeds you."
-a drunk guy

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ALMOST THERE

The building model is due in about 19 hours. The model itself is done except for three minor detail pieces that I'll have to go back and add some other time. I'm now just working on texturing. Most of the base textures are in place, but the model still needs a lot of dirt, grunge, grit, and grime... and maybe a little bird poop too.

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PROGRESS

I'm making progress on my building model, slowly but surely. Here's the latest screen shot. I still have so much left to do...

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My building still has a long way to go, but how cool is this? Tonight I learned that our next modeling project will be to build an IMPERIAL WALKER! I can't wait!

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BUILDING

The next project is well under way. There is a cluster of buildings back in Universal Studios that have a very New York feel to them. Each of us in the class had to pick one of these buildings to recreate as a digital 3D model, complete with detailed surface textures, lighting, etc. The building I chose has other structures on either side of it, but I'm only supposed to model the one building. There are also some details that I'm allowed to leave out, such as the ugly Starbucks sign and the green plastic furniture.

Although I have a good start, I still have a lot of work to do. The colors you see are what one of my instructors likes to call "clown colors." These are temporary colors applied to the polygons that will later be replaced with detailed texture maps. So far I've been concentrating on the main structure of the building and the upper windows. Today I hope to finish the roof and then I'm going to start on the storefront.

The project is due a week and a half from now. That's not a lot of time when you consider that all the photoshop work that has to be done for the texture maps, and all the animation and rendering time. The final product to be turned in will be two 150 frame fly-by animations.

BTW, a dear friend called last night just to check on me and make sure I'm surviving down here. I'm doing great! I'm really loving school and I'm so glad I made the decision to come here. I realize I've been very silent on the e-mail front and I'm forced to neglect a lot of friends right now, but please understand that's just because I'm so busy juggling work and school.

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COFFEE TALK

It's getting harder and harder to find time to post anything these days. For those of you who worked with me in Washington, the hours I'm putting in right now are just like a national meeting crunch time. And what's crazy is that I know school isn't nearly as intense right now as it's going to be.

Last week I finished a big project that turned out really well. In the front of our class is a wooden coffee cart. Our job was to take careful measurements and build an exact digital 3D model of that coffee cart. We used photographic textures from the actual cart, and then set up and rendered out two "product shot" type animations. I was pleased with the way my cart turned out, and it went over pretty well during the critique in class.

Now we're already on to a new and much bigger project. We're each modeling an entire building! I'll talk more on that after Pittsburgh wins the Super Bowl this weekend. Stay tuned.

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