Xathrux's posterous http://xathrux.posterous.com Because X is awesome posterous.com Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:51:00 -0700 Week 14 - Final Post. Ever http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-14-final-post-ever http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-14-final-post-ever

Shmeegoal
Posterous is closing down so we won't be able to use it anymore.  Go figure...

Anyways, we've finished modeling half of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  I know we said we'd be doing the Witch King last week, but we found a picture of Gollum that was literally made to be a reference image.  Normally, the two would be about egual in difficulty and impressiveness, but without the side shot of the Witch King, it would be nearly impossible to get an accurate representation. 

To make this guy's legs, we did some box modeling.  Whcih is where you take a box and model with it...

We used the Edit Poly modifier to extrude the faces, throw on some smoothing, and arrange the vertices meticulously in order to make a perfectly sculpted leg.  Then we cheated and added a Symmetry modifier to mirror it.  And you will never see the finished product.  Ever.  I hope this haunts your dreams.

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Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:35:00 -0700 Week 13 - Emanon http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-13-emanon http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-13-emanon

Witch_king_1
We've finished modeling the Wtich King's weapons.  Now we really need to get to work on the actual model.  Without a side view of the character, we're going to have some problems accurately making him in three dimensions, but we may have found a loophole.  Maybe.  I'll tell you all about it next week if it works.

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Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:12:00 -0700 Week 12 - Final Project http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-12-final-project http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-12-final-project

Witch_king_2
For the next couple weeks, Tony and I will be working on modeling and possibly animating the Witch King, from Lord of the Rings.  We may or may not include his sword, and we're probably not going to have time to tackle his flail, but I can guarentee we'll do as much as we can.  Rigging this guy is not going to be fun...

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Thu, 21 Mar 2013 07:53:00 -0700 Week 11 - There is No Try http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-11-there-is-no-try http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-11-there-is-no-try

lightsaber.mov Watch on Posterous
We spent this week in Adobe After Effects.   We had a video of an old student of Mr. Smith's waving a stick around, so naturally we turned him into a Jedi.  We used two solids, a white and a red, and feathered them out to make it look more genuine.

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Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:54:00 -0800 Week 9 - Tony is a Blizzard Wizard http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-9-tony-is-a-blizzard-wizard http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-9-tony-is-a-blizzard-wizard

snowbound1.mov Watch on Posterous
We've been working on a piece of blended media this week.  We used a plane with the noise modifier for the ground, a fog effect to make the...  fog like...  effect...  Clever, right?

We might have a little guy in this scene next week, but I don't know how much time the process takes, so no promises.

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Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:19:03 -0800 Week 8 - Saving the Best for Last http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-8-saving-the-best-for-last http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-8-saving-the-best-for-last

tube_fire.mov Watch on Posterous
This is not the last.  In a week or two, you'll get to see the big project, the compilation of our smaller animations this year.  This week's post, however, was a simlpe tube with a Bend modifier thrown in there and a bit of fire.  It took us about half an hour to make the fire look perfect, to adjust the flame size and intensity, but the rest of it was thrown together in about thirty seconds.

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Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:14:00 -0800 Week 7 - Passing the Time http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-7-passing-the-time http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-7-passing-the-time

Time_Filler_002.mp4 Watch on Posterous
This week's post is a compilation of everything we've done in between projects this year.  I won't be able to say how we did each of them, but for the most part we used basic shapes, interesting materials, and some pictures.  Some of them were done by me, some by Tony, but the majority of them were cooperative efforts.  Enjoy

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Thu, 14 Feb 2013 07:57:00 -0800 Week 6 - Running Out of Clever Titles http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-6-running-out-of-clever-titles http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-6-running-out-of-clever-titles

Desertscene2
This week, Tony did most of the work.  We spent some time working on and old project of his.  What began as a simple field of sand with a few dunes turned into an inttense looking desert, complete with a sandstorm and a sun.  I'm not entirely sure how we did all of this, because, as I said, Tony did most of it.  I know the sandstorm was an Atmospheric Apparatus with some Volume Fog, and I'd guess the sun is just a sphere with a material.  The desert itself is a plane with the Noise modifier, and the two lonely-looking cylinders are probably just cylinders.

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Fri, 08 Feb 2013 08:05:00 -0800 Week 5 - Time Well Spent http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-5-time-well-spent http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-5-time-well-spent

bowling.mov Watch on Posterous
This week, we made a short bowling animation.  It started out as about five minutes of effort, having a little ball knock down a couple pins.  Then we added textures, giant exploding text, and a few bombs.  We could probbly spend another week making this even better, but we probably won't do that.  We're probably gonna spend next week beefing up a different little animation.

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Mon, 04 Feb 2013 07:50:00 -0800 Week 4 - Rendering Issues http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-4-rendering-issues http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-4-rendering-issues

Maya gave us some issues while rendering this week.  Learning the new system was much less fun than learning Max was, so we're going to go back to the one we know and love.  Hopefully, we'll have something interesting next week.

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Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:13:00 -0800 Week 3 - Passing the Time (again) http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-3-passing-the-time-again-36039 http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-3-passing-the-time-again-36039

finished_fish.mov Watch on Posterous
I've added another row of teeth and made the fins a little more jagged.  Then I tossed a camera in there.  There isn't much else to say.

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Fri, 18 Jan 2013 08:12:00 -0800 Week 2 - Random Fish http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-2-random-fish http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-2-random-fish

Fish
This week, after presentations, we made a fish.  We used box modeling to make the fins, cones for the teeth, and a sphere for the body.  If we threw some materials on it, it would probably look better, but we ran out of time.

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Thu, 10 Jan 2013 08:18:00 -0800 Week 1 - First Post, Last Semester http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-1-first-post-last-semester http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-1-first-post-last-semester

Volcano_finished.mp4 Watch on Posterous
It's our first week in the last semester of high school, so, naturally, we made a bunch of exploding mountains.  To make the volcanos, we mostly used generic shapes like cone, spheres, and planes.  We threw in a few bombs to blow stuff up, and some really cool textures, courtesy of Google, to make the rocks and lava.  Then, I wrote this paragraph.

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Tue, 18 Dec 2012 08:34:00 -0800 Week 17 - Final Post http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-17-final-post http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-17-final-post

vulcan_bubbles.mov Watch on Posterous
So, for the last post of the semester, we acted like it wasn't any different from a regular post.  Because it isn't.  We've made yet another volcano, and will soon start putting these clips into Premiere.  It won't be as awesome as our Monkey was, but it's going to be pretty awesome.  Just picture it:  a good thirty to sixty seconds of fire and explosions.

Speaking of bad segues, Happy Holidays.

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Fri, 14 Dec 2012 08:06:00 -0800 Week 16 - Back to Fiery Exploding Mountains of Awesome http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-16-back-to-fiery-exploding-mountains-of http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-16-back-to-fiery-exploding-mountains-of

Or just volcanoes.  Whichever you prefer.  In this week's update, we just took our Shield volcano, shrunk it a bit, and added explosions.  A couple of spheres with a lava material on them, and an identical cone were hooked up to a bomb to make the...  well...  Bomb...

volcano_cone.mov Watch on Posterous

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Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:19:00 -0800 Week 15 - Major Setbacks http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-15-major-setbacks http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-15-major-setbacks

Max has been AWOL for about two weeks now.  We watched half of a movie to pass the time, hoping that it would come back, but...  It's safest to just assume it's dead, and move on.  Maya has been kind to us, and we're thinking of starting a more long term relationship.  We made fire and lightning, but figuring out how to render it was awful, so if the video doesn't work, blame Maya.

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Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:05:00 -0800 Week 14 - Minor Setbacks http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-14-minor-setbacks http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-14-minor-setbacks

This week, we couldn't get into Max because the class' license expired.  We tryed using a different program, Autodesk Maya, but it crashed for us on Day 1 and wouldn't start up again.  So we spent the week using Kuder Navigator, a program to help people, mostly students, explore their future.  It gives quick exams, takes your answers, and tells you where you are strongest.  It then gives you a list of potential jobs and their median pay.  It told me I should be a teacher, either Math or Science, but I'd be okay with English too, and I heartily agree.  It looks like I'll need at least a Bachelor's, since I want to teach in a high school.  Oh well.

Next week, we'll hopefully be back to making enourmous mountains that explode.

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Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:51:00 -0800 Week 13 - Volcanoes. Again. http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-13-volcanoes-again http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-13-volcanoes-again

volcano_fissure_vent.mov Watch on Posterous
We took one of the volcanoes in last week's post, the Fissure Vent, and threw on some modifiers, animated it a little more, a little better, and sucessfully made a semi-realistic lava flow.

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Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:54:00 -0800 Week 12 - Something Scientific http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-12-something-scientific http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-12-something-scientific

Volcano_1
We've started working on the Scientific Animation.  We chose volcanoes, beause hey...  Volcanos...  We're going to start throwing descriptions and materials on these, then we're probably going to have to split 'em up and render out clips.  As for this picture, they're almost all cones that we've bent up a bit using the Editable Poly modifier.  Two of them are planes, tweaked with the same modifier.  One is a sphere cut in half.  I'll throw some scientific terms at you next week.

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Fri, 02 Nov 2012 08:10:00 -0700 Week 11 - Passing the Time http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-11-passing-the-time http://xathrux.posterous.com/week-11-passing-the-time

Time_Filler_001.mp4 Watch on Posterous

This week we weren't working on a big project.  This time, we're just filling the space between the last one and the next.

We took a sphere and a few boxes and threw the Mass FX modifier on them.  The sphere rolled down the boxes and hit a button, which we auto-keyed.  The button cause a "hose" to expand, pushing a box off the ledge, the box landed on a ramp that launched another sphere into a cone.  All of this was done with auto-keying.

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