Friday 21 September 2012

RLJ 20/09/12


This morning I continued to work on my typewriter from yesterday in Maya. Neil was giving the others, and occasionally me, some Maya tutorials throughout the day too. Neil also mentioned that he wants me to be the best I can be and make more detailed models than last year, seeing as I have had more experience with Maya than the other first years. I think is good that he’s pushing me to do this, because I feel it will help me to enjoy using Maya more if I am better at it, and it’ll make me more likely to use Maya in my spare time and not just for college. A very useful tool Neil told me about today was the “Bevel” tool, which allows you to create a sort of rim around the edge of a shape, thus making smoother edges for your models. This helped me a lot with making my typewriter
                                                                                                                                                                         
I’ve also noticed that I tend to get very drowsy using Maya in particular, which make me want to take frequent breaks, and in some cases, make me quite hungry for snacks I bring with me to college to eat throughout the day, and it does kind of feel bad if I do eat a lot throughout the day. I definitely feel it’s best to take a 10-15 minute break every hour from using the computer for a project, or just in everyday life when using the computer, as I do feel very drowsy if I use the computer for an incredibly long time. My eyes would also hurt a lot too if I used the computer for an incredibly long time without any breaks. I noticed this on my last course too, and I never really understood how people could spend a lot of hours working on a project without taking breaks.

I managed to finish the model of my typewriter by lunchtime, and started to texture the typewriter using planar mapping, which I feel is pretty good progress on this task, especially seeing as I haven't been using Maya for a while.






This afternoon I was doing the same project as the other first year students, building a 3D replica in Maya of the room we have our lectures with Neil Brewis in, BE301. Neil recommended that we take photos of the room so we know where things are in the room and the shapes of the desks, apple macs etc. However, I decided to use my powers of observation instead to build basic structures of the furniture and technology that are in the room. I decided to make only one of each object for now, and then duplicate them later, after I've textured them. After having used Maya for 2 years, I know that doing things in this order is better, more efficient and quicker. Neil assigned us to finish off whatever we didn't finish in our own time, but just building models, not texturing yet. I found this a relief, because I didn't want to have to do too much to do before Wednesday, as well as other hobbies and commitments I have in my life.



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