Feedback on Chris' Blog

Feedback on Christopher Dean's blog ( http://starwarsanimationruskin.blogspot.co.uk/ )

I think the presentation of the blog is good, though the background image is slightly distracting. Lots of images are used which breaks up the text and makes it easier to digest and visualise, in addition to that it also - across several posts - shows the progression of the models, and how they are improved as the weeks go on.
I feel for an evaluative blog he may be describing his actions more than evaluating said actions a little too much, on the other hand it does show his overall progression as he does explain why he's done some things, and some of the thought processes behind it.
In Chris' week 5 post, I saw the way he modelled the engines seperately to the rest of the ship and then imported them. I'll keep this method in mind when I'm creating my models, however I do find it easier to see if something looks "right" by seeing it where it will be used, so on the other hand it may not be a very good fit for me personally. This was also why I liked how he showed pictures of the engines pre- and post- attachment, since it clearly demonstrated how he applied his method. In week 3's entry, I would have like to see at least one picture of his completed house, but this is just a minor nitpick.
Overall, I think Chris' blog is very good, so some recommendations I would give him would be to change the background slightly, and put in some more thoughts on his 'finished' products, and changes he's looking to make, or improvements he'd like.

Week Four

This week I really cracked down and got on making a full complete space ship. I decided to try the X wing as it didn't have the annoying window on the front like the Tie Fighter, and it seemed a little more challenging than the Lambda Shuttle.

As you can see, I managed to complete the one wing and the main body. I'm not very happy with the main body, as it's not symmetrical. I drew it using the plan as a form of tracing paper, and then used the extrude tool and connect tools (which I've developed a love of.) Since I drew it, it wasn't symmetrical and that bothered me for the rest  of construction. I tried to fix it by slicing the whole thing in half with the boolean tool, and then mirroring it, and joining the two halves, but it never looked quite right. Next time I'll ensure that it's perfect before extruding it.

When making the C shapes for the laser/blaster things, I cut a tube shape in half by deleting the vertices that comprised half of it. The problem with this was there was a missing polygon on the top and

bottom of the C shape, so I looked up a new tool which was cap. Cap added the missing polygon in if I selected the border option!

I'm very pleased with how the blasters, engine and wing in general turned out. I gave up on editing the engine any further as every time I tried to change it, 3DS max would crash and I was not very pleased. I have a ominous gut feeling that I'll regret using the extrude tool so frequently to make the engine and body of the blaster one large piece, however I'm not willing to touch the engine for a little while just in case the program crashes again. I'll look into cutting up the shape soon, since I think it would make adding detail to particular parts slightly easier.

I didn't actually add the three other wings to the ship as I know I can just copy and mirror the one wing I do create. It hasn't really felt complete to me yet so I'll wait until it does before I do copy it over.

The nose tip was very annoying to create as it's such an odd shape, I'm not 100% pleased with it, but I'm proud of creating it.

Another annoying feature is that clicking the lightbulb on a "group" of objects doesn't make the whole group invisible. I'm not sure if I'm missing an option or something, however so I'll look into that as well.

Week Three

During week three I created the low poly house in the practical, and set up the plans for my three spaceships.

I'm beginning to remember to always change the primitive to an editable poly, and the low poly house really helped to show how the bevel tool could be useful in creating a lip around the top of the house.

I've really got to grips with adding in vertices and connecting them to be able to manipulate the shape exactly how I want to, and I'm pleased at how easy I found the tutorial.

I'm happy with how the house turned out, and while I did try (and fail) to add a sunny window to the front door (example: Stock Photo) I feel like I learned a lot from the exercise about the extent to which you can manipulate the editable poly. The connect tool and the collapse tool were especially useful, and I can already see how they're going to be useful in the coming weeks as I work on the spaceships further.

Week Two

During week 2 I made a very very primitive Tie Fighter.

The main problem this week was trying the autogrid feature which was recommended in the lecture, whenever I used it I would have a shape end up somewhere completely different from where I intended. I need to practice this some more in the coming weeks, although the align tool is fine for now.

I'm not looking forward to doing the Tie Fighter window, as it was really fiddly the first time, so I've decided to leave it for a little while and build up my skills on creating other parts of the spaceships, and come back to it when I feel a little more ready.

I also need to keep in mind that I have to turn the primitive shape into an editable poly. I'll delete shapes and retry them, and get slightly frustrated when I can't manipulate them properly.

I'll update with a picture of a the very basic Tie Fighter soon.

Update 28/10/15:

Week 1 - A bit late

Initially I was unsure about the design brief, as I am not a huge fan of the star was series, and the memories I had of the series made me worried since all the ships seemed to be fairly complicated. However, after learning to look and break down the ships into their general shapes like taking apart a jigsaw, I felt a little more confident about recreating these ships.

I decided I'd choose three ships all able to be completed simply, but that I think will require some skill to bring to life and create to a high standard. I think that the Lambda Shuttle, a Tie Fighter, and an X wing will fit this goal, and I'm hoping that I can do them all justice in the weeks ahead.

My initial thoughts on a scenario for the animation are below:

My art skills aren't brilliant, and I believe I was fairly out on the timings of each of the six panels, but I can refine that further as the weeks go by.