#15 = It's all about 3D modelling

It is not what I imagined.

At the beginning of the semester, I said I thought 3d modelling will be a shortcut of my animation but it's not...

Let's back to the project first. You still remember the model in Post 7? (Already forgot it? No worries, here is the little magical unstable portal!) I have decided to rework the model of the giant squid. The main reason is I don't satisfied with the model, I feel I am not "modelling" but just putting some default elements together and I want to actually sculpture the thing out.

So I went to Youtube and found a tutorial video which related to what I want to do but just sculpturing a dog...

Here is the video:

Continue to my project, I then drop down some notes and also draw a reference sketch,

That's what the squid looks like came up in my mind, it's cuter, rounder and flatter than the old one but I love this one more. However, when I start to import them into 3dsmax and found that they are too rough that I could not be used as a reference, so I draw a finer one.

Then I start to follow the video to make the squid, I found out something that doesn’t mention in it: do all the adjustments before using rotate tools to shape out some curvy line.

Everything comes from a cylinder!

Body, hands and legs, or I should call them tentacles!

It's just another tentacle.

The shape goes a little bit weird...

but still able to twist it!

Press alt+x to back to solid form

adding the "ears"

Looks much better after adding a pair of eyes.

The model is then finished, in this stage, everything goes fine before I go to render out the texture map. I have watched some tutorial video and decide to paint the squid without using the default texture. Here is one of them:

But I have underestimated the difficulty of it. Before I paint on it, I have to get the texture map first, it's easy to go to the texture map panel, just press 0 on the keyboard but the problem is there are too many setting... and what rendering out is not what I want, I then go to youtube and found something call " Unwrap UVW texture", spending some to watch it can finally able to make the map out and I could paint it either with photoshop or inside the 3dsmax, I decided to paint on photoshop as running 3dsmax is too laggy.

This makes me successfully render out the correct texture map.

The final painted texture map!

And here is the final product.

Then put it into the geo location, it's in the middle of the north pacific ocean!

The exporting and applying the texture really takes a lot of time, I just mess up everything... and I have put the squid into the middle of the north pacific ocean, one of the places where people discover giant squid, and that's what I have read from the storybooks when I am small. I love reading those myths about the mysterious creatures in the world, it scared me but I am attracted by them. This project accidentally brings my deepest, but interesting memory out and just reminds me of the olds days when I am small and reading those stories in the library, maybe the myth of giant squid is not the intention of me doing this project, I just want to go through my childhood memory... all of these had become the beautiful things of this project, to stop me for giving up and keep going to finish the model. 

I would say I do fail on using 3dsmax, as a final project of this course, I believe it is far away from an acceptable model. But at least I have tried to do it,  as a complete beginner, I am satisfied with what I have done. Life has different stages when I am small, I love listen to rock and metal but now I enjoy jazz and blues, still, in somedays in the future, I might fall in love with rock and metal again. It's same with things I am doing now, I am scared of 3d modelling now but maybe someday, I will dig deeper about it. Nothing is easy in the beginning, same as that software. I love modelling, maybe I should get myself a clay and learn the principles of sculpturing. But for the rest of my university life, I would be happy to stick with 2D animation.

No more 3D, no more stop-motion... until I feel confident on every principle of animation but for now, the Y2 semester 1 is done and let's enjoy the upcoming Christmas!