Busy Busy

It's almost 3:30am and I just got back from school.  I wanted to have some of my work to show you guys (such as animations and models), but it takes some time to render out images and sequences and I really don't have of it to spend not working.  I do, however, want to give you guys an update of what's going on with me.

All of my final assignments are due either at the end of this week (one is actually due on Monday) or by next Wednesday - which is when I'll have a week and a half break!  During that break the school will be closed so I wouldn't be able to work there even if I wanted to. I just hope they don't assign a lot of homework for the break because Monique is coming to visit (I can't wait!) and I'd rather be hanging out with her than doing homework.

I finally finished all 5 of my models for my Still Life project.  Next step is to unwrap the objects. Unwrapping is taking the faces of an object and placing them down flat (not unlike neatly unwrapping a present), so that you have a 2D representation of your object that you can use in the texturing process. If you don't quite understand here is a picture of how this would work for a cube.

Unwrapping can get really hard when the object is more complicated than a 6 sided cube.  After I unwrap my items, I will then surface it (give the object properties of the material it is made of in terms of how it reacts to light). Then give it bump - placing "bump maps" on the object to make it "feel" like what its supposed to. Then texture it - which is basically giving it the color properties of the material its made of. And finally I will light it and render it. It's going to be a lot of work, but I enjoy it.

Well this short update became longer than I first intended and now its getting late and I need to catch some Z's before I head back to school tomorrow. Goodnight.