Final Evaluation

For this project i had to make a town or street incorporating a specific theme in 3ds Max. At the start of the project we had a series of tutorials to do to get familiarised with the program. then we had to cone up with a theme for our street so i decided to go with a Viking/Nordic theme. I really liked the architecture with its triangle sloped roofs, the dragon heads that can be found on Viking longboats and many other details both big and small.

The production of the models involved me looking at images and using them as reference so that way i could make the building without major problems. i wasn't aiming for accuracy on the models because i wanted this to be my own work and not an exact copy. overall i am pleased with my buildings especially with the long house, which is the huge barn-like building, and the dragon heads mounted on the houses and the lamp posts.

I added some finishing touches such as fire for the torches in the dragon heads and some grass or turf for the ground so the houses weren't floating in mid-air. Overall i am very happy with my final design even though it has some rough edges but i really like how the houses have different decorations on them like the curved  half-moon like shape and the big "G". In conclusion i am pleased.

My street progress

In this post i will explain the process behind my 3d street but first, some images of the buildings i have made so far.

This here is a house which is a modified version of a storage house shown further down. This is still work in progress as you can tell by the floating dragon head.

Here is a completed Long house, i am very pleased with the end result mainly because of how accurate it is to a reference photo i was using. 

This is the storage house that i mentioned earlier, it is made from an image i was researching  and the decoration is on the roof is taken from an image of a long house.

Here is a turf house, again, like the other models i have made  i have used an image as a reference. i will soon add some textures to it. 

This here is a dragon head, from my research these heads seem to be everywhere in ancient Nordic architecture. The one i made is mostly inspired by a video game i used to play.

Below is my progress on the street so far.

Light reflections

In 3D max i made a small room with two windows and a light source shining through them. First i created a huge box for the room, then i cut some squares into the side for the windows, next i put a camera inside the room so that i could see inside because i needed to make sure the light was shining at the right angle. To add the effect of sunlight i changed the light's colour to yellow, after that i added two sky portals to put light outside the windows. Lastly i played around the light reflections so it could travel around the room and then i added a sphere with different materials for experimentation.

Bin

In 3d max i had to make a bin that was partly transparent and had a shadow. I also had to make the floor look smooth. First i had to make a plane, next i added texture to it this is where i had to add a bump map to the plane. Then i added a similar texture which was in black-and-white to the same plane, lastly i adjusted the glossiness and specular levels to add shine to texture.

For the bin i created a cylinder, then i added a wire fence texture in the materials editor. I had to add the same texture which had some transparency added to the object, then i adjusted the tiling to make the grates smaller.  Finally i added a spotlight which cast a shadow behind the object.

Lathe

In 3d max i made a shape using the line shape tool. First a drew half a shape with lines, then i modified it using lathe which turns it into polygons. to make it transparent i went into the materials editor and adjusted the specualar and glossiness levels to my specification and added colour to it.

Smooth 3D lamp post

In 3ds Max i had to make a lamp post to be used in our street. I started with a cylinder which i made specific measurements for, then i used inset to pull the sides in, after that i extended the middle part upwards to make the pole. At the top of the pole i added a bit more height to it and extruded it so i could rotate it at 90 degrees. After that i extruded it a bit more then i rotated again as mentioned previous, Finally i stretched the end out to look like the lamp as seen on lamp posts and then smoothed it out. i also added a metal texture to it.

more 3d textures

In max i had to add textures and lights to shapes. I also had to make brick textures to match up with real life scale.

Here i had to make a window or door frame. first i made two boxes, one for the frame and one to make the hole. i made one smaller than the other. then i streched the inside box so it came out the other side. afterwards i changed the frame to a compound object and added a boolean then i clicked on "pick operand" and selected the inside box. then it was removed.