Virtual Environments Assignment

Virtual Environments assignment, done! Here is my attempt at a super villain’s lair. When I first read the brief for this project I instantly thought of Batman with his state of the art Bat cave. This initial idea led to a vision of a big room which stored vehicles, sort of like a car show room. This was to be the first room I created, and the rest of the structure was constructed around it. I decided to have one additional back room which was to be the armoury housing all the weapons your typical super villain would have in his possession. I then decided I would make use of the roof by putting a space ship there, and this would be my third area. My fourth area I turned into a defence centre, with four turrets positioned around a circular space, also stairs to the second floor were accessible from this space. I textured my building using mostly metal textures. The walls were textured with an image I had which was a sheet of metal with a yellow warning like strip on both the top and bottom. I feel this worked well as it made the building look gritty and dirty. I had an extremely suitable floor tile. I say that because it was metal, and it had the pattern many metal floor tiles have on them, which added to the realism. Instead of using the free camera as Andy advised, I used a target camera. This was mainly down to the fact that I found it a lot easier, as using it in conjunction with the time line, was extremely similar to Flash, as it used key frames.

What I liked about this project was the level of creative potential. You could literally make ANYTHING, and you were God. I like the facts that even though I did struggle with this project a lot, I found it easier than I thought I would. Before I started this project, the idea of creating any 3D objects seemed to hard and too complicated, but I now feel I have overcome a fear now I have tried it. What I liked about my structure the most was the texturing. I felt I managed to get good images to use and they all tied in together leaving my structure looking pretty good. I also felt my camera sequence went quite well, as you get to see all of the structure.

What I did not like about this project was the program 3Ds Max itself. I never really properly got to grips with it, and I struggled massively at the start. I felt the whole process extremely frustrating, and I feel this shows in the final outcome. I feel the whole structure is a bit simple, and the interior could have been a lot more detailed. I just did have the passion to try and create something original and different, and I feel this was mostly down to the fact that I found using 3DS Max very hard.