Mood Boards

For the Halloween/October image I was aiming to create a slightly creepy and eerie feeling. I merged a series of commercial Halloween/b-movie horror movie images to create the Halloween aesthetic. I also placed images of the moon and a dead tree silhouette.
For the June/Summer image I wanted to create a warm, bright and bold image. I thought a colourful landscape with a bright sun with trees and bushes etc would capture the feeling and the warmth of summer.
For my guy Fawkes/November image I wanted to create the excitement of bonfire night and the fireworks.

Splines, Boolean, and the Lathe Tools

Today I began learning to model using the spline feature within 3Dsmax.
Under the shapes section I selected “line” and with 2d snap off and initial type and drag type both set to smooth for a more organic shape, I created an outline for a shield.
I then converted the outline into a editable poly and extruded one side out to create the 3D shape. Once extruded the backside of the object became hollow, in order to fix this I selected the border surrounding the hollow side and clicked “cap” to complete the shape. One disadvantage to modelling using splines is the way your object doesn't have any editable segmentations you can manipulate. So you have to use the cut tool to cut editable segments of your own once the object is complete.

The line tool is very good for creating things like pottery, bowls, drinking glasses etc by using the Lathe tool with the line tool. By placing points that will make up one side of the object in the front view port, you can use the Lathe tool to make a 3D shape out of the outline. Although before using the lathe tool it is best to move the pivot point of the object (via the hierarchy panel) to a better position, such as the base.
To finish the object you have to apply the lathe modifier. There also numerous different settings you can change for a different object.

To create a Boolean, create one object and then another intersecting object which you want to be subtracted from the first object.
Under create, go to compound objects, click Boolean.
Choose whether you would like object A subtracted from object B or the other way round.
You can also unite two objects together to create one object by selecting union.

For pro boolean you can create multiple objects subtract from another.
Make sure the “base” object is selected before you use pro boolean.
Click “start picking” and you can take away multiple objects from the base object.

Favourite Month and Cartoon Character

My name is Richard King, I’m 20, and currently living in Chelmsford.

What is your favourite month of the year, what makes it so memorable to you and why?

Never really thought about it. There are the obvious ones like Christmas, Easter, and the month of your birthday but I’m guessing that they are a bit too obvious.
Maybe Halloween? Although I’ve never been one to dress up, I do enjoy the artistic imagery that accompanies Halloween. There’s been a few songs recorded by various punk rock bands which also sing about it, and personally I don’t think you can go wrong with the many, many zombie/vampire movies that feature Halloween.
However I think July is a pretty good month to go with, the weathers nice and I can always remember having a lot of fun. Seeing friends, going out, and meeting new people.

Favourite cartoon character?

When I was a lot younger I did tend to enjoy the animated Batman and Spiderman shows that were on TV at the time, but I guess they are more like comic book characters than cartoon characters.
I think my favourite cartoon character would have to be “Shake” from the TV program Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
He's crude, insulting and loud. It makes for a pretty funny combination. Funny character.

3D Fruit

Creating the fruit within 3DSmax -

To begin with I created one sphere, which I converted to an editable poly.
Within the soft selection feature I start picking different parts of the sphere and pulling out to make the sphere appear more lumpy in different areas. This changed my perfect sphere into a more organic shape, such as an apple.
To create the stalk I first used a cylinder and changed it into an editable poly to change the shape so it's bigger at one end and smaller at the other. I also applied a bend modifier to bend the shape into a more organic/apple stalk shape. I then rotated and moved the stalk into position at the top of the apple. I then grouped both of the objects into one and cloned the object.
I then found I had run into a problem with applying colour and texture because I had grouped

the apple with the stalk together as one object. So when applying the colour or texture it was applied to both objects as once. Which means I should have applied colour or texture before grouping

for the grapes I made a sphere and used the soft selection again to make a more organic shape before shrinking it and cloning the object. I did however have a problem moving the grapes into a realistic position because of the four different view points.

Finally for the surface I just created a thin rectangle shape and applied a default wooden texture for realism.