New Model and Animation
Today, I created a pyramid.
And, that’s more difficult than it would sound. For whatever reason, my 3D modeling applications don’t have a pyramid as a basic shape. Remember in school–old school before computers–when they had those 3D shapes to teach us math and geometry? They were plastic (probably wood if you were real old school) and there was a cube, a sphere, a pyramid, a cone and probably some other shapes you forgot the summer after that school year. Anyway, pyramid. Basic shape, right?
But, for whatever reason, it’s not a basic shape in my 3D modeling apps, so I had to make my own. Took a cube. Chopped it up. Rotated it. Cut. Chop. Ended up with a pyramid-like thing that, at first glance, was pretty good. Upon closer inspection, it was the kind of pyramid that maybe a preschooler would model out of clay, assuming they could do the straight edges, which at least I had.
So, delete a bunch of time’s worth of work and start over. This time, I had a better idea of how to do it, and I did it. Then, I did my UVs, where there was some weirdness, but I opted to live with it after failing to find a way to fix it.
From there, I created the textures in Photoshop so it will look like an ancient Egyptian pyramid rather than just a plain smooth shape. Had to do some manipulating to get the textures to fix the UVs which weren’t as consistent as you would think. Each triangle face varied slightly. But, I wrangled everything to fit.
I had a pyramid. Life was good.
Until I brought it into my rendering application, whereupon the flaws in the pyramid were discovered. And, after messing around with rotating it so the bad portion wouldn’t show, the rendering app continued to have problems doing, well, doing much of anything. I suppose the pyramid model was so mangled that the rendering app just couldn’t handle it.
Back to the modeling app. Cut. Fill. Fill. Redo all the UVs. Then, back to Photoshop to redo the textures. This time, all the pyramid faces were the same size and shape, which was a good sign.
Back to the rendering app. Woohoo! This time I really have a pyramid.
Of course, I can’t just settle for a pyramid image. I must do something with it. So, I drag out my UFO model from earlier in the week, and make a little video with it in it. After doing some different audio for it, and I’ll not bore you with the issues I had there.
Anyway, my pyramid is in the same proportions as the Great Pyramid, which is 9.131 for the sides of the base and 5.813 for the height.
Hey, that’s pretty neat. I like the audio with this one too. It gets louder as it gets closer so it’s realistic.
It’s the same audio I used in an earlier clip. I just modified it a bit to make it sound more alien.
Stop in in to Hollydale sometime and show me how to make 3D chicken flight
With clay or computer?
I remember in school we made erupting volcanos! Am I the only one who know what that is?? The volcano was made out of Salt, food coloring, and a few other things. We mixed together baking soda and I think vinegar for the eruption part.
Come on now!!!…I think Peter Brady from the Brady Bunch made one too!
~ZZ
Baking soda, vinegar and red food coloring. Baking soda is a base and vinegar is an acid, and they react when mixed to create water and a salt.
Also good for unplugging sinks sometimes.
Cool scene Dan! I learned from a shaman that I am the illegitimate reincarnation of Tutankhamen.
That’s okay. We still like you anyway.
dood I hate when I have to DELETE and REDO an entire project!
I’ve done it too many times.