3D modelling University.

Freeman

Freeman

Freeman

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24 Jul 2004
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Does anyone attend a 3D modelling course at Uni at all, or know of anyone that does?

I just wondered what sort of units you cover and how your liking it at the moment, and whether it's a good qualification to get into the industry with?
 
I am, (ish, its a computer games design coure with a lot of modelling modules)

So far we are just making rooms with objects in. First semester I made my uni halls bedroom. This semsester I have to take it further and create a "scene" almost. A room with a few others added onto it and a short 20 second video animation fly-through. First semester I also did motion capture and animation (of sorts, group work) and rendered out a full scene for that.

: the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iqkRdNKRvw

I'm enjoying it ish, a lot of hard, niggly, time consuming work. Motivation is hard to muster to be frank, but once i start working I usually end up sitting here for a good few hours and get really into it :D

I'm also doing level design (making a team fortress 2 map atm) and comparative physiology which is more modelling.

Comp phys is to do with animals and bone structures etc. Have to model 3 animals (vertebrate, invertebrates) and construct a full bone rig with muscles. I'm making a penguin for that this moment :)

Next year it goes into facial modelling, with animations and mouth movements etc, character modelling and I'm not sure what else.


if need any more info just ask, have a 3hr lecture in comp phys right now so i'll reply later :P
 
I did BA in computer animation at Portsmouth. For me, the teaching was not all that amazing as they assume you know nothing form the start. I already knew max when I started so the lessons where of no real help. As for getting a job, I came out the other end of the course with first class honours, but I got my job at stainless games as a 3d artist before I got my results back, skill is more useful than the grades.

Heres my final year project:

http://tomdon.net/desolation.php
 



just a show really, penguin I've started making.

Never done any animal/bio modelling before so I'm pretty proud of that :) The lesson just was about animation and rigging a model up to a skeleton, i'll give that a go later on mr penguin here and make him waddle around :D

Nice work Tom, didn't realise that was even the source engine till the credits (didnt know the source engine could look so good :P , very nice :)



Also, ideas of the industry depends on who you talk to / listen too. I got slated on here for saying I was going to staffs uni to do game design, that i should do a "proper" degree. Apparently in 4 years I'll be a burger flipper according to most folk. Alas, after a few presentation by various companies I can see where people are needed in industry, there are always jobs popping up if you look, some (more so now and in the future) geared towards graduates.
 
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you can be taught how to use the programs but you cant be taught creativity. Modelling is 90% artistic talent and 10% technical know-how.
 
Jono said:
I'm led to believe that Bournemouth uni is best/most highly regarded in the industry, followed by Teesside (and maybe some other one).
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That I've heard aswell (hence why I'm going there, though for a different media area).
I think they're animation 'school' is called the NCCA.
 
Same course as Psypher here, but second year.

Its pretty good if you can drive yourself, I struggle to drive myself at times unless something is of direct interest, so this semester I'm really needing a kick up the rear.

We've learnt loads of techniques for modelling, used various game engines, zbrush, textured models (full UVW unwraps and photoshop for texturing), rigging models for animation (did a animated head with rigging from various expressions last semester)

Any questions then fire away :) (feel free to email/add me on msn if you want - see trust)
 
Killa_ken said:
That video is amazing, how hard was it to get the animation of the guy?
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They would have had a guy dressed in a motion capture suit (looks a bit like an exoskeleton)
This tracks the movement and exports it as data you can then apply to a biped model inside 3dsmax character studio.
They really did a great job with it though, we had a slightly different criteria last year and our work was nowhere near that quality, the render time was also nowhere near as long. Sure Psypher can tell you the time, since I can't remember what he said it was :p

The suit is a pain in the neck to use, is prone to all sorts of errors and is far inferior to the Optical Motion capture I'm doing this semester.
Optical motion capture is where you are wearing a black suit covered in white balls positioned on limbs and joints which 8 cameras, spread evenly around the room track the white dots, send it through a specialised machine and give you data you can then bring into character studio to apply to characters.
 
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