The Table and Chair: Something Very Time Consuming

For this modeling assignment, we were tasked with modeling both a table and a chair. Sounds easy enough. Except we had to use exact measurements given by references, and the chair didn't have any tutorial. So it ended up being a very tedious task and ended up taking a lot more time then I originally thought. We were also tasked with UVing the table and chair, and texturing both accordingly. It seemed like an easier assignment, but once I started, I was very wrong.

First I had to start out with the table, which ended up turning out pretty well for me. We had to follow tutorials on the modeling and texturing, which is always welcome with these projects. In terms of creativity, we couldn't do too much, but I was able to alter the color, shading, and wear on the wooden table to my liking, which I feel ended up turning out much better than I originally thought. There were a few problems I ran into with the table though, mostly having to do with following certain commands and hotkeys displayed in the video, causing me to get stuck in some areas for a few minutes. Also, the bump map acted up with me a few times, seemingly not rendering in the Arnold render view.

Finally, there was my chair. I wanted to do something a little more simpler for this since this was my first time relying on learned lessons and skill alone, so I decided to choose a small stool/chair. I based mine off of a stool from IKEA since most of the measurements and other images were provided there. However, despite the chair in the original image being more of a cotton-type fabric, I decided to go with a more leather kind of texture for it, allowing me to experiment a little bit more with specularity. Also, I made the legs a dark brownish color to add a nice, modern look to the chair, similar to the reference image. The few problems I had with the chair was just figuring out the UVs since it had different attributes to the table. However, it was as if I was UVing 5 different table legs, making the process much more easier for me. Also, I experimented with bevels on the object (since it's a leather material) and there were a few issues with the texture stretching or warping, but they were fixed quite easily.

All in all, I feel both my table and my chair came out quite well, despite all of the obstacles and difficulties with Maya. However, this project took me practically a full day to complete, so it'll probably convince me to start setting certain work schedules for these types of projects. Hopefully I can keep improving my skills from here and start to perfect the techniques used in this assignment.

The Pencil

For this assignment, as the title entails, we had to model and texture our very own pencil using many different Maya techniques such as booleans, edge loops, and different texturing techniques such as bump maps and specular maps. This was our first time dealing with actual textures, so we had to use the UV editor to really get into the nitty-gritty, even though the only area using a texture was small. When I first started it seemed very daunting, and it was a pretty challenging task despite having the tutorial videos to follow along with. Since modeling isn't really my forte, it did take a long time to get it done.

For my pencil, since we had to follow tutorial videos for the most part, I wasn't able to do too much in forms of creativity. However, when it came to putting my name on the pencil, I wanted to go with a cursive font to add sort of a formal and nice look to the name. I tried to be as accurate as I could be by being super nitpicky about small things like the crimp being a certain size and the end of the pencil fitting into the crimp right.

I did have a few issues when doing this project, partly because it was so convoluted and new to me that it was hard to comprehend certain parts of the project. However, one issue I had right off the bat was the fact that my old mouse actually lost its middle-mouse click, making it impossible to move the camera around the scene without, similar to my last project. I did however receive my mouse the following day that this project assigned, allowing me to utilize the middle-mouse click once again. Also, I did have another issue that many other people had, and that was placing the edge loop on the pencil to make a space for the nametag. In the tutorial video, the multi-cut tool was selected and then it was as easy as dragging it across the pencil and hitting enter. However, that wasn't the case for me. Whenever I would hit enter, nothing would happen, which made me very irritated and frustrated. However, after some trial-and-error, the class was able to find a solution, which then helped my issue.

Overall, I feel my pencil came out pretty well in the long run. Every one of these projects always feels like a miniature accomplishment because of just how tedious or convoluted they can really be. If I could improve anything about my pencil, it would probably be the shininess or texture that the pencil has. Right now, it looks decent enough, but you could easily tell that it's a digital model. It would be cool to add in some certain textures and different coloring techniques to make it look like a real-life object, but as of now, that's pretty far away from my skill level.