Week 4 In Class Exercise: Build an F-16 Fighter

The F-16 fighter
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Vasil Nikolov

For this week we had to create a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon Jet Fighter (Seen above).

Unlike any of the previous tasks, this one required us to use a brand new tool known as the symmetry tool. By using this tool, an object could be stretched, moved or cut in two opposing places at once, which would make the object appear more symmetrical and professionally done.

The tool provided to be a brilliant feature for the fuselage of the fighter jet, however, it proved to be challenging when the time for the side of the fuselage had to be created. 3 cylinders were used in total (One for the cockpit, one for the front half of the jet and one for improving the rear of the jet. This is how the long line (or aircraft spine) could be seen trailing, following the cockpit of the jet.

Overall the use of such a tool could be used for the creation of larger objects (such as the Imperial cruiser). Nevertheless, it is challenging to follow the lines of an object and achieve the same result that I had. For example, by using only one cylinder for the aircraft, the use of the symmetry tool resulted in an aircraft that looked like it had overdosed on steroids. This is why 3 cylinders were used.

If the aircraft had to be re-done, then other objects such as a sphere would be tested for cockpit use in stead of a cylinder.

Week 3 In Class Exercise: Build a derelict village

Derelict village
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Vasil Nikolov

The task for this week was to create a level that can be used in a first person shooter. The level was supposed to follow the theme of a derelict village. This is why for my model, I had decided to create a small cul de sac with identical houses. Thanks to the first class exercise, the scale-down version of the house that was made earlier provided ease for the entire map as it was easier to scale down and duplicate (Using the Ctrl + D buttons) in order to create the street. The road itself was made from a single square object, while the ground was provided by a new shape (Known as a Plain object). By adjusting the height and position of the different vertexes in the object, the ground that surrounds the fuselage of the aircraft and the ground makes the area look like the aircraft has crash landed. This was further reinforced by creating two halves of a jet engine and then inserting that object in several areas.

The crashed airliner was probably the easiest object to build as it only required the stretching of one cylinder and then adding a second with a reduced second half. The half was reduced by selecting the vertex edges and then scaling them down and moving away from the center position. This allowed the creation of a tail end which was then added to the original fuselage.

A similar technique was used for the creation of the street lamps (the lights in particular). by selecting the upper face of the cylinder and then extracting it and rotating to a certain degree, the effect of a bend could be achieved without the need for a second cylinder to be inserted and then cut.

Overall, the exercise provided to be a challenging task for the planning of what objects to introduce but not as much for it. If it had to be re-done, the best way to improve it would be by creating an object that can be connected to the original and then by using the Boolean tool, create a missing piece to the original object (For example, using a cylinder to create a random hole in the fuselage of the aircraft in order to make it look like it was hit by an anti-aircraft missile).

Week 2 In Class Exercise: Tiller steering wheel

Tiller Update
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Vasil Nikolov

This was the second task that we had to perform in class. The idea was that by using newer shapes, we would be able to make a steering wheel in a quicker way. This is why, My steering wheel was consisted of two Taurus shapes. It was quite interesting as the standard Taurus does not have a small inner circle and is very thick (While for my wheel, I needed a slimmer shape). I was aware that the exercise asked for us to use the pipe object (Which comes with a thinner shape), however, thanks to the attributes editor, I was able to reduce the thickness of the Taurus and use it as I intended to. For the rest of the build, it was much simpler as I used the same cylinder object but stretched into several sizes. This gave me the chance to play with the rotation tool in order to align the objects in different positions. If I had the knowledge that I now have, I would have probably done the task in a slightly more different way as I would have used one pipe per angle and use the 3 view editing and symmetry tool. This would have enabled me to make the 3 shapes of one stick from just a single cylinder rather than re-shape  3 different cylinders. Thus, the task proved to be interesting and fruitful in terms of learning some of the basic skills.
Bellow are the images of the steering wheel that I had made.

Week 1 In Class Exercise: Model a House using Maya

Model a House
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Vasil Nikolov

Hello All,
For this week, our lecturer had given us the task to build a house in order to get used to the basic tools that I will need to use for my coursework.
For the task, we needed to grasp two major tools:
-The extrude tool, which provides the user with the power to change the size of a certain area of the model
-Edit Mesh--->Add Divisions tool, which, empowers the user to split one object into a grid of as many vertexes as s/he wishes to have for his/her model.

The final bit was getting used to the extra setting that you could use for highlighting, which illuminated on the screen when a user held the right mouse button for a slightly longer period than usual.

The first picture is of the design that should have come out.

The picture above is of the final result that I had achieved. I had taken the liberty to modify the design of the roof, added a door and then add a little garage on the side. It was quite interesting to use the tools that were necessary to build the house, however, there were some challenges (Especially with the edge connection between them).  Nevertheless, this task was very helpful as learning to use these sets of skills, provide me with the opportunity create a model of an item. The extrude function can be used in the creation of the iluminator screen of the tie fighter, which would make the build faster and probably lighter than letting it done in a separate way.

Overall, it was quite fun to make the house as I learned the hard way about the edge smoothing option that the numbers 1, 2 and 3 provide...At one point, I had accidentally pressed the 2 button, which smoothed the house (making it look like a hobbit hole, without the mountain).

Mood-board

Mood-board

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Vasil Nikolov

Hi all,

This is not that much of a post as it is a Mood-Board that will provide me with all of the designs that I am interested in. I will be using them for inspiration throughout the series.
Furthermore, some of the images provide me with jaw dropping details on some of the ships (The backside of the Falcon in the first image for example). Nevertheless, they will be used more for getting in the mood to design rather than technical images from which to model.

Enjoy and see you soon!

Vas