Evaluation

3D Modelling Evaluation

Finished Product

Overall I am very pleased with my finished product. I first started out making the tables and benches that would be going into the Great Hall, then I thought that it would be a good idea to build the room around the tables then I knew how big to build the room and resize the furniture if I needed too. Then I started to create all the cutlery like plates and bowls etc. I did these all seperately and then added them to my table individually, grouping all the objects together so it would be easy for me to manoeuvre all the objects at once as I have quite a few of them over all the four separate tables. Once I had arranged all my plates, bowls and goblets I started or the decorating of The Great Hall, this proved to be difficult as I needed to find the perfect material for the walls and the floor, but in the end I think I found the perfect stone material for the floor and for the walls.

Production Skills

When I think back to when I first started this project I thought I wasn’t going to create anything substantial enough as I’m not the best at designing things, but as we did a few little tutorials following the instructions to create all the same thing, I was sceptical as I definitely thought that I wasn’t going to get on with this project well, and unsurprisingly this is the only unit I have really struggled with.

When we were told we had to create a scene of some sort, a few ideas ran through my head as to what I could create: The Great Hall from Harry Potter, Central Perk café from Friends or Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment from The Big Bang Theory. And I finally decided on The Great Hall from Harry Potter as I thought it was the simplest one to create as it just required a lot of duplicating of one object as the others would involve making lots of different object and knowing that I was going to struggle with this unit and being a beginner with Cinema4D I decided that it would be a massive challenge to try and recreate them scenes.

I think that the main reason that I struggled with this unit is because I’m not the best at designing things or drawing or using software that doesn’t work in the way I expect it to work. It’s basically just experimenting with all the different tools that the software has to offer before you find what you are comfortable with to create objects with.

The time management on this project hasn’t been a problem for me as I finished this a good few weeks before the deadline for the project, I have been going back and tweaking it here and there every so often and then repositioning something, but overall I think I have done very well as it didn’t take me that long to complete my finished scene.

I think a reason why I have created what I have is because I was always asking from reassurance from people and asking “Is it this one to extrude?” and “Can you show me how to do this?” and other such questions like that, which I think is always expected from a beginner, but seeing as everyone was in the same boat as me, but others coped well during this unit as they clearly have patience for the software unlike me, as I got so frustrated so many times at various stages of the creation part, like when HyperNURBing something and it didn’t go the way I wanted it too and then trying to rectify it and it does the complete opposite of what you want.

Overall it just wasn’t a good project for me and I really have struggled with this unit but I think I know the bare essentials of what to do when confronted with Cinema4D in the future.

3D Modelling - Rendered Images

3D Modelling - Great Hall

This is what I have added to my great hall, I have added the teachers table at the top end of the Great Hall. I also added a a step so the teachers table would be on a different level to the benches.

3D Modelling - Cutlery shelf

This is the cutlery shelf that I have created for my project. 

I started with making a box the size that I wanted for my shelf.

I then duplicated the top cuboid of the shelf to create all the other shelves on the cupboard.

As you can tell from these images, I have started to place plates and goblets on them, I have just copied them over from the original document and resized them so they would fit onto my shelf and arranged them in a jumbled way so it doesn't look too regimented.

This is a close up of a spider that was created for the shelf, to make it look a bit more life like and something that you would probably see on the shelves at Hogwarts.

This is the finished, rendered shelf with the plates, bowls and goblets on it. When I added this to the Great Room model, I decided to add multicoloured plates to correspond with the houses of Hogwarts.

3D Modelling - Candle

This is the candle that I have created for my project. 

This is the beginning of the candle, I used the soft selection tool to make the top of the candle look melted

I then created the wick of the candle and added the flame in the next photo.

I then added a colour to the wax of the candle and also to the flame.

This is the final rendered version of my candle. I think that the body of the candle needs to be a bit lighter. But with the colour it makes it look old and dusty which is what you would find in a old dusty castle like Hogwarts.

Planning and Sketches

3D Modelling - Great Hall - progress

This is my progress so far on the designing of my 3D modelling. As you can see I have designed the room, but I think that the colour/material that I have used for the walls is a little bit too dark, it looking too much like a prison cell.

The above image is it in the editing mode, and the image beneath is it the rendered version.

3D Modelling - Goblet

To model this goblet, I drew it without tracing it off and image underneath it. This way I could can any shape I wanted. I used the B-Spline tool to create the shape, as I think that it is easier to design things with than the Bezier tool with the handles on.

This what the goblet looked like after I had Lathed the Spline.

After I had changed from front view to perspective, this is what it looked like, and I'm very pleased with it as it was exactly the shape I was looking for. 

I then added a floor to it, so I could see what it looked like against the wood effect which is what I am going to be making my table out of.

This is what it looks like rendered, with a material added. I tried out a few different materials, but I wanted it to look a bit battered/distressed, and I thought that this one looked the best out of the few that I tried.

After I had rendered my image and looked around for any imperfections, I saw that there was a hole in the bottom, this is due to the way that I have drawn the spline at the beginning. I will have to go back and amend this so there is no hole in the bottom.

As you can see I have gone back and amended the problem with having the hole in the bottom, I rearranged the points in the spline so it would connect and then there wouldn't be a hole in the bottom.

3D Modelling Proposal

Title
Harry Potter Great Hall.

Applications
These models will be used for architectural/film props. I will hopefully be recreating The Great Hall from the Harry Potter films including decorations, windows, the student tables and benches and also the teachers table.

Target audience
The target audience for my project will be people that like Harry Potter so I'd say the age range for this specific group of people would age from 11-28, which is a pretty big age gap, but people have been fans since the first book was released in 1997. 

Objects to be modelled
The objects I intend to model are: The Great Hall itself, windows, decorations (maybe the candles which floated), the student tables and benches. 

Visual style
The style of my objects are going to be very earthy and matte coloured. Its not going to be all that vivid in the colour scheme as its going to be a hall which is constructed of stone. But I will try and make sure that the resolution of all my objects is high, as I don't want them to look all pixelated. 

Legal and ethical issues
With creating objects for a film/franchise, I would have to be mindful with what objects I create and also the age range it is aimed at. With an age rating of PG to 12 on the BBFC website, the Harry Potter films, contain some frightening, dark and violent scenes throughout all 8 films.

3D Modelling research

This is what I am taking inspiration from. And this is what I intend to recreate, even though this is a photograph and everything in it is a physical object, I am going to try and make them look as real as possible.

Research into Models

Applications of 3D

Product Design

Cinema4D is used to create some of the adverts that we watch everyday without us even knowing that it is CGI as it is easy to create lifelike products with this software. Many companies use this software to create adverts for their products as it is convenient to do so. For example they can create models of cars and then show inside views and put in fancy camera movements. Whereas if you did this with a real car you wouldn’t be able to achieve the same effect. And this will also save them money. A company that uses C4D to create their products is Dyson – the hoover manufacturers. They will probably sketch out their ideas first then pull up their plans in C4D so that they will have the sizes and shapes before they actually make the product.

The above image was created in Cinema4D, as you can see it’s almost too clean and does have a fake look about it.

Animation

Animations can also be created in Cinema4D, this can be anything from cameras to chocolate bars. By animation said objects you can achieve such things like the Galaxy chocolate advert featuring Audrey Hepburn. This advert was created with her face being ‘sewn’ onto someone else’s body. And they completed made her face with the use of software like C4D.

TV

Cinema4D is used often in the TV industry. They often use it to create adverts when they will only need it ones and then they can update it for new things whenever they need too. An example of this would this the following advert for MTVs EMAs. If they were to create this is real life it would take forever and then they would only be able to use it once, but with creating it this way, they are saving time and money. It also looks quite realistic.

They also use C4D to create logos for adverts too.

Film

The way that C4D is used in in film is similar to TV except they can make hour long movies with it. An example of a film that was created using C4D was The Polar Express with Tom Hanks. Even though the people in this film look a bit plastic and cardboard like also their skin is very smooth and not human like. It is one of the many films that has been created with the software. It was released in 2004 and technology has progressed far since it was released.

This saves a lot of time than if they were creating a film with clay as they can create claymations in C4D. As it takes months and months to film clay models it would save lots and lots of time.

Web and Games

Most games are created with the use of C4D or other software like it. Games such as Grand Theft Auto was probably created with C4D, as it can be created to be precise and realistic. It has the opportunities to make the materials and colors of things to be extremely realistic. An advantage of creating games this way is that they can plan out the whole layout of the entire game. They can also scale the people to fit in the game to make sure that they are human like and not out of proportion against the scenery. Also the SIMs was probably created with C4D too.

Education

Cinema4D can also be used for educational purposes. Children will be a hard audience to keep entertained as they will lose interest if the video is too hard or boring to follow. They would have to be colourful and have eye-catching characteristics for the children to be interested. This is an advantage as some people may find it easier to learn via videos and also less costly as people can upload videos to YouTube educating others instead of having to buy the resources such as books etc.

Architectural and Walk Through

Cinema4D is a massive help for architects as it helps with their designing of a project. With this they don't have to sit for hours on end to create sketches of how a room/building will look. It doesn't cost as much and they don't have to take a lot of equipment with them when they go to show a client. And if the client is not happy with what they have come up with in the first draft it is easy for the architect to change.