DMA: Day 3

Man, yesterday when I got home I immediately fell asleep and woke up at 9:30pm to eat dinner. I really shouldn't have done that because last night when I tried to sleep, I couldn't. I tossed and turned until about 3:30am when I finally passed out. So at 7am when it came time to get up I absolutely couldn't and ended up getting up at 8am. I had to floor it all the way to work to make it in time (although that's no different than any other morning) but I was still about 5 mins late. Luckily I didn't miss anything in class so I didn't feel too bad about being late. I'm ahead of that class anyway.

Today's class was another uneventful one, with mostly just Q&A about stuff we've covered. Today the instructor told us to think of an animal and model it. I couldn't think of anything, so I decided to model a velociraptor. The instructor said that may be a little difficult, but I went ahead and attempted it. After about half an hour I had a good base model to work with. The instructor seemed impressed as to how fast I was modeling. I was so incredibly sleepy though, so I couldn't really focus and even though I spent the entire day working on the raptor model, I didn't get very far. You can see in the image below that I still have a ways to go, particularly in the hands and feet and some of the tail. If I could find a decent texture from which to skin it from, I wouldn't have to model it in much detail, but there really weren't any good images I could find that I could use as a decent skin.

rawr! Where's Turok when you need him?

I found out today that the instructor did some cinematics for Turok 3 on the N64. I didn't even know they made a Turok 3, but the Turok series is one of my favs, so I was quite interested. When he saw me modeling the raptor, he started telling me about his work on Turok. It was pretty sweet.

Aside from the Q&A, he showed us some examples of texturing and how to create textures in Photoshop. Nothing new to me, but interesting to see how he does things. He also briefly showed us the website for his company, but since it's all Flash, I can't view it here (since I hate Flash and don't have it installed). I'll check it out tomorrow sometime I guess. Maybe they can give me a job or something. :D

After class he talked to me about my experience with Max and 3D modeling, since apparently I'm kind of advanced, at least in comparison to the rest of the kids in the class. He's a pretty cool guy and knows a lot about 3D modeling and digital art. I'm fortunate to be taking this class. He asked if I was going to be in the Max II class next week, but when I told him no I had to work, he seemed kinda disappointed. I really want to, but I don't think work will let me. Since I won't be around next week he's gonna try and give me some extra (more advanced) pointers before the week is up. Maybe I can talk my manager into letting me take Max II..