Biped system is a very helpful tool in 3Ds Max, it is in simple term easiest way to make a skeleton compared to Autodesk Maya.


First of all, going to the Create panel, click on systems and biped. There are multiple options on the body type like Skeleton Male Female and Classic, usually choosing skeleton is fine, but male and female brings more customizations. Once dragging out the biped, we can customize how much joints we want them to have. For example, neck links, spine links, how many fingers and much more.



The biped system is very flexible to animate and there are easier ways to animate, at the motion panel which is near the create panel, there are figure mode and footstep mode. Figure mode is to adjust the biped to set key for it and animate. Footstep mode is a simple way to animate walking, running and even jumping.


Footstep mode is usually animated by modifying the placement of the footsteps, you can set from how many footsteps to how the footsteps rotate. That is pretty much what I have learned.

This post is for a new trimester, let's make this post simple, I'm sure there are lots of explanation and history about surround sound, but at the end, what's important is to understand the concept.

A lot of people were curious about what's the point one means, it actually has a meaning for it, and it's used in many of Surround Sound standards. One of it the most common Dolby Surround 7.1 is shown below,

On this week, I am going to provide my opinions on using both 2D and 3D animation software to work on. First of all, these opinions are based on what I understand and experienced through out my use of these programs. For 2D, I will be using Adobe Flash and Toon Boom Harmony as an example.

For 3D, Autodesk Maya and 3Ds Max. The reason for this article is because I found a number of differences on the user experience and problems faced between both programs. First of all, in the 2D workspace, Flash has a very familiar interface as any other Adobe software, being a 2d animation software, the artist will have to draw frame by frame in order to animate it, Toon Boom functions the same way, but there's a difference why people choose one from each side to work on. In my experience, Toon Boom requires more knowledge and it's harder to learn. Being a user, I am frustrated on how much time a person would spend to achieve a good animation, because it doesn't worked like how 3D programs worked.

On the other hand, in 3D programs, there are multiple way for a user to create an animation, users will have to set up a model with multiple menu options and when it's done, they will need to move it to create keyframes. One thing I like about 3D software, is that users will not have to draw on a digital tablet in order to animate an animation. But for some people, they prefer drawing than modeling and keyframing, so there are pros and cons. 3D software in the real world has more potential and plug-ins than 2D, which is sad because traditional animation is slowing fading out from mainstream. Major companies like Disney are slowly changing into 3D and companies like Cartoon Network are still using 2d animation.

So this are my opinions on both 2d and 3d software. I will be updating regularly to give out my opinions and progress.

For our third assignment, I will have to model historical buildings and set some camera angles, I don't know how much work I will have to do, but it's a requirement for me to finish within this semester. Me and a bunch of course mates went to Putrajaya for a site visit to photograph the details on the buildings like mosque and government monuments. It's quite amazing how they build their buildings, but I don't think I can model it in a short period of time, this assignment is heavy and I should put more effort onto doing it. I will update my blog with my progress I believe, to keep track on how much work I still have to complete.

It requires a few tools and techniques to model it,as for the details, I will use photoshop to paste online images for the details, but most of my work will be modeled myself. I was told that, in 3Ds Max, there are online resources on the details for those buildings and its better to paste those details than using photoshop images.

In the previous week, we talk about the early days of 3D films and how they were invented. This week we continue to talk about how it more technique were surfaced.

Due to the great depression, 3D slows down in the late 20's and early 30's, and it's not talked about until 1936, when Edwin Land demonstrates 3D imaging using polarized light, this is achieved by two images being projected in sync on the silver screen through polarizing filters which filters are then separated by polarized glasses worn by each audience, giving the illusion of 3D.

3D movies are very common nowadays like Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, La La Land and most recently The Great Wall, 3D movies have generated new technologies and investments to make it better, like the IMAX 3D experience.



The trend started recently in the early 2000s, they all seem like something relatively new, but that's not how it goes. 3D stereoscopic photography was first created in the early 1840's, invented by Charles, by mimicking 2 eyes, a stereoscopic camera takes 2 images at once, one to represent each eye view one to represent each. Each photo offset by a small distance about the same distance as our human eyes are apart, it creates perspective. In the past, special viewing devices were used to view 3d photos your left eye sees the left image and then right eye sees the right, and when these two views when seen at once, there are combined by the brain into one image, which your brain imagines as depth. The below image is a stereoscope,
In the 1890s, the first patent to film motion pictures in 3D filed in the US by Will Green, and his idea was a machine that runs 2 strips of film in synchronization, it was successful but ignore, because it was impossible for large theater viewing. In 1915, Edwin Porter and William Waddell turns on a test film to audience in New York, His films are films which had left and right lens superimposed over one another with red and cyan or red and green-tinted images, as audience would wear tinted glasses to block out one image from one eye and the other image from the other, giving the illusion of 3D.

In 1922, William Cassidy and Laurence Hammond created an alternative method for 3D films called Teleview, which when a single strip of film projects left and right images one after another in the audience looks through a viewing machine which opens and closes shutters in front of each eye in sync with the images that appear on the screen.