Particles, a very common effect used in Adobe After Effects, it is used to simulate dust, fire and much more. But there is one in 3Ds max with a similar name, and it is used to simulate similar things like snow, rain, dust and so on. It is a very useful system especially for a fountain and falling snow, it is quite simple and straightforward for it.


But for things like fire and smoke, it takes more setup for it to work. Thanks to its flexibility, there is actually a ton of different particles to create.

Lathe, make vases in seconds.

Lathe modifier is a simple tool in 3Ds Max to make objects like vases and bottle. Start by drawing the shape of the vase with a line, the line tool can be found at the shapes menu.


After that, in the object modifier list, select the Lathe modifier. And your line will turn into a cylindrical object, with options to customize your cylindrical object from how many degrees to Lathe and how many segments in the objects. It's really simple to make mugs and vases with the tool,


A simple way to do it is to make an object by tracing the lines under an image.

We are required to find 3 videos and animate our footsteps by following it, so we need to search through YouTube video to get some examples. There are a lot of unique examples, some too funny and some too stiff. Here are the examples that I've chosen.


Double bounce walk cycle - Fallout Scout by Ferhod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuPie0obEU


Character animation example (walk cycle): Confident Strut by Lee Caller
Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTsTz3k_GvA


Walking Cycle Demo by SpiderWave
Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEFQ_Jjz8U8

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.