Assignment 3.1: Ethics of Character and Personality Blog

Ethics are essentially what we are as people. Ethics are our values and our characters, instilled from childhood and improved upon maturity and growth in society. It is the knowledge of right and wrong, and acting upon that knowledge. We know that it is right, to strive to improve one’s self. We know that it is right to be hard working. We know that it is right to not be lazy and put our very best in all we do. We know that it is right to work well with others. By using ethics we continue to make society work.
I would hate to think about what society would be like without ethics. On the contrary to what ethics are, I see utter chaos. There would be a bunch of greedy, dishonest people striving at nothing to gain their wealth and move on. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, people who are so lazy that they depend on everyone else to provide for them. They seek handouts and welfare and have no desire to improve themselves in situation or character. There would be no cohesion with people because everyone refuses to look at the bigger picture.
Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to ethics. I personally try not to criticize others when it comes to how they relate to others and do not let it affect me or my behavior. I leave my issues at the door when it comes to work. I understand that outside influences will not help me get my job done.
One of my greatest weaknesses is procrastination. I desire to work hard and get all my stuff done that I need to. I really enjoy school and want to do my very best in all that I do, but sometimes I find myself getting burnt out and making excuses as to why I can put things off for later. With working at my current job, school work, and trying to establish my own company on the side it is easy to get overwhelmed with things. In the end I find that my personal best is not my personal best at all because of my procrastination. I do not procrastinate all the time though. I try to get to work at least 30 minutes early every day to get the day started off right. I have been working on my procrastination by setting personal goals and deadlines. Knowing that procrastination is essentially wrong and hinders personal growth drives me to overcome this weakness.
Another one of my weaknesses is the fear of rejection.  I know that it is a selfish fear and by overcoming this fear I can make myself a better person. I just have to realize that I need to keep moving forward in my career and personal life. I have to understand that people and jobs will say no. Though, if I keep trying and letting my confidence show through, I will land that ideal job one day. I know I can be an upbeat and outgoing person and I can communicate well. It is just the initial hurdle that I have to get over and once I do, it will be smooth sailing from there.
So just a few days ago, my boss came up to me and states, “I have this report that I’d like to get done today”. I do data entry for my day job. Anyways, there were over 1400 entries that needed to be done. I said “sure, no problem” and I grabbed my team and said, “Okay guys, we were given this task to be completed by the end of the day, and I know we can do it without issues”.  “We just need to split up the workload to make it go as smooth as possible.” And that is just what I did. I amped up my team and made sure to let them know how well they were doing. One of the team members started to complain about how little time there was, I agreed but reassured him that if we kept at it, it would be finished and worth our effort in the end.
By knowing who I am, my ethics of right and wrong, I can hope to improve society in the workplace, and in every other personal relationship I make. With improving myself and overcoming my weaknesses and become the person I know I can, not only can I succeed in my personal life, but I can make sure that, on my part, society will not fall. By looking at the bigger picture and being honest, trustworthy, hardworking, caring and motivating those around us, and doing all we know to be right we can make society work for all of us.

Assignment 2.2: Self-Critique

Lets start off with the image below.This alleyway was textured using photographic images. I personally had to go out and find each item in this render and photograph it. Once I had everything I needed I applied the images to the texture map using adobe photoshop. I could have added a little more details to the way. Maybe have added a rain gutter and water drain on the gutter area. This could have made my texture work that much better. Also I feel that my street texture map might need to be scaled down a little.

Here is a model of a character that we were making using maya for my character modeling class. I still have a lot of things I need to work on such as the overall head. I need to fine tune my poly and line flow. Making sure to limit the amount of ngons I have. I could add more detail on the ears for future pieces. After using maya we took or low poly models into ZBrush and sculpted more details on. I made alpha brushes for a lot of the detail work you see.

A low poly trashcan, Not much I could have done with the poly limit we had of 1000 poly. We then added a diffuse, normal and specular map too. I should have posted those renders up along side with this one. That way the you could see the completed work.

Here is a Nissan Skyline that I had worked on from 2004, everything was modeled in 3ds max. The textures you see are actually materials that were created using photoshop and then tweaked in 3ds max. Looking closely at the model you can see I have added a few texture maps such as on the turn signal markers. I would have liked to add a "glass" material to the headlights and windshield. With them being black it is a little distracting. Also the refer has no material or texture map applied to the tire.

Showing the detail on the front. You can see the texture map on this render. Knowing what I do now I wish I could go back and remove the bump map added to the turn signals and make it a normal map instead. I think it would have improved the overall look of the entire render. If you notice the lip area on the front bumper ( lower black section ) this was a carbon fiber material or shader I created using a base image in photoshop and then adding further tweaks to it in 3DS max. I had to things like specular and a gloss to make it as though it were a smooth surface.

This was an illustration I made for a Tshirt. I learned a lot of different techniques using the pen tool and creating such things as compound paths. I think that was the first time I have really put compound paths to a good use. I utilize everything I learned here while making newer designs.

I wish I could figure out how to add a little more detail in the wheels adding the spokes or faces on the wheels I think would make it pop.

This illustration was also done for a Tshirt that I printed. I was so excited to make this piece. It is a 2004 volkswagen R32. The red illustration above this one is the 2008 model. These were the only years this model was produced. Using the pen tool in illustrator I was able to add fills and strokes to produce some amazing work. I could have added different line weights to add some depth to the image. Again an issue I find with it is a lack of detail in the wheel. I have all this nice line work on the car and none on the wheel.

This was a color wheel made for the Color Theory class here at AAU. As students we were to mix 6 tube colors together to make a 24 color color wheel. As you can see from my image I did just that. I had learned a lot about color mixing and being a Tshirt printer I am now using this everyday. I could see brush stokes and finger prints in the original piece. I could have probably picked better swatches to make a smoother transition to the next color.

A monochromatic painting done by me. Used a single color of blue while adding various amounts of black or white to produce darker and lighter colors. I have learned a lot about muting and tinting colors now. I know that if you want to make a lighter color, you would have a base of white and add only a slight amount of color. One would think that you add white to the color to make it lighter, though if you do that you would need to use a lot more white than you'd expect. 

I might have needed to add a little more black to the second lightest color. Or it could have needed less blue in the first dot.

This was done as a project for myself. This LP640 was made in 3DS Max. I dont know how to change the order of my images, maybe someone can tell me how to do that. Though if you scroll down you can see the wire frame of this model. The poly count could be included in the render. I did not texture this model I left it as is.

I would have liked to added textures to the model, showing the interior would be a nice touch too.

While looking through a magazine I saw this living room setup. I then decided that I wanted to recreate it. I did just that adding a Mental ray lighting from 3DS Max. I love this feature in 3DS max. It gives you real time lighting and casts real time shadows. All textures applied were materials provided with 3DS Max. I love the color on the walls. The light cream color really contrast with the dark of the couch. Also I made a render where the walls were red and it changed the entire feel of the render. With the walls as they are now the room appears to be much brighter.

Some artifacts in the reflection on the wood is something that I noticed. I cant remember if it was the quality of the render that caused it or not. I do remember making another render and it was gone but I couldn't seem to find it.

Ahh pew pew pew. hahaha. Here I made a model of each individual lego piece. Once I completed each piece I went on line and put them together per the instructions. It resulted in this master piece known as the A-Wing. My plastic material I think was too shiny, the sheen was higher than I wanted it to be. You can notice it in the yellow piece serving as the cockpit. I really enjoyed modeling this out in 3DS max.

Plastic is too glossy, in the cockpit there is a piece of geometry sticking out. The white ground plane might be washing out the left wing.

The wire frame of the LP640 from above. You can really see the flow of my poly's on this render. Making good use of my quads. 

This was posted showing the workflow. Not really sure how I can critique it.  Maybe I could have rendered the wireframe over the solid model. That would give the viewer a better understanding of the flow.

This painting was for monochromatic color scheme. Just to better familiarize myself with how to mute and tint colors. My swatches and presentation were a little sloppy and not straight. You can see some white "lines" from under the swatches.

Low poly tree, I think I am going to add another image with the completed tree trunk on it before this assignment is due. I used a technique of plane modeling for the leaves on top and applied an alpha image to the plane to have the leaves appear. The model was done in Maya and I think we took it into ZBrush to add more detail to the trunks.

In the render its not completed. I don't have the trunk textured.

Oct 13th 2012 - Update.. Here is something I just worked on.

Wooden Crates made textures in Photoshop and placed them in UDK. Composition doesn't show a close enough render showing the details in the crates. I could show the Normal maps along with the Spec and diffuse.

Assignment 1.1: Getting to know yourself.

Hey there everyone. My name is Curtis March and I live in Mesa Arizona. While growing up I had a love for video games. I found myself playing mario on the NES, which was my first console that I really remember. I remember spending a day with my father and sister standing in line waiting to pick up our NES. I was hanging on to the felt rope gazing at the display model in the glass case. It's like I could still picture the sheen of the black plastic sleeve thats houses the game cartridge. The red font standing out clear as day "Nintendo"

It was from then on when I realized I really enjoyed video games. As I got older and games got more advanced I owned the Playstation, Playstation2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and the Wii. I really started to take notice in video games when I got my hands on the playstation. Thats when games were starting to implement 3d graphics. I thought it was really interesting how they were able to create such a thing. I first took notice of it when I was playing games like Tekken. It had me ohh'ing and awww'ing. I kept playing games and going to school. By the time I was in high school video games such as Half Life and Half Life 2 by Valve were out. Gordon Freeman... wow let me just tell you how blown away I was with the realism behind the opening scene in the game. The detail was beyond anything I had seen before. From here I knew I wanted to be a 3d modeler. I was buying 3d world magazines and watching and reading tutorials on 3d modeling. I had no clue that the game industry was busy using Maya whilst I was learning 3DS Max. I later found the Academy of Art and enrolled in 3d animation classes where we were using 3DS Max and Photoshop to make our textures. After a year I stopped attending the Academy and came back to Arizona and finished my degree in a tech school. I wasn't happy with how my life was playing out. I mean the game industry isn't really booming out here. I couldn't just afford to move and not have a job so I got stuck working dead end jobs not related to my field. I continued to work slowly on 3d models just keeping my knowledge and skills fresh. I got tired of not making something of myself so I returned to the Academy and enrolled in the masters program. Where I'm at today. Using Maya and ZBrush, which are fascinating tools. I can't wait to learn more about ZBrush.