Assignment 2: Virtually Outdoors

Due at class, September 29.

Create an outdoor scene with trees, a skydome, and at least one mesh-edited object.

Advice

Many of the techniques needed from this assignment are explained in Boardman's Chapter 5, "Creating Convicing Terrain," and Maestri's movies 17-20, on extruded and lathed objects. Ground, skydome, lighting, and tree creation are all covered in Boardman. Mesh editing of objects is covered by Maestri. We'll be going over both the movies and at least parts of the Boardman exercises in class.

Design specifications

Your terrain does not need to be generated from a map or from exact topographic lines as in Boardman's chapter; though you may use these techniques if you like. It is sufficient simply to deform a plane with a noise modifier.

Your landscape must include at least twelve trees, randomly distributed. While some of these trees may be Max primitives, at least half the total must be low-polygon trees of the type explained in Boardman's Chapter 5.

Use a sunlight object to light your scene, as in Boardman.

The mesh-edited object may be anything you can create with basic mesh editing. I especially suggest using the lathe technique to create something like a vase or amphora. The object may be either a single mesh or a group of meshes.

Your object MUST be original. You may not import a pre-created mesh from Max, Turbosquid, or other sources.

File specifications

Save your scene as [yourLastName].assn2.max. Generate four JPEGs from a variety of viewpoints. Save each as [yourLastName].assn2.view[x].jpg, where [x] is a number from 1 to 4.

Submit all five files (.max and four .jpgs) on floppy, Zip disk, or CD-ROM (if you have access to a CD burner).