McDonald's in 3D

**click on the images to view them in detail**

Lat week, I went out to Little India with my friends for a photo-hunting outing. In the evening, we went to the newly opened City Square Mall for a meal. Stopped by McDonald's because they wanted ice cream. While sitting there, I drew inspiration from the nice clean look of the restaurant. Thus I thought of recreating the scene in 3ds. Took some reference shots of the bar stool-like chairs as I felt those were the more difficult to create.












This is my first time recreating a more complex scene since I started self-learning 3d a couple weeks back, so it's quite a challenge. And I took a whole day with it as I was still not very familiar with the max interface. Haha. Anyway, the first image above is not a photo, but what I've created. Hard to believe right? I myself was pretty much surprised at how realistic it looked even though I used very simple methods to create it. Below are a few images of some of the behind the scene stuff.. None of them are photos too. The only photos are the 2 reference shots I took above. Lol.

A clean render, without any materials applied.


My first try at creating the Mac's table


Creation of the tables with the bar-stool chairs and basic lighting


Simple wallpaper, made using photoshop

It is really satisfying to be able to make nice cool stuff so easily with 3ds max. Haha. I shall look for more things to recreate (that are within my abilities now of course!). And for the time being, I played around with my scene a little more and got the 2 images below. The good thing abt 3d creation is that you can slot your name anywhere you want. Like me, below. Lol. Hey, designers also can have fun ok..




To view my earlier works, visit my picassa account at
http://picasaweb.google.com/generationm88

Thanks!! ^.^

Good O' D50

This term.. I have a module on photography. Everyone in class has bought or upgraded their DSLR within 2009, including my teacher. I'm the only one with an older, lousier and discontinued Nikon D50. It's 4 years old and counting.

My camera cannot compete with the new models in terms of the colours and contrast of the photos, due to the older technology of my camera sensor. Newer DSLRs have features such as video, faster continuous photos, Live-View mode, a larger screen, larger ISO range and a much better CMOS sensor. They easily trump my D50 in almost every aspect.

But as everyone says, it's not the camera but the photographer. It doesn't matter if other cameras effortlessly beats mine. The D50 is the first DSLR I ever had. I've kept it in (relatively) good condition. It served me on many occasions without fail. In short, I love it very much. I'm proud of it.

Time To Continue

After a long break, I think I have a bit more motivation to carry on with this blog. I have lots of reasons to believe that no one ever comes to my blog already. But I don't mind. Lol.

I came to do designing for my degree because I didnt like academic studies. Yes, serious. And when I started school earlier this year, I thought I have finally left my past behind. Not that I want to or have anything to hide. But more specifically, I didn't like what I studied in JC. I took computing, that is, programming and webpage design and databases and etc. Needless to say, I failed horribly... Nah, just joking. I passed my A Levels. But honestly, I passed horribly. Had a C. And that partly was responsible for my attitude towards studying academic subjects.

Six months into my design course, I come face to face with my worst subject (not Chinese this time, just this time) yet again. But this time, I'm taking on HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL and APACHE. And I thought design does not have anything to do with programming. But somehow, thanks to my computing background, I find it easier to understand the class. Maybe good things come to those who wait.. Actually, that last line had nothing to do with my situation but I just thought it seemed appropriate (and cool).. But whatever.