W1: Getting Started w/ Maya
As I was working in Maya I became frustrated at several points in the process because I felt confused. I watched each of the videos more than once and I did a lot of pausing and rewinding throughout the videos. When I started creating my chair I felt a little defeated and unaware of what was going on but as I continued to work in Maya I became more comfortable and knowledgeable.
After the first hour of working in Maya, I was easily navigating through most of the tools that were introduced to me in the video lectures. I struggled with knowing what edges to extrude and how to keep everything overall organized. I also struggled with saving my chair. I thought applying the wood texture and the Ohio State logo was fairly easy.
To conclude I enjoyed all of the struggles that I encountered throughout this process because I was able to learn from my mistakes. I also believe that this was a good way to introduce Maya to class because this workshop allowed us to work hands-on with the software.
W2: Getting Started w/ Unity
The first day working in Unity was definitely interesting and intriguing to me. We were asked to create a soccer field and place a soccer ball in the middle of the field as well as objects that could surround the field. Those objects could have been benches, stands, concrete blocks, etc. I had to ask a lot of questions while creating my soccer field setting because I was very curious and honestly very lost but I was able to get the assistance I needed from the teaching assistant and other classmates to help me become more aware of the software and its tools.
When I was first introduced to Unity I thought it was less complicated than Maya. I did feel a little overwhelmed when trying to navigate through Unity. Unity was lagging often and it was hard for me to zoom in and out of my space easily. It took me a while to understand how to apply a texture to walls and floors. I also struggled with the video player when first experimenting with Unity. A lesson I learned is to always check to see if you are in the right mode while making edits because I was in game mode for thirty minutes and was making multiple changes to my room and the changes did not save because I was in-game player mode.
W3: Audio, Images, & Video
This workshop was crucial to me because my final showroom had a lot of images, videos, and audio included in it. Images and videos can make a space come to life, especially a showroom. A showroom is supposed to showcase objects and promote them. Audio can also assist in the promotion process because it can make you feel more immersed in the scene. I did struggle while trying to add images and video to my final showroom. I struggled with the scale of my images and videos. I had to adjust the 3D planes in my showroom for me to be able to scale my images and videos correctly. I did find that adding images, video, and audio became easier to add over time. Overall, I enjoyed the designing component of the showroom because I was able to be creative and I was picking up how to navigate through unity fairly quickly.
W4: Testing and Deployment
The testing process throughout the workshop and project was crucial to my learning. Putting on the Oculus and being able to navigate through the space I created allowed me to make edits and changes that I probably would not have made from just seeing it on my desktop. I also had to make changes heavily to my planes because looking at them closely with the oculus I realized I wanted them placed differently in my space. I was able to adjust the sounds in my room so they weren't extremely loud and would play comfortably for users.
05A: Locomotion
I learned how to organize my scenes, create a navmesh as well as bake it. I thought this was a useful tool to learn because you can teleport to that spot and prevent objects or people from going through it. I experienced this problem during the second project because I found myself in the middle of a table at some points and as I was first learning how to create in unity I was unsure how to stop this problem but now I know.
Project Objective: For this project, I was asked to create a showroom for an object of my choice. I chose the new futuristic Alexa Astro Robot.
This project was challenging but rewarding at the same time. I learned how to operate new programs such as Maya and Unity. There was a lot of experimentation while creating my 3D model of Alexa Astro and building my showroom but in the end, I learned a great amount of information about these programs.