index.md (3170B)
1 +++ 2 title = "Baymax on Memory Lane" 3 description = "A 3D scene leveraging advanced graphical techniques in Blender." 4 date = 2024-12-14T17:31:45-08:00 5 +++ 6 7  8 9 The above image was created as my final project for [CS148], under the 10 auspices of renown bodybuilder and occasional professor [Ron Fedkiw]. 11 Everything in the scene was made from scratch in Blender, while the 12 final image was rendered with the Cycles engine. All my work in the 13 class was done in collaboration with my good friend Naama. 14 15 The scene was inspired by the movie Inside Out, in particular when the 16 character Joy ventures into the annals of her host’s memory. We 17 appropriated the concept of a colorful shelf of memory orbs, and then 18 brought another charismatic Pixar character into the scene, Baymax. We 19 would like to think that he’s having a happy moment perusing good times 20 past. 21 22  23 24 The stars of the show when it comes to this 3D model are the memory 25 orbs. Most impressively, there's actually only one canonical orb in the 26 scene! The rest are procedurally generated duplicates (same with the 27 shelves). There is some simple math to figure out how to place them, and 28 then a color is randomly selected from a weighted list of options: 29 30  31  32 33 The most notable benefit we get from ray tracing in our scene is once 34 again in the memory orbs lining the shelves. These orbs glow many 35 different colors: yellow, red, green, blue, and purple. However, the 36 light source for each orb is actually the same—a bright white light in 37 the center of the ball. The light source is surrounded by the material 38 of the orbs, which is transparent but tinted, and thus changes the color 39 of the light ray after emission and before it hits the camera. Other 40 benefits include the slight light penetration through Baymax's 41 inflatable body as well as area and sky lighting. 42 43 On a more personal tack: making this scene vindicated a lot of the 44 philosophies that I've picked up in Stanford's Design program. During my 45 [first forays into Blender], I was paralyzed to the point of inaction by 46 the fear that any step I took—extruding a face, tweaking a texture—would 47 mess up what I'd built so far or would build going forward. I was 48 limited to following tutorials, which restored some of the structure I 49 was familiar with from programming to the complex world of modeling 50 things that looked good (technical term). But the d.school has [changed 51 my perspective]. The will force you to spend hours and hours sitting in 52 the in-between phases, acting first and iterating, abandoning ideal 53 perfections to make something real. With practice, you get comfortable 54 in this space. That willingness to screw up and `CMD-Z` was crucial on 55 this project. 56 57 [CS148]: https://cs148.stanford.edu 58 [Ron Fedkiw]: https://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/ 59 [first forays into Blender]: @/posts/i-wrote-this-two/index.md#making-a-doughnut-in-blender 60 [changed my perspective]: https://fosstodon.org/@FIGBERT/113553595653702641