Sarah Oforiwa Obuobi
From MHCGraphics
[edit] Hello!
I'm Sarah aka Ofo, class of 2011. I'm from Accra, Ghana (I miss the warm weather, and I can't wait for spring/ summer!!!) I love Art, Art and Music! I've taken an IB course in Visual Art (challenging!); a class with Meghan Randlett fall semester (she's really nice!) and I'm currently taking a class at Amherst, "Survey of African Art" - 3 lessons so far and I'm loving it!
[edit] So why Computer Science 110?
Let's face it: First I'm no anime geek, nor am I a gamer! What's worse I dislike Math to a very large extent. I'm the sort who is lazy about adding 2 and 2- I'd rather grab my TI 83 Plus Silver Edition to do so. So instead of taking Calculus I to pass the semester and fulfill requirements, I thought this would be a cool way to apply my Art... but unfortunately it involves a teeny weeny little bit of thinking like a Math student... Well, I'll only keep at it because I've been dreaming of creating a movie as good as Dreamwork's Wallace and Gromit's "The Curse of the Were Rabbit" ...but reality tells me that by the end of this course, I'll only know enough to brag about.
[edit] My favorite restaurant?
Spicy Chicken! It's back home in Accra- small but quite famous family business in the middle of the city. The only reason why we've remained so special for more than 25 years is because of the secret family recipe that our customers simply love!
MY MODELS
LAB 1 Ojects and Transforms
This lab required creating group objects that could be repeated in one scene. My first instinct was to create a group of huts clustered together to create some sort of traditional African village setting- now a common architectural style applied to resorts and hotels all over Accra, Ghana. In addition to those three huts you see is the massive orange ball that is supposed to be the sun...Hopefully I'll learn some new tips that will make it look more like the sun; and less like a basketball without the stripes running around it! The specks of green you see in one of the huts was actually an attempt to put a large green cube as green grass on the ground- Perhaps, I could tweak with it a little bit more to move it into the right position...First, by adjusting the camera to its default position, so I'll have fewer complications...
LAB 2 Custom Objects
This one was a bit more interesting than the first. With the quick introduction of Sweeps and Lathes, I wanted to create something a little more abstract- that combined all of these functions well. I also wanted to get more acquianted with the x,y,z rotations (...the left hand rule really works guys!):
First those pencils were created as a group, and then placed around the swept object (around the meshed polygon.) Then I repeatedly placed these pencils in the scene, each time changing their orientation by combining a set of x, y and z rotations- and that's what resulted in that beautiful alignment of pencils there! I find that the most interesting portion of the piece so far. Later, I experimented with background color - RGB colors, and light bulbs placed at specific positions in the scene. The Lightbulb in this scene is blue.
LAB 3 Modelling with Realistic Mateials: Marble
This marble is by far my favorite image generated! With the new Material and Light propeties learned, I wanted to create a traditional looking marble that really looked like a marble! ...And it was a very simple process. After adding a plastic sphere to the scene and giving it some ambient, specular and reflective properties, I created repeated differences of yellow and blue spheres that resulted in those strips you see in the marble. I'm sure I created this as a group, such that translating and scaling it to fit within the radius of the marble would not be too complicated. Now I think that what I should have added to make this marble look more like glass was some refractive property- Those strips would have been a bit more interesting to look at from different angles; or maybe it wouldn't have created such an adverse effect because these strips are thin anyway. The light bulb placed near the marble does well to illuminate the marble itself - the marble looked a bit too dull before.
LAB 4- Realistic model
This realistic model what I want to begin my final project with. Hopefully subsequent models will develop from this one into my final model. First, I composed the chess piece of three parts, the top ring (a cylinder scaled to size with a sphere differenced from it to create that scoop in the center-you'll notice this in the second image); the stem (which is simply a cylinder scaled to size; and the bottom, which is simply two lathed polygons scaled to different sizes and placed on top of one another. Perhaps it would have been better to have created the stem and bottom of the rook by intersecting a cylinder and a cone to get that 'curved effect'-just like the way the bottom of a real rook/any chess piece tappers out, but I got many problems with that. Finally, I simply wraped an image of wood grain around the composed object as a material. As we learn more, I'll probably be able to develop something along the way that will make the final project a bit more interesting. Pictures of the model have been taken from different positions.
LAB 5 SURPRISE!!!
This assignment is a further development of my final project. The chess board itself is made of little light blue and black cubes that have been scaled to size (20*20*20 I think). Now that we've learnt how to develop functions, I'm sure I'll be able to place these cubes together in a simpler way later. Next, I placed multiple rooks created from Lab 4 unto the board in two different rows and took pictures of it using the Isometric Camera to get four different views of the same scene; but that image was too huge to load unto my page- so I simply took 3 different views of this and downloaded them here.
LAB 6
Still working towards my final project, the simple plan here was to create a second chess piece snd place them in a scene. I used the multiAdd function to place them in the scene, and also to create some parts of the rook, specifically, the ridges on the top.
Lab7 :Part 1, Bezier Curves
Still working towards my final project, "the chess game" I thought it would be a great idea to improve the shape of the chess piece. As more of the chess pieces are developed, they will be placed here, but first let's use the rook as a general description for the rest of the chess pieces. (The only difference among these pieces is the nature of the top portion of the chess piece.) The stem, which is the most significant portion of all the chess pieces is a simple definition of a Bezier curve ranging from 0 70 in the x and -40 140 in the y. The bottom of the chess piece is simply made of the same lathe from Lab4 (realistic model), and then I've finally attached a cylinder to the bottom. More of these chess pieces will be developed along the way with different material properties.
Animation:
....Not very exciting! This animation simply moves the camera around the chessBoard. But there's several different things about this scene, including the fact that it has a green background; and the chess board I created using the multiAdd function. More materials and chess pieces are yet to be created:
Final Project: CHESS I'm creating an image of a chess game for my final project, and this is what I've come up with so far.The final scene will look something like the image in the center. I also intend to test with a wider variety of mateial properties and grain images
....and the difficult knight....Work still in progress. Any suggestions?
...and this is what I ended up with. Adorable, right? The material used here is specified as plastic for all the other chess pieces.
Playing around with materials
Mission accomplished! My aim was to create a simple scene- the chess board with its pieces all in starting place. The board was developed from previous labs, and you can see the progression of chess pieces from the first piece ever created from the realistic model. I chose between the black plastic models and the grain images for the final image. I've tried putting all the different materials in one scene but the maerial properties made it take ages to render. The chessboard is made of plastic, with high reflective properties....
