Primitive Assignment Review Sept 10/ 2001

Aaron Richards - Handed in the Ball assignmnet, I remember you had the issue of saving over top of your quadruped scene.. so you can hand in the assignment once again on Wednesday.

Andrew Wood - Nicely done. Interesting character. Low Poly count, parented correctly, named correctly, and parented under a Model Node to finish things off. Watch out for lights and cameras stored under your model nodes.

Dustan Windcliff - Great Giraffe Model - Placed under a Model node. You have 2 duplicate body objects that aren't acounted for in your parent structures. They could simply be deleted though. Pieces are all named and parented correctly.

Dustin Condie - Parneted properly under a model null. When I move the neck as a branch the tail follows along. Twach your parenting there. Also, the neck is a child to the head, should be the other way around. The main torso area doesn't move anything else when I select it as a branch. The torso should move the head and neck of the dog. the upper torso area should drag the front legs when selected as a branch, The thigh objects on all legs don't control the shins in the hierarchy. The thighs need to be the parents, and the shins need to be the children of the respective thigh bone. Also, get in the habit of naming all of your pieces, so it makes this job a lot easier. The character design is nice overall.

Eric Madill - Like how you made a group to kill the selectability of the objects. You have the character parented under Two model nodes though. It only needs one. You forgot to merge the two halves of your symmetried torso. Pieces are named properly, and parented for the most part, though the unmerged object kind of throws a wrench into the mix ;-). Nice design and proportion on the character.

Eva Windcliff - Great Elephant. Properly Parented under a Model. You have a few extra duplicate torso pieces you may wish to dispose of. Your scene is behaving a bit slow, I checked your operator stack, and for nearly all tyour objects, the stack could be frozen to speed things up. A heavy stack, makes life miserable and painfully slothlike. Pieces are all named properly, and [your hierarchy structure works fine.

Karleen Rempel - Your bug design is nice, parented properly under a model node, but the bugs left arm is not parented properly into the hieratchy. It sits all by its lonesome self. There are also a couple of extra nulls that just serve to add a touch of clutter to the scene. Pieces are all named properly. Your hierarchical structure needs a bit of work. The right arm moves the left wing, and your legs though they are in a hierarchical structure are parented incorrectly. The thigh is the parent of the knee. The knee parent of the shin, shin parent of the ankle, and the ankle parent of the foot. It looks as though you made the thigh the parent of all of these pieces. Also, though your parenting is correct in most other places, your center pivots haven't been moved to reflect the true rotational pivots of the character.

Kevin Hsu - You've added color. Glad to see you found the material editor. Parented properly under a Model Node and named accordingly. Your scene is very slow.. a result of unfrozen operator stacks. The parenting and centers work nicely. Accurate design. Just watch the stacks

Kevin Gregorash - The file you handed me isn't a .scn file and won't work on my machine. You can hand this in again if you'd like.

Marcus To - Parented properly uinder a model node. A couple of stray pieces in your scene. You need to adjust nearly all of your center pivots to accurately reflect the rotation pivots of your characters. Character is parented properly except where the shell and belly are concerned. The belly should always move the shell of this character unless you're making turtle soup.

Mike Moore - Parented properly under a model node. Pieces all parented and named properly. Centers all in correct place. One detail. You have the upper torso as the parent of the lower torso, should be the other way around. Good work though. Also, you don't need to have a light stored in this characters model. Usually I have lights stored outside of a model in their own model. This way you can easily export them back and forth between scenes seamlessly.

Noel Septimo - Looks as though you have parented your character properly under a null, but you also have a light and two cameras. Ususally you keep those elements stored in their own model node for import and export. Other than that everything looks good. Parented properly, pieces named and center pivots are looking good.

Pete Pullford - Watch out for those extra lights you have stored in hyour characters model node. Yuo have also created an extra camera and stored it in the model node. Elements like lights and cameras should be stored in separate model nodes. Pieces of the character are all named and parented properly. Centers are accurate as well.

Shaun Midland - Lights and cameras in model node. See Petes, Noel and Mikes Comments for more info. Everything seems OK except the head of the dog is not parented into the hierarchy with the rest of the body. Naming conventions look good too.

Shawn Woods - Properly parented under a model node. See above 4 comments of other students for light and camera info. Make sure you freeze deformers on the torso when you're done. Also, freeze the operator stack on all objects. Head needs to be parented in to rest of character. Eyes need to be parented to head. A lot of the centers on your character need work with positioning, much of the parenting is incorrect as well. Focus on the assignment at hand. We'll get to deformers eventually. We need to start off simple before we work on to other things. Try and fix this scene up to solidify concepts.

Sophie Lee - Properly parented under a model node. See above 5 comments regarding lights and cameras in the character model. Nicely parented, centers work well, and the peices are all named correctly. Freeze the operator stack of your objects when you're finished modelling to speed up scene interaction

Steven White - Inspired by the Gorillaz video? See above comments about lights and cameras under your character model node. Character is parented under the node properly. Make sure to freeze the stack of all objects you finish modelling to speed up your scene. Get in the habit of naming all of your pieces. Other than those things the character is parented properly, centers are all accurate. Nice character!

Trevor Howell - Parented correctly under the model node. See above 8 students comments regarding the lights and cameras you have stored under the same model node. You have the chest as the parent of both youir neck and head, as well as your lower torso and legs. The lower torso should parent of the chest, not the other way around. Make sure and freeze your operator stack to speed up your scene.

Ed Wou - Nicely built... you got that merging concept down pat. The poly count looks good, parenting works perfectly, and the pieces are all named.

Anita Horvath - Very nice model. You took a simple project and really pushed your understanding of it. I'm glad to see that you used some sort of reference material for your project, all the pieces are named and parented appropriately. And you meet the hardeck poly count I wanted.

CLASS OVERALL REMARKS.

- get your work done earlier. Too many people were working on this assignment in class the day it was due. When you are given any assignment organize yourself, figure out the assignments main priorities and focus on those. First off this assignment is about primitive objects and parenting and centers, the most basic principle in 3D. Get this part done first, then worry about tagging and pulling points, or using deformers.

- Freeze your operator stacks. 3/4 of the class or more had stacks that were unfrozen thus slowing down your interaction.

- Double and Triple check your parent child structures. If this is wrong, your animation will be wrong, and you'll spend wasted time trying to rectify this later on in the production process

- Check your centers and be sure they are in the right places to ensure proper rotational pivot points.

- Be sure and name pieces accurately. This will make the parenting process easier in an explorer or schematic, and help later on when enveloping skeletons or organizing a scene.

- Keep your model hierarchies clean. A characters model should not have lights and cameras stored inside of them unless they serve a specific purpose. i.e. your model is a car, and its driving with its lights on. Or you are animating a character and are constantly switching to a view that simulates a characters point of view (POV) as in a first person shooter.

- Overall, you guys did well, but as always, you can up the ante and do better. Pay attention to the small details, they will make life easier. .. I promise