Project 1 – Renders

▂▃▅▇█▓▒░ [My Idea] ░▒▓█▇▅▃▂

        Pac-man is one of my favourite classic arcade games. I really like the feel and the look of the game. So for this project, I wanted to create something that is reminiscent of Pac-man. 

An initial sketch of the pixel art of the Pac-man characters

    My initial idea was to make pixel art of Pac-man and the ghosts by having it burned into a piece of wood. Similar to the picture below. However, this would basically be an exact recreation of the characters so I decided to try to come up with something else.

Pixel Art of a Mushroom from Super Mario

    So my next idea was just to use the outline of the pixel art so the connection to Pac-man is more subtle. My plan for this project is to have a cube with the outlines of the Pac-man characters on each side.

I wasn't sure whether to put the characters centred on the cube or put it on the corner. So I came up with 2 initial designs on Rhino. Which are shown below.

Pac-man characters centred on the sides of the cube

The Pac-man characters on the corner of the cube.

How I plan to laser cut this is simple. On Rhino I will make a folded-out cube, where each side will have the outline of the Pac-man characters. I will then get this laser cut onto a piece of paper. Which I will fold and glue together. Behind the outlines of the Pac-man characters, I will glue a piece of coloured paper to make the design look more presentable.

▂▃▅▇█▓▒░ [Renders] ░▒▓█▇▅▃▂

▂▃▅▇█▓▒░ [What I Learned] ░▒▓█▇▅▃▂

    Honestly, with the renders, it's always tricky to choose the right materials for the objects. With the renders I did there was a lot of experimenting until I got the materials I felt looked right.

When it came to making the 3D models I didn't do much with the layers. But when I was initially drawing the models in 2D I used layers to mainly colour the shapes. Which made it easier when I was extruding the 2D models.

I think that lighting is pretty important with the renders. Good lighting can really improve the render as it can make it brighter and the shadows really help to add realism to the model. For my renders, I utilized the sun setting as through my experimenting with spotlights, I realized that the sun setting had better results.

The funny thing I didn't know about the GroundPlane command until I started writing this blog... Anyways in my renders what I did was I just made a giant square under the object to make the surface. I had picked a stone material for the surface but unfortunately, the sunlight is pretty strong so it's really hard to see.