Computer Animation-Retro Device
I want to build a Ming Dynasty-style Ferris wheel. Firstly, I want to change the mode of construction of this Ferris wheel, I choose a building craft which calls mortise and tenon. This craft was been invent 7000 years ago, this craft was used in many places in ancient China, the most popular building is Forbidden City. The specially Mortise is that does not use any single nail, so that’s a big challenge for the matching degree between the wooden. The second is the exterior. I plan to add some traditional Ming motifs to the Ferris wheel, including the shaft and frame of the Ferris wheel. The gondola of the Ferris wheel I would like to make into a Ming Dynasty sedan, but of course with some protection, otherwise, it would be too dangerous. Finally, I have two ideas about the source of power for the Ferris wheel. The first is human power, allowing people to make the Ferris wheel spin by rotating the pushers, an idea that comes from the human escalator. The second is water power. I plan to put a water wheel next to the Ferris wheel to achieve the purpose of making the wheel turn automatically. I planned to put a water wheel next to the Ferris wheel in order to make it rotate automatically.
However, I found it difficult to create another device next to the wheel, so I planned to combine the waterwheel and the Ferris wheel by mounting the waterwheel on the wheel and placing a river directly underneath it for the wheel to run. I had some problems halfway through making the low model, I thought my Ferris wheel was symmetrical and I would often use the symmetry function in Maya, but I didn’t know where the problem was causing me to overlap many sides again. As it was quicker to fix than to redo, I chose to redo my model as quickly as possible and the good news is that this time there were not too many problems. On the way, because I felt that my palanquin was missing some decorations, as I felt that during the Ming Dynasty only some noble or rich people could experience the Flyer, and in such conditions, only some very expensive materials or auspicious decorations would be worthy of these people. So, I wanted to make an auspicious motif out of the material jade, and on the way, I found some references to auspicious motifs from the official website of the Palace Museum and redrew it to put it on the Ferris wheel’s palanquin. This was a challenging decision as I needed to find a way to make the pattern make sense while I was making the model, and halfway through I realized that the scale of the pattern I was making was not the same as the drawing I had made, so I started to design and make the model at the same time.
After completing the low model, I tried to expand the UVs, but as I had made most of my Ferris wheel by the symmetry function, a lot of my UVs were mirror-symmetrical, which took me a lot of time to correct. While correcting the UVs I also found some faces in my model that were more than four sides, which I also corrected in the process. When it came to making the material, I wanted to add a water material but it was not available in Substance Painter, so I learned how to make a water material from the internet and put it into my work, and I also learned how to make a jade material. When I finally finished the mapping, I put my model into Sketch Fab, but when I tried to animate it I found I didn’t know how to make the water mapping move, I asked my score leader but couldn’t find a solution, I also tried to find some methods on the internet but due to my technical problems I couldn’t solve it, I needed to use C4D software to solve this part. But I don’t have any more time to study this software. Although from a rational point of view I could have discarded the water part, I chose to keep the water part and keep the overall feeling.