I did this project with 3d stdio max, and since i had absolutly no prior knowledge of any 3d modelling software i obtained a book. I got the Foundations of 3ds max 6, by Aaron Ross. I found this book to be quite helpful, it came with a reference cd which leads you through the basic interface of the software, and it also teaches you how to build simple objects and increase the complexity of them. By no stretch of the imaginiation do i think i learned all of the potential of 3d studio max. But i did learn that building objects is a very time conuming process. Particularly when it comes to lighting and setting camera angles.

After i had completed building the actual model with no textures on them, i put the 3d model into a 3 dimenional Geoid Shpere then i figured out how to add a image onto the inside of the sphere. This was how i created the sky and environment around the building. Also, i used Adobe Photoshop 7.0 to make a ground and street texture, which i applied to a plane that was on the ground level. This created the surface on which my building was sitting. I had to apply a uvw map to the plance in order to posistion the "streets" and grass onto the plane. This is the same technique i used to put the textures onto the doors of the Fire Hall.

The Windows were created using booleans, which are a simple union between objects, after i had all of the windows unioned to each other, i subtracted them from the building. This created depression of where the windows were posistioned. After that, i applied a texture that i crated following a tutorial from www.tutorailzed.com.

Ryan Hanson

Feb 16/2005