The Zenith Project is Freestyle’s version of a Senior Thesis, though instead of writing a multipage essay about a given topic, students are expected to self select a project that will showcase what they have learned in Freestyle while pushing them to create something better than they ever have before. The word Zenith itself means “the time at which something is most powerful or successful”, and this is because this project is meant to have students showoff the acclimation of all of their skills after two years of learning them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For my Zenith project, I decided to try and create six professional level 3D renders with compositional interest, diverse lighting scenarios, and unique sets. In addition, I would be creating a lighting tutorial guide for future Freestyle Students to use. This project came from my desires to eventually become a 3D animator and artist and my frustration with the lack of written lighting tutorials for Maya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Zenith Project was a little risky because six separately modeled scenes was ambitious to take on in the amount of time that we were given, especially because it would be coinciding with other projects and testing season. It would also be a challenge to learn a lot of the Maya special effects, especially in regards to lighting, and I would have to do a lot of additional outside research. Most of the things I wanted to pull off, I didn’t already know how to do, so I would have to both learn new ideas and principles and then immediately implement them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I incorporated my production class skills into the project by utilizing all of the previous modeling skills I had learned and the new ones I learned along the way. I would also be working with the programs that we had been learning all year, such as Adobe Substance Painter and Maya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n