MCD4730 – Foundations of 3D
Assignment 2 – Trimester 2, 2020
Creating a 3D Game ‘Monster’

Submission Guidelines
This is an individual Assignment; group work is not permitted.
Deadline: Sunday Week 8, 11:55pm.
Weighting: 20% of your final mark for the unit.
Submission Instructions:
A zip file containing your Maya project folder, your PDF documentation, and your PDF
renders.
Your tutor may ask you to model part of your assignment in class to determine that you
have completed the work yourself. Failure to do this to an acceptable level will result in you
being referred to the Subject Leader for plagiarism.

Late Submission:
• By submitting a Special Consideration Form
• Or, without special consideration, you lose 5 marks per day that you submit late
(including weekends). Submissions will not be accepted more than 10 days late.
This means that if you got Y marks, only Y-nx5 will be counted where n is the number
of days you submit late.
Marks: This Assignment is marked out of 100 marks and is worth 20% of your total unit
marks.
Plagiarism: It is an academic requirement that the work you submit be original. If there is
any evidence of copying (including from online sources without proper attribution),
collaboration, pasting from websites or textbooks, Zero Marks may be awarded for the
whole assignment, the unit or you may be suspended or excluded from your course.
Monash Colleges policies on plagiarism, collusion, and cheating are available here.



Brief
This assessment requires you to research and craft an original game character. Your
‘monster’ needs to be designed first as a written and researched concept before being
modelled and textured in virtual space.
The project should start with a strong emphasis on character design, using research and
development techniques to explore and build your original character concept but your game
monster must be a new creation. You cannot simply copy a character from an existing
computer game, animated series, or movie (for example, from Pixar’s Monsters Inc.,
Adventure Time, or the Pokémon franchise).
The definition of a ‘3D game monster’ here is broad and all manner of creatures are
possible. Your monster could be bright, cute and cuddly and entirely suitable for a children’s
game. It might be frightening, ferocious and sharp fanged, or comical and appealingly
caricatured. Character types range from essentially humanoid figures to composite
creatures that combine anatomical elements from several animals, or any other concept
you choose to explore. You should not however aim for photorealistic or highly detailed
designs – simple characters with strong design elements suit the scope of this assignment
best.
Like all Foundations of 3D assignments, it is required that you get your concept approved
by your tutor and post your concept on the Assignment 2 forum within the second week of
the assessment (in this case, the week 6 class) before you can start the modelling process.
Technical Requirements
As your character is targeted for a computer game environment, the final Maya character
has several requirements:
- Limit of 10,000 polygon faces and keeping your model’s geometry uncomplicated.
- Character must be modelled as a single object except for some props and eyeballs.
- UV and Texture Maps functional UV maps and texture files are required for this
character. Failure to submit these images will result in these sections not being
marked.
In addition to this, a short character description explaining the reasons behind your
character concept should be included in your documentation. Remember the Five W’s:
Who, What, Where, When, Why.
Deliverables
Submissions for this Assignment should contain the following items:
a. A Maya project folder with 3 scene files.
This should contain 3 progressive scenes showing the progression of your work, as
well as a progression of your UV mapping, texturing, and lighting techniques.

b. Three JPEG renders in a 2-Page PDF Document
This should include:
o 1 Full-Page Image
o 2 Half-Page landscape images, on a single place.
The Full-Page image should show the whole object clearly and cleanly. The two
similar images should aim to be more artistic and illustrate the image in creative and
interesting ways.
c. Documentation as a PDF Document.
Your documentation should contain references, screenshots, analysis, and meaning
descriptions of your technical decision-making process with the aim of illustrating
your process for this assignment.
Submission is via Moodle. All submitted items must be named in a clear and logical way and
compressing into a single .zip file, which should be named with the Assessment number and
your name.
The maximum total file size for this submission is 100MB
Assessment Criteria
Your submission will be graded on the following broad categories:
A. Submission Requirements Adherence
- Maya project folder, 3 Maya scenes and Maya Project Folder
B. 3D modelling procedure and geometry.
- Adherence to the polygon limit and single-mesh restriction
- Quality and edge-flow of geometry
- Understanding of Modelling Techniques & Hypershade and Outliner
Cleanliness.
C. Texturing, UV mapping and colouring techniques.
- Demonstrated understanding of UV mapping principles
- Creation and use of texture maps
- Appropriate use and manipulation of Maya materials
D. Presentation and composition of your scene.
- Overall lighting and render quality
- Use of camera to adequately illustrate the object
- Understanding of scene composition
E. Written and Visual documentation.
- Character creation and planning (Posted on the Moodle forum)
- Modelling
- Materials
- Lighting/Shadows
- Camera Composition/Rendering.


Late Penalties
Any submission received after the due date without a prior arranged extension will receive a
5 marks reduction to their final mark per day late for a maximum of ten days (50 mark
reduction in total). Submissions received more than 10 days after the due date without a
prior arranged extension will not be assessed.
Software Limitations
You MUST use Maya to Model and UV map your Assignments. Assignments that include
Models and/or UV maps that use software other than Maya, will receive a 0 for the
Modelling and UV mapping components.
Any images taken from the Internet and used as textures will receive a 0.