Week 25 and my Easter holidays

Final Toyota pickup renders

So I neglected to do my end of term blog post for the simple fact that I forgot to put my final renders on googledrive.. Life without a memory stick is hard.

If there's anything I've learned from doing this its that VEHICLES AREN'T MY THING. I wouldn't go so far to say as I've struggled with this project but I certainly haven't enjoyed it and have felt very inadequate in the ways of car knowledge. I'm not sure whether it's been the transition of stylised to photo-realistic or whether it is because I just know nothing at all about cars but something hasn't sat right. I'm definitely a hand-painted texture kinda gal.

My Easter holidays were actually pretty productive in terms of personal work (I decided to take a break from everything Zombie- except the Walking Dead season finale)

Herbert James Draper Study

Photo study

Albert Bierstadt- Among the Sierra Nevada mountains study

Mood board for my personal project

I've also started a personal project which is a 18th century French fashion future. So basically, the future which has reverted almost entirely back to this flamboyant fashion. Although it wasn't directly inspired by the Hunger Game's Capitol I can see similarities. Since I'm going on visual design rather than original project ideas I think I should be okay!

I'm challenging myself to design (almost) every aspect of this 'world' so I will be working on interior/architecture/environment as well as character and costume. So far so good! I hope I'll have a fancy dinner hall to show off soon! 

Week 20: Modelling

This week marked the beginning of the daunting task of modelling my character, something that I'd managed to forget about when I got so caught up in the concepting.

I started by essentially wasting(?) a whole day attempting to model the face and getting the correct topology which ended in my going home frustrated and with nothing to show for my day's work. Although the next day when I came into labs I took a different approach and finally did it right! I tend to find this happens on every 3D project I do, so I should probably start accommodating more time for it.

I wasn't 100% sure on things such as deadlines as things had been changed around so much and I'd lost track so I decided to just work as fast and effectively as I could and it paid off.

Front view of finished model

Back view of finished model

I'm pretty pleased with the way the model turned out, especially considering how awful I thought it was going to be.

Even the unwrap went well!

There are a few bits and pieces I need to work on but I've decided to slow down for now and wait till I can get a tutor to look over it and check everything is okay before I trip up and make a mistake later on!

Life drawing

I also produced one of my favourite drawings in life drawing, focusing mostly on foreshortening. I feel like I managed to capture the foreshortening in the leg really well as well as have enough time to put some detail in the drawing.

This week in critical studies we were told to peer assess each other so we teamed up and assessed each others work so far. I actually really enjoyed giving in depth feedback to a peer because I felt like I was confident in the advice I had given them from what I have learned since I have been here which shows how far I have already come in just a few months.

Week 11: Stylised tree

This week was the final week of the tree project as well as the last week of university before Christmas!

 

I'm quite pleased with the outcomes of both my trees. Considering they were so easy to make and I had one finished in the first week I had plenty of time to re-texture/improve both.

I think I probably could have experimented more with various approaches to my trees though considering the amount of time I had- the green-leaved tree looks okay from the front but from the side/below the planes aren't very well placed in order to give it a dense look from all angles. 

 

I managed to get one of my trees into engine (the other had some lighting issues that I don't know how to solve). I really like the colours of the leaves in comparison to the greens in the scene and I'm really pleased with how it all turned out!

Week 10: Stylised tree

This week we were set the next part of our village project, the stylised tree. Because it was such an easy project it was recommended that we didn't spend long on concepting and instead modelled an already existing tree/based our model off one at least. As well as this we had to create two trees.

To begin with I opened up some of the photos I took of Bradgate and did a few simplified silhouettes of the shapes I liked.

This helped me to establish what trees would work better in a more simplified form without getting caught up on any fancy little details. I then attempted to do more silhouettes from these to push the styling further but I quickly realised that it wasn't really helping as there wasn't much else I could do to the original ones I had taken.

I instead did a few drawings and quite liked the turnout of all of them even with the basic shapes. The middle one on the top row I had considered making more of a 'fantasy' tree but thought that it might be taking it too far, especially as the tree isn't going to be a center piece or anything like that.

Since I liked all of the designs I decided to do tonal paintings of each and test various tree colours on them all because like the design, I didn't feel like they really called for anything particularly fancy.

Part of me feels like I haven't really done enough concepting in comparison to others, but then when I consider what we were actually told I'm quite content that I didn't use any more time than I needed on this stage.

 

I was able to complete my first tree in under a day and I'm relatively happy with the outcome. Although considering the amount of time I still have left I think I will probably re-visit and polish it to a better standard after I've modelled the second tree!

Week 9: The Farmhouse

Finally after a lot of stress and tedious stuff I've completed my Farmhouse! As I mentioned before, its been a real struggle with my time management and not accommodating for things going wrong but its all done now.

Overall I'm not very happy with my final model.

3D model with wireframe

I found it quite frustrating as I felt I had a strong design that I really liked but modelling was much harder than I expected. As well as this my textures aren't as good as I wished they were- I spent a long time trying to make a tillable texture work and in doing so had to settle for something mediocre. I was really determined to make my building as good as the example ones so I had a really strong piece to go into the levels but I ended up painting too much in my own style and with the wrong kind of brushes (and probably too lazy as well when it came to details).

Model in unreal- the roof really lets it down.

I decided to do a thatched roof early on in my concepts and I still think it was the right kind of roof for a farmhouse but the way I had to unwrap it seriously hinders my model and makes it look very 'rookie' amongst the others which is exactly what I didn't want.

Fortunately we have two more projects to go into the same level so I can use what I have learned to my advantage and hopefully make them much better. If we get the chance to go back to it I know exactly what I need to change!

Week 8: Game Production

Overall I've found this week to be incredibly challenging in terms of time management and things not going the way I want them to; I've fallen behind on my Bradgate work, my Village house and my blog as well as failed to complete my Gurus and Grasshoppers project.. and the worst part is? I wasn't even being lazy!

When it came to unwrapping my Farmhouse I ran into every complication possible when I was expecting none. If I hadn't had such an issue with unwrapping I would have kept to the schedule I set for myself and finished in plenty of time which was incredibly frustrating.

Although after the horrible unwrapping phase passed and I'd managed to get it to do what I wanted it to I began texturing which, again, I expected to be plain sailing. With the introduction of tileable textures and multisub materials everything took a lot more time and consideration as well as a lot of trial and error. This in turn resulted in me falling behind my own schedule, although I did feel like I could get it done in time for the deadline I just wouldn't have enough time for messing around with it and making it look good.

Fortunately we were granted another week for 'polishing', this would enable me to take more time with my textures and make sure they looked good.. Although that wasn't the actual intention of the week it was the best I could do with it all things considered!

I'm still quite pleased with my attempt at time keeping, although now I know I need to allow time for mistakes and any other complications. Because of all this I couldn't do all the work I wanted to do (sorry Gurus!) and ended up getting quite stressed but I feel like I've already been able to learn from my mistakes and for future projects I intend to push the concepts out a lot quicker so that I've got more time to trip up in 3D!

Next week will include my final piece and a review of that outcome rather than all my mistakes! Phew!

Week 5 & 6: Game Production

The past two weeks have been so busy I decided I'd plonk it all in one post to summarise the two week project: Stylised Rock!

This project intended to introduce us to working to a certain style and theme as well as a different way of creating textures (painting and not photomanip textures).
I was really eager to start the project because it was a fun theme and gave us so much more leeway to design exactly what we were going to model.

To begin with we had to use Pinterest to begin to gather reference and inspiration, a few of my peers got together to create a joint board so we brought in a wide range of rocks and gems to inspire us before we narrowed down our designs. Doing this we were able to bounce ideas off each other as we pinned which was fun as well as incredibly useful.

Once we had done this I began to create some basic silhouettes; just blocking out some interesting shapes was a really good way of starting from scratch and getting some interesting ideas that I may not have thought of just through sketching.

My first round of silhouettes

 I uploaded these silhouettes on facebook and got a range of feedback and decisions of which rocks worked best. I then took a selection and developed those further:

Round 2: Silhouettes

I found this to be a really good process because I changed bits that I would have just left and actually found some better variations on the original.

Next round of contestants.

Out of the second lot I chose a few of my favourites and started to consider tonal values and what would actually be going on inside the silhouette.

The next stages from concepts to finalised idea got pretty muddled as I took one version quite far but changed it the night before I planned to model it in a moment of weakness.. Although I prefer the final idea I think I should have changed my design earlier on when I had doubts rather than 'oh I'll see if it looks better if I add colour'.

My final design and model.

Overall I'm really pleased with what I have produced. I feel like I've definitely improved since the previous projects and I really enjoyed hand painting my rock. I do feel like I could have got a stronger design if I spent more time pushing it further rather than settling because I felt like I needed to get onto the modelling. There are certainly a few things I could have done better such as making better use of my geometry which would have given a stronger shape to texture.

Week 4: Game production

Wow, this was certainly the most difficult week so far; we were set our new project 'Sci-fi crate' on Tuesday and had a week to complete it. I was a little bit concerned to begin with but figured 'how hard can it be?!'... Very.

I think the biggest mistake I made was at the beginning when I felt comfortable enough to model the crate without watching any tutorial videos. I used the planes provided as reference and managed to model the crate within the first day. That was completely fine until I came to unwrap it. I haven't had much experience in texturing despite my previous knowledge of Maya- its something I really struggled with and kinda managed to do okay-ish if I posed my beauty renders right...

I spent the entire day struggling to unwrap my model, with things just not working how they should with no explanation. After achieving nothing after an at least 8 hour day I decided to give it a rest and come back to it the next day. I eventually realised that I had in actual fact modelled it slightly differently to the example video and my unwraps wouldn't work in the same way so I infact needed to restart my model. So that was two days straight up wasted.. I was a little bit frustrated to say the least but knew that I really needed to up my game.

But after a very long week I achieved what I set out to do!

Beauty render of my crate

Copy of my conclusion of the project because I've already summarised it once!

" Overall I’m generally pleased with what I have produced although I feel like having learnt so much along the way I could probably start it again and do a much better job. 

I think I could probably make the model itself more interesting rather than following the example; I had originally tried to do it myself first time around but ran into some trouble unwrapping and didn’t know how to work with the model I had made so had to restart which was quite frustrating as I had wasted a good two days of my time. Although now that I understand unwrapping better I know I could do a more interesting model and have a better knowledge of how to unwrap it on my own.

As well as this I spent a considerable time experimenting with different textures and different looks; I didn’t decide on exactly how I wanted it to look in terms of metal and how worn it was going to be so I was learning as I went along too which took up a lot more of my time.

Due to the amount of time I essentially spent messing around putting different types of textures on my map I ended up running out of time to come up with a really interesting design. I had decided to do my own design rather than follow the concept which we were told was acceptable but I didn’t spend any time actually designing it so in my opinion it turned out pretty bland in terms of design, although I am pleased with the textures and effects I was able to get onto it and I feel like I learned a lot over the duration of the project.

Also I was introduced to various maps such as bump and specular. I was only able to create a bump map and apply it but if I had more time I’d do some more looking into the different maps so that I could improve my work.

But generally with the complications that I came across I’m glad I achieved this outcome and I know that I have learnt a lot from it so the skills will hopefully follow through to different projects."

Week 3: Game production and critical studies

Game production

Our work on our cubee man continued over to our game production work as it served the purpose of helping us to understand texture unwrapping and such.

I'm really pleased with how my little superhero turned out although I think with more iterations I probably could have come up with a better design overall.

 Critical studies

In this week's critical studies we had to create a 3 minute presentation on our favourite character, following a lecture on what makes a good visual character.

I was quite unsure for a few days on what character I would want to present; should I go with my genuine favourite character or should I just pick a design that I really like? I had thought of going with a character from a TV show called Vikings, as I genuinely loved her design and her character, although I wasn't sure that I could say that much about her design as it was only really costume that constituted her design..

I brainstormed some other characters and came up with the idea of Godzilla. I did some really good research and found lots of things to cover on his design but at the last minute I changed my mind because I wasn't a 'true Godzilla fan' I was only really considering him because it was easier not because I adored his design.. Bit of a mistake! I wasn't really happy with how my presentation went. It was partly down to poor preparation and a bit of a weak design that I chose. I also let nerves get the better of me and ended up pretty much reading off my notes which I already knew wasn't a good idea!

But I know what I did wrong so I hope I can use this as a stepping stone to my next presentation (regardless of how much I'm not looking forward to it)

Week 2: Other bits and pieces

Decided to put this into one post as it wasn't worth a whole post each!

Critical studies
Our second critical studies lecture/seminar focused on character design and what exactly makes up a good character, discussing things like silhouette, believability, readability etc. We were then tasked with creating a three minute presentation on our favourite character. I'm not a massive fan of presentations, and really like to know exactly what I need to do but we've been given a bit of lee-way in terms of the precise content so I am a little bit on edge but once I've chosen a strong character and got good content I should be fine! (Hopefully).

Game production
In game production we learned how to unwrap a model to add a texture. The process was relatively straightforward but I expect it will get trickier with more complex models.

Lapsing finals

One of my 'finals' for the one point perspective canal.

I didn't get the chance to do this final until later in the week but I decided I should do it digitally because that was what I needed more practice in. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and feel like it really helped me to focus on colours. I did work from a photo reference but I tried not to duplicate the colours exactly and make them more like they were in person as the colours are never exactly replicated in photography.
I think I will do most of my finals digitally now as I really enjoy doing them in colour and they look more like final/finished pieces to me with more effort than simply a pencil sketch.

Pencil version of my final.

Other work
During the week I also got the chance to do some of my own studies:

'The girl with the pearl earring'

I wanted to try and establish what exactly made this painting a 'master' painting or what made it so famous and although I wasn't really able to draw much from it I recognised the importance of her gaze and the lighting. I really enjoyed painting this and really like the way it turned out although I have considered going back over it and making the edges a lot softer as they're quite harsh in comparison to the original.

Looking at lighting and angles.

This study was a bit of an afterthought when I found the photograph and decided I wanted to try painting it. To make it a useful exercise I tried working in a different way; filling my canvas in black and working up the tone without using any base sketching. As I got part way through I noticed I wasn't getting the angle of her face right and that's something I've always struggled with. After working over it with no result I figured I better leave it and come back to it later. Although now looking back at it I can see some faults which I couldn't before (example the nose is too long).

Week 1: Game production

Game production was essentially an introduction to the modelling programme 3DS Max. I have had a years worth of experience of Maya which I hoped would give me an edge on 3DSmax but I was quite horrified to find the interface was completely different!

We began by following our tutor step by step and making a basic table and accompanying chairs. I managed to grasp the gist of things but did fall behind a little and miss out a few steps. We then modelled a war hammer in a similar fashion (following step by step) but again I got caught up on one thing and missed a few steps, although I had started to get the hang of things.

Our stretch goal was to create a few low-poly weapons. I can comfortably admit that I was pretty nervous after our first lesson; I felt like I wasn't grasping the programme as quickly as I should be and thought that I was never ever going to understand it. After an evening of thinking it over I reminded myself that I felt exactly the same when I started using Maya and quickly picked that up.

This put my mind at ease and I knew I was going to have to concentrate and put in the time and effort to fully understand the programme. After a few unsuccessful weapons I came out with this hammer/mace/thing.. Not the most fantastic looking thing but I managed to grasp the basics and got something relatively okay looking out of it! With my new found knowledge I attempted a sword:

 

It's still not finished but I am finding myself much more comfortable with 3DS max! There's still a lot to learn but I know if I put in the extra time I will become far better at it.