Character Modelling Brief: Day One

This brief is off to a good start! Spent most of today gathering materials for my four moodboards...that's pretty much today - summed up in two sentences!

To be more precise, I've been looking at different characters and different styles, focusing on many, many, many aspects such as the posture, colour scheme, visual appeal - and trying to think outside the box at the same time. My most-developed character idea at the moment is the concept of a 19th-Century stage illusionist. Perfect, seeing as we have to choose music produced between the 20s-50s for our animation! It should fit well. I'm going to go radically different for my other ideas - cartoony, an animal perhaps; a completely different vibe altogether basically! I'm also thinking about different, innovative ways to approach my character, something that'll make it more my own, and less derivative of past media depictions. Good times.

So yeah, lots of things to think about while I'm on a delayed bus due to the snow! :p

Lighting Assessment Images

Two research sheets on lighting types and some renders of the completed scene:

Lighting Scene: Update

Started work on my scene to be used in the lighting project. Taking inspiration from one of my case studies, I'm doing an art gallery-style thing. Although it's not one grounded in reality, it's just a lighting concept, and as a result there are no doors or windows! Why? To eliminate natural light. I'm basing the whole thing on artificial light, notably spotlights used to highlight the exhibits. I've got a few directional lights in there too, just to give the room an ambient visibility. Here are a few shots of what I've got so far, I think I'll be adding in a few more objects though...

Thursday: Tutorial Classes

We've been doing a lot of Maya tutorials today concerning texturing and lighting. These are a few screenshots of my progress today...

Second Update on Lighting

Produced three moodboards yesterday in addition to the two I've already started in our 3DS Max class. I've also completed my first case study (focusing on an art gallery) and I should get the other two done in preparation for upload on Wednesday. Also sketched a dead tree this morning with a forest fire in the background - put a lot of time into shading it, and used a putty eraser for the first time in the process. All in all, it turned out good enough to be shown to the rest of the class as an example. My drawing/sketching skills are getting better, seemingly, but I've still got a lot to learn in that respect. We were also shown Molyneaux's tech demo for Milo. From a modelling/animation point of view, yeah, it's impressive stuff, as for the concept, well, it hasn't impressed me since the E3 demo. I sense it's premise is much the same as Heavy Rain, where the player's decisions are said to customize the game, but in reality, the player's decisions just lead them down one of a few pre-defined scripted paths. Although I'm always happy to see developers trying new things, experimenting. That's how the industry evolves. Perhaps such ideas are better explored in indie games. Anyway, rant over!

EDIT: Three images to be used in my second case study, which will focus on greenhouses...

Lighting: First Progress Update

I'm currently compiling a series of A3 design pieces - an A3 page on natural light, one on unnatural light, and three case study pages. In addition to this, I'm putting together a moodboard of lightning-based images, putting my moodboard total up to three. I'm planning on possibly getting some A4 research sheets done too, which will explore particular sources of light and the effects they have on a scene.

Friday Update

Both environments are pretty much finished, I'm more or less done with my Maya design work, and I've still a bit of Max design work to finish off. That, in short, is my current situation. Rendering is all that's really left on the production side. By the time we come back, I should have long since finished the design work. Good times! :)

Maya Renders

Here are some renders I took of my final (I think) Maya environment. I would say "enjoy!", but that seems a bit arrogant!

Another Maya Update

Decided that the camera tutorial we were given wasn't suitable for my project - couldn't effectively be used within my scene. Made the choice to learn how to implement a different kind of camera, and I now have a workable animation that I made with ease. Lasts about 13 seconds, 300 frames, and follows my storyboard plan. Good progress.

Design: 4 out of 8 mandatory A3 Maya pieces (will likely do more than 8 in the end).

Weekly Update

3DS Max - Scene is pretty much done - camera path has been added and the whole animation is 400 frames in total, lasting for around 16 seconds. The camera starts outside, enters through a window, circles the room's edges, moves up to the table (the camera's target) before leaving through the open door. I'm not sure how long the render will take, but I think I'm ready to begin it now, unless I think of something I may have missed out. Design work is just about done too, 9 pages at the moment, plus a moodboard I might post up on here.

Maya - Basic scene has been created (and is unlikely to be improved, I'm lacking Maya skills, no matter how many tutorials I put myself though). Learnt cameras and keyframing today - although I'm very prone to mistakes within that process. Not sure what sort of path I'm going to take for my scene, I'll have to think that through and storyboard it. 7 pages of design work done.

Maya Update

The following is an image representing my current work view in Maya, as a supplement to my final design work - posting it here just makes things more convenient, eliminating the need to print it...

In addition to this is a render representing the current scene...

Right now I'm trying to get used to using cameras and keyframing, and so hopefully I'll be able to get such a system up and running soon!

October - Week One

Alright, first day of October - here's how things are coming along!

3DS Max - Very good progress, I think I've covered the last of the major additions to my scene, and the lighting is looking really good (even if I do say so myself!) which helps to make everything else look pretty damn great! I've got to make a few last touches - mostly just repositioning items - but all in all, I feel I've done quite well on this brief. During the process, I also learnt that using overly-dramatic camera angles makes things look great. I would post my early renders up here, but Blogger seems to be running a little slowly today, so I guess I'll have to wait until the final ones are done instead.

Maya - I've learnt more about Maya today than I have any other day yet, and that's because I've been forced into learning how to make things that I previously had no idea how to make! I'm still not entirely comfortable with the program - mostly due to it's interface (everything just seems more conveniently placed in Max, and there's a lot of similarity between the functional interfaces within that program) - but then again, it looks like I'm going to be spending some time with it over the weekend. I now have a very simple, unfinished play park environment. I may need to get through some more design work too - all in all, I feel I can get it done on time, but we'll have to see about the quality - which will be improved only through more exposure to Maya. Sorry if that paragraph was a boring read, but that's all I can really say for it at this point. Oh, expect from the fact that I ended up making my roundabout whilst trying to make some monkey bars. Yeah, that was a lucky mistake :p

Alright then, that's the blog updated for another week - I decided to post slightly earlier than everybody else this week so I'd have enough time for a real post, and as it turns out, it was a good idea! See you next week, dear reader...

Week Three

I've modelled pretty much everything included in the design stages of my scene, and I've even added some new items (such as eyeliner and a kitchen knife - good combination) into the mix. If time is willing, I plan to get some more stuff into the scene - once I've got a few ideas, that is!

I now consider the table as one that belongs to some kind of mental guy with OCD. I mean, who collects empty bottles and lines them up side by side?

Anyway, I would say more, but I can't think of anything else to tell you about right now. Nothing that would make me look good, anyway ;)

Week Two

Apparently my blog is too serious, so I'm going to go for something a little different this time around! ;)

This week, other than not spending enough time doing design work, we learned a few new tricks in 3DS and ended up creating some very strange-looking fish! My one looked like it had been punched. And turned inside out.

We spent most of our Maya class messing around with clay! I hope my own model isn't a reflection on my personality: most people went for stylish, cartoony designs, where as I went for a violent, disfigured creature from hell! This is my attempt to recreate it in Maya. I think it came out very well...if "very well" means "looking like the offspring between a dolphin and a broken spaceship"!

And here's the temple I made in Maya. I went for a very manly shade of pink.

And that's pretty much it for another week! ;)

Week One, Friday

Today we experimented with Maya, and were shown around the interface in the process. I found it easy enough to manipulate the properties of the basic primitive shapes in order to create some simple building designs. However, I get the feeling the program has a huge amount of depth behind it - not only does it have a huge reputation but the interface itself showcases a vast array of features.

We also started to delve deeper into our research, most notably through viewing design folders and beginning to create mood charts. We also managed to procure several texture-focused images around the college campus.

We're at the early stages, but we've still got plenty to do.

3D Computer Animation - Week One

This week, we're being introduced to both 3D Studio Max and Maya. We've received two briefs, and should start serious work on those projects soon. At the present moment, we have simply learned our way around the interface of 3DS, created a time schedule for our Maya project, and done a little group work within that project (likely to get us used to such interactions).

So far, so good - and just two weeks after deleting my personal blog, I'm back on blogger! I should be able to use some of that experience to my advantage, however, and soon this new blog will be sporting a nice photoshopped look! ;)

Gary