Monday, 11 June 2012

[MAYA] Evaluation of 3D module FDGD103

This module introduced me to the 3D modelling and animation program Autodesk Maya. Given that I had been spending the past year getting to grips with another fairly well known modelling program, 3DS MAX, I found the transition to be quite jarring despite both being made by the same company. The two programs show some similarities, but for the most part the differences are vast, such as the majority of the user interfaces, hotkeys and general workflow. In short, I had to start at the very beginning with Maya, learning the interface and basic hotkeys and I didn't find it too hard to get to grips with.
                Over the course of this module my confidence with Maya has grown a lot, and I thought it was great to have tutorial videos in which we created assets for what would be our final piece. For example we started with a modelling exercise in which we created a Streetlamp, this introduced us to a lot of basic manipulation functions (moving vertices, resizing, extrusion, etc.) as well as some more complex tricks to improve our productivity. Below is a render of the lamp I created:


                After completing this exercise we moved on to what would be the bulk of our work for the module. This involved constructing a small section of a street (which we would eventually combine with our street lamp model) by following another set of tutorials. The videos introduced me to a number of more complex aspects of Maya such as texturing, importing assets and also made use of some of the things I had learnt whilst creating the street lamp model. I also learnt some useful techniques for the creation of the textures themselves through a number of videos that involved the use of Adobe's Photoshop. Here you can see some of the renders of the final version of my street scene, as well as all the texture files that went into creating it:

Final scene with Daytime lighting
Final scene with Night time lighting
Experiment with rendering option allowing for physical sun and sky to be rendered, while i felt it improved the overall look when compared to the other settings, i believe it appears overly bright.








                I feel like I have learnt a lot of the core functions I need to create and texture a model in Maya with relative ease, and I am fairly happy with the final outcome of my work as it matches up with what is displayed in the tutorial videos. What I certainly found the hardest out during these videos was the texturing. If I were to do it again the only thing I would change is the texture work I had done towards the end as I found texturing the road and the pavement to be quite a pain and it resulted in me rushing the work.
                The final stage of this module was to import the scene into a game engine. We were shown how to go about importing our street model into Epics Unreal Development Kit. Given that this was a program I had never used before I was a bit daunted by the task but it turned out to be a very easy process, what took more time was getting the model to integrate with the engine properly. For example our model had no collisions when first imported, meaning that in game the player would be able to walk through it, being unable to interact with it in any way, so we learnt how to generate a collison mesh for our model using the software.

Collision model generation isn't perfect...

                The only other thing that needed doing was applying the textures, unfortunately I didn't see how to import the UV mappping coordinates for our model, but I did learn how to use the material library and apply it to each part so that I could make it look presentable. Below you can see a final shot of the house textured and placed in the world:

Street scene, now in glorious post-apocatlyptic brown.

Friday, 1 June 2012

[ZBRUSH] Evaluation and Links to all related posts

Throughout this module I believe I have made a lot of headway in beginning to understand ZBrush, but i think given some of the areas in which i struggled, i still have a way to go. Despite this i have developed a liking for the program and will look to expand my capabalities with ZBrush in the future.



Just below this text you will find all the related posts i created whilst completing my coursework for the module, in order:

Thursday, 31 May 2012

[ZBRUSH] Torch Modelling

Okay. I think i've got a better chance of being able to finish this model whilst still managing to achieve a high quality final product.

Starting off with a cylinder (again) and stretched it to what i hope is the right length
Sunken area for lamp
Sorting out the shape
Just starting on the finer details like the hand grip
Added smaller grip section and another ridge

Decided to create the indent for the button on the way

Larger grip section done, all thats left now is the button!

And here it is! Made simply by appending a cube and manipulating it into the desired shape.

Final Torch Model



[ZBRUSH] Fire Axe Modelling

My next model is the Fire Axe, i remember it well from my time playing Left 4 Dead 2. The modelling for this item should be fairly straightforward once again, though it will most likely need a cube to go with the usual cylinder!

Not starting with a cylinder for once!
Okay, this model isn't going so well... i've spent a long time wrestling with the cube in different ways trying to attain the shape im after.


 The first thing i tried was using the unified skin method to get rid of the pinching on top of the cube, in the hopes that this would allow for easier manipulation, i tried using a mask to create the shape of the main axe head without luck. I then tried using the clip mask to cut the shape i wanted, but this tool proved both incredibly frustrating and ineffective.


I reverted to manipulating the standard polymesh cube as best i could and ended up accidentally getting the shape i was after (as shown above), and i appended another cube for the other end of the axe head (darkened area.) but in the end i just wasn't happy with how it was turning out, so i've decided to move on. It seems i'm not yet competent enough to create a complex shape like this.

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

[ZBRUSH] Oil Drum Modelling

Keeping things simple, i will be modelling an oil drum next, in the hopes that i will be able to complete this model in a far shorter time than the last.


Once again i'm starting with a cylinder


Stretched and subdivided. I used the clipping tool to flatten the rounded top and bottom.

Using a mask to create the ridges in the barrel.

I created the top lip by simply moving the inner cirle down.

Used another cylinder to begin creating the caps

Here's the result.

Caps appended and positioned.

As a finishing touch added some dents.

Here's the the final model!

I definitely feel like i created this model far more efficiently than the last, and am very pleased with the result. On to the next one!

Here's the final model with a metallic material texture applied

[ZBRUSH] Baseball Bat Modelling

Yep, that's right,i decided that the first item from my list that i'd model would be the Baseball Bat, purely because i see it as a good starting point that shouldn't be too challenging. Here goes:

I decided that a cylinder would be the best starting point.


With some careful manipulation i managed to get the handle shape done

Through some careful tugging and pulling at the rest of the cylinder i managed to get the shape i was looking for

Here is the final model

I feel like i didn't have the best of starts to my solo modelling here. It took me alot longer than i would've liked to create what is a very simple model, but i am pleased with the final product at least.

[ZBRUSH] Game Genre

After completing Badkings grenade tutorial we have been asked to pick a game genre and think of 12 items that you would typically find in said genre.

I've decided to go with Horror as my genre, but narrow down my scope be choosing to focus on items you would typically find in Zombie games, of which there are many. I found that Left 4 Dead and Dead Island were great games to use for inspiration.

Here's my list:

Chainsaw - Classic

Baseball Bat

Beer Bottles for general clutter

Fire Axe
Machete

Machine Gun
Gas Canister, will often be combustable in game

Oil Drums for more clutter, these will often have combustable variants as well

Pistol

Shotgun


Bullets and Bullet Casings
A Torch

For now i will be attempting to model a few of these items using ZBrush, i'll be posting my progress as i go.