Week Six

This week hasn't been too productive on my part. Though I have almost finished the second part of our set. I have yet to do some renders as I have been busy with another class's assignment. 

I have also been working on Tammy, she is almost ready for full animation but there have been many set backs. One is that the auto face rig is un cooperative and is testing my every nerve. It doesn't help that I don't know what it is called, so I can't find any tutorials on how to weight paint it. this is my only problem. I feel like I just want to scream at it. But I won't. The cloth simulation on her hair and clothes look great, this is a plus. I am however contemplating re doing her face from scratch and just make some awesome blend shapes and curve controls. This I know will work as it's how I did the dragons face. It may look amateur or silly but if it works I don't care. We need to start animating tomorrow as we only have 7 weeks left til the final film needs to be submitted (the first draft anyway). 

No images this week sorry, just a little rant on how things are going.

Til next time.... 

Week Five

This week I was working on Our dragon character Rig. It took me some time to get some things sorted out with him, but now he is done he looks great. I haven't finished his textures yet. And well I had some troubles about that, (not going to explain) But it is all fixed now. Thankfully.

So now that Petie (tis what I named him) is finished I have created just a really basic, and not the best walk cycle to show his deformations. I didn't put much effort into the walk but you get the idea.

And here is just a render of him looking all cool and what not.

Cheers and Til next time....

Week Four- Part B

Today I'm writing about my set, yet again. I have textured the entire scene and worked out my placement of items. First up was texturing the trees, this took a fairly long time. But I am pleased with the results.

 I was actually just playing around in Photoshop, trying to get the same feel as I have on the peer and rocks. Overall it turned out to be effective and really cute. My group agrees, I made a lighter and darker texture to have some variation in the scene.

Next up was the lily pads and I was using Google images as reference. I simplified them as realistic wouldn't look right. This was my first render of them, It was OK. Drazen (my team mate) mentioned the leaves should be darker. 

So that's what I did, and they looked heaps better. The flower was really fun to make, I had never modeled one before so I was excited (I'm a total Polygon nerd). And to texture them was rather easy. I took a few renders at different angles to get an overall feel of the comp.

The next thing I worked on was the grass, I got some feed back from a class mate that it was too fine. So I upped the ante. I made the base width a 4 and the tip width a 0.5, this looked great, I did try a tad bigger but it started to look really chunky and un-grass like.

After I was happy I made a sign for the scene. Every little lake/pond has a name. I wanted something that my team mates would love. And since all they talk about is League of Legends I made this.

I used the logo as reference, But changed the way it was shaded. I also tweaked the font so I don't get done in for copyright. I used the eraser tool to give it a wear and tear feel. The default lighting does not do it justice.

This is just a few renders in various angles. I brightened the water colour as well to make it more pretty. I would love to have it actually sparkle but that's just wishful thinking.

After I had played around with my angles it was time to see how my character fit into the scene. I was surprised at how closed I was in scale. I only had to scale the set up a tiny bit.

I also scaled the trees down, They are meant to be big but they were monstrous. Tammy fit in nicely, granted I used everyday Tammy and not Elf Tammy, but they are the same size.

All in all I completed what I set out to do. I have just the lantern to finish but other than that, This set is ready for animation next week.

Til next time.... 

Week Four-Part A

This week I am still working on my environments. So far I have placed in my final water (a.k.a. ocean in Maya) and grass that will be around the tree line.

For the grass I used the paint effects fur grass. I played with the size and arrangement before I found something that I liked.

Here is a preview...

 

Obviously I have taken the trees out (for texturing) So that I can basically work my way up the comp. I like to treat it as if I am working with layers in Photoshop. My team mates seem to happy with my work so far. 

I still have yet to place proper lights in my scene, but feel that The default works for preview sakes. I need to make an alternate texture for the rocks, so that there is some variety. I was thinking a slight brown tinge to it, almost to make them seem a tad dirty.

I have also been working on some pebble shapes, so far I have a rectangle shape but they look like wooden planks. I have made a hexagon shape which looks better, once I texture them they will form nice swirly patterns on the ground. Yes I am sticking to my theme.

So that is what I have been up to, now I must get back to it.

Til next time....

 

 

Week Three

So this week has been a stressful one for myself. I had been working on another project which is not my own. I did however sort out one section of our set. I worked on the section in which we will start animating first as the character has the least amount of scenes and no dynamics, except the pond.

So I did a quick render with just a default sun and sky light, and base lambert textures. The pond is not in the images as of yet.

This is one view, as you can see the lighting gives off a grid like effect which I do not want. nut it serves my purpose for now.

And this is the other view I rendered. (not that different I know) 

I shall be working on sets a whole lot more in the 4th week as they will all need to be done. Keep a look out for my updates. ^_^

Til next time...

Week Two- Part B

So I said I would post about some designs I had done, and well here they shall be. I spent a full day working out some small environment pieces that will give our scene more character. 

So below is an image of what I would like the set to look like from top view. 

The set needs two separate areas for the animation. Though you will only ever see one at a time. I have hopes to have it done before the end of week 4. 

Here are some assets designs. The theme I am going for is stylized with swirls, My team mates have agreed with this look. I'm trying to give an organic sort of feel to the environment and nothing says organic quite like smooth and rounded lines. A.K.A. swirls. Plus it's meant to be a fantasy land where nothing is quite normal.

The first asset I made was the dock. It was really simple as there was lots of duplication and the textures were nice and easy. I only needed to texture one plank and one post, the nails are done with a mental ray metal texture. It seemed to fit perfectly.

The second was the rock, which will be around in random places of the set. I kind of for the idea from looking at Chinese water paintings. They always have nice swirly designs and it makes me feel calm. The texture again was easy, there is no bump map the swirl was modeled into the rock. It is still low poly and wont take up much render time.

And the last model I created this week was the lantern that will light the dock for our little elf. I have yet to texture it, but it will look just like the concept. I haven't decided if I want to make little flowers on it yet. I probably will to give it some extra colour and cuteness.

So all these items are ready to be placed in my scene, All my assets will be low poly and there will be high quality yet simple textures. I want to keep things as simple as I can so that we don't overload the computers when it comes to rendering. As I still need to work out particles and such.

Til next time....