UV Mapping

Yesterday I began the long process of UV mapping my character. I haven't previously managed to UV map my own creations with any great success, and so far its not going badly. I am UV mapping using the tools built into maya, although in the near futute I think I'm going to download UV layout to make my life easier and save a lot of time. But I did feel before I take the easy route I should do a couple of models the hard way. For the most part the UVs are looking too bad on this model. There are a few bits of stretching here and there (thankfully I've managed to keep most of it in the areas that you can hide it) and there are also a lot of seams due to the most common shape being cylindrical but these can be covered up during the texturing process with the clone stamp tool and so it shouldn't be a problem. At the end of the day I'm happy I've got this far and am looking for to texturing on of my own creations more than anything else, once I get to that stage I can look map at the workflow and the creation of the uv maps and be really critical about what should have been done better and how it could be improved.

Kettle Composite Finished

Here is my finished composition, I rendered out all the layers and assembled them in photoshop, tweaking opacity on some of the layers, masking out some problems I had with the reflections and also creating a depth of field effect by apply a blur to the edges of the kettle driven by an alpha made from the depth map layer.

Compositing

Im just working through the last few escape studios tutorials from their Maya Core course. At the moment I am working through a brief introdution to compositing tutorial (its only a brief introduction as compositing is a huge discipline within CGI and they have whole courses dedicated to it by itself). So I am currently trying to composite the nurbs kettle I made not long ago into a photo using a few compositing tricks. The images below are (in order): the composite as it stands at the moment, the background image, the occlusion layer creating subtle shadows between some pieces of geometry that have been textured using a technique called camera mapping to map the background image from the camera taking the renders too the geometry. I also have a depth map layer creating depth of field on my kettle (although not present in these renders) and a shadows layer (but I left this one out as its currently jet black shadows which are rather obvious, they will be toned down in the compositing package)

Steam-Bot

Im looking forward to being able to scream such phrases as "IT'S ALIVE" etc as todays creation is nearing completion. At the moment I am just going into the mesh and tweaking, flicking between the smooth and un-smoothed geometry making small changes and adding little bits of detail (which seems to consist of extruding random faces and defining them with edge loops) I want the mesh to look as if he was sort of cobbled together out of different bits of metal. This will be easier to demonstrate if and when I texture him (I really should) as bump and normal maps will allow me to add smaller details such as rivets and texture to bits of metal that will give him a more patchwork feel. I hope the pipes are coming out ok I have been trying to link up body parts to demonstrate the steam being pumped through his body to allow him to move. One area I feel needs a bit more work is the head, as its looking a bit too smooth so I think Im going to rough it up a bit and make it look for robot-y

Attempt at Character Creation

I decided it was about time that I actually built an original character design, something I've found a bit hard because I keep over doing it a bit and trying to fly before I can crawl. So this morning I began modelling this character based on some very simple reference images I drew months ago. The idea behind it is its a steam powered robot, for a medievel fantasy setting. So think robotic suit of armour, only this character is a bit weedy. I am quite pleased with how its coming along, still need to tackle the arms, lower leg and head. I'm currently finishing the knees and the shoulders and I have already built the hands in a seperate scene. Then its just going to be a case of going in and modelling some more detail. In particular I want to get nice look over lapping armour plates.

Cup of Tea anyone?

The o so witty title to this post is due to the fact that I've spent the last day building a kettle out of nurbs. This has been an experience to say the least, mainly because I've spent the last day screaming "argh stupid nurbs" but that said nurbs are awesome, you would never get something looking this smooth as quick using polygons. The only slightly infuriating thing about the aforementioned nurbs is the number of times I've entered a value into the input of a tool and maya can't computer it (the number you've put in is bigger than the surface you are trying to round was a common one) and gave itself a fatal error. Suddenly incremental saves are awesome. But all in all it wasnt too much of a problem, but I have learnt that I am much more confident with a polygon based workflow than a nurbs one, I've discovered with nurbs you really have to think about the order in which you use certain tools (theres no point trying to trim a surface that you havent yet filleted to create the correct curves and stuff like this that messes with your head sometimes). The furthest down image is all the curves that had to be constructed in order to make the nice shiny smooth surfaces of the kettle (as you can imagine my outliner was a bit of mess by the end of this model)

Nearly Finished Head

The ear model involved extruding the hole I had left for it inwards, because continuing the extrution into the ear. I spent some time matching the vertices to the reference and then appended various sections together. At this point the majority of the detail was there it was just a case of filling in a few holes and getting rid of a triangle or two. Somewhere in the modelling process I have managed to pick up an ngon but as the ear wont be deformed I imagine it shouldnt matter too much. But I am going to go back and play around with the split polygon tool and see if I can remove it easily.

Head Topology Continued

Once I had created the important edge loops it is simpley a case of closing up the gaps in the mesh and tweaking all the vertices to match the shape of the reference. Then because of the way the topology was laid out it was simply a case of adding more edge loops in areas of detail (such as around the eyes and mouth) and once more tweaking the verts. There are a few more images to come in the next post of the ear under construction and the complete head.

Recently I have been doing a lot of work looking at topology during my little quest to make a decent model of a person. The head has been of particular difficulty to me, as it is such a hard thing to model. I have recently been able to get back onto my escape studios lessons for a little bit of help on the matter. Half the difficulty with modelling a head is getting the topology right or finding a good topology for you, this means making the right edge loops to best describe the face, and in the case of animators deform in the best way to allow you to make realistic looking animations. These screenshots are from a tutorial I have been doing which suggests a good topology, in the images I have constructed all the edge loops I need (and have all the specific points in place that all that remains to do is simple bridging and appending the polygons) this head was made by making live a hi-res 3D reference and using the cv curve tool and the loft surgace to create the edge loops. This is not my ideal work flow as it requires you to have either a 3D scan of a head (I dont have a 3D scanner) or have a hi resolution mesh (ie from zbrush) well if I could make a hi res mesh in zbrush I doubt I would have any trouble making one in maya. But that aside it has pointed out a good topology to work with, so the next challenge will be to make this topology from a box model.

A Really Original Idea

This post is not as the title suggests and original idea, I saw a blog post of a fellow student recently listing a few of the things that influenced him at a younger age (in terms of animation), and this struck me as a good idea so here is my version of that post. All credit goes to Richard Willock. I realise I had been raised on animation my entire life, with different styles being more prominant at different times. Up until the age of about 15 my family didn't own a tv license, just a tv and vhs player. So at a young age I have vhs of pingu, fireman sam and postman pat. These were the first animations I came into contact with and I loved them. Later on I would encounter Wallace and Gromit for the first time, which had a huge impact on my. As I grew up through my early teenage years I got really interested in drawing japanese anime and manga, I had always liked drawing and so this really interested me. All these forms of animation have influenced me a lot. There have also been disney animated films released all through my life time. But I dont think any of these animations influenced me quite as much as a few particular pieces. I think the thing that got me into liking animation was a cartoon that was given to me on video from the nhs to explain how the body defends itself against disease (this was during a time when my little sister was very ill) I was about 3 and there is a photo of my dressed of as a white cell (which were drawn to look like little knights defending the body) and from then on I think animation was always going to be my thing.


This is my first major influence, this was some of the first CGI I ever encountered, I cannot remember if I saw this before or after I saw Toy Story (another massive influence). This is the first episode of the first ever CGI tv series, called Insektors, and its awesome. I distinctly remember buying the vhs (and I still own it). But this tv series had everything I enjoyed at the time and the dialogue still makes me laugh. The characters are so funny (there are two krud guards whos one little chats and brilliant) various funny welsh accents and much more. The dialogue was re-written from the original french dialogue (which is apparantly even better) and it was also re-written again for the american audience (awful). But CGI, and war between eco loving and eco hating creatures, and a main character with a guitar that doubled up as a weapon was just what young me wanted.



I can thank my cousin for this influence. This is the intro movie to the playstation game Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. My cousing was in his mid to late teens when this was just out, so as a child of about 9 or 10 watching this left a pretty huge impression on me, it was awesome, and I bought the game when my cousin left his playstation to me. I've heard people describe the games story as rivelling that of classic gothic literature and I think they might be right. But this intro cinematic synched it for me I think, I wanted to do this without even realising it. Over the years many more game cinematics had a profound impact on me, mainly because they were only 2 or 3 mins long (which meant they could be much better graphics than the rest of the game, and also show off better graphics than a feature length animated film) meant that they always looked ahead of their time and blew my mind.

Other game cinematics that have influenced my in particular tend to be from the final fantasy series, particularly ones from games VIII and IX.



Made just 4 years after I was born (meaning that I am older than the fully CGI film industry), Toy Story was a fairly huge moment in animation and also my childhood. To say there was nothing like, is well stating the obvious, but the quality of the film, of the characters, of everything (the quality pixar would come to be known for) amazed me. Toy Story was probably the first piece of CGI I ever saw and well what a piece to be your first. The story's brilliant, you love every single character (except sid who was the scariest thing apart from Mr McGregor in peter rabbit I had ever seen) and it is perfect for all ages.

Toy Story was obviously a huge influence, for any child who was wowed by CGI, but game cinematics influenced me the most I think, particurly soul reaver, the dark nature of the cinematic and story really pulled me in. I think my influences can easily be split into two categories, stuff I should have been wathcing and stuff i shouldnt. But the stuff that was certainly aimed at an older audience stuck with me and I'm sure its why I now want to be a games artist

A little concept

I decided recently that I really need to start creating good finished pieces of work from scratch to form a portfolio. So when I got up this morning, wacom in hand, I decided to start experimenting around with some ideas I had had. One of which I rather liked was based on the idea of Lovecraft's Cthulhu. And seeing as I am looking for interesting things to model in maya I thought this would be a good idea to persue. My idea didnt involve the Cthulhu itself, but more of a lesser Cthulhu or some kind of spawn of it. The idea being that is was a symbiotic, parasite like creature, that attaches itself to its victims and feeds of them whilst hunting others. I've only just done this quick concept, but I am fairly sure you can already see some of the other influences coming through, the face hugger stage from the Alien Franchise, the brilliant Davey Jones character from Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Mans Chest, and even a bit of a mind flayer. I am quite pleased with this quick concept drawing so I am going to keep going with it and hopefully soon you will start to see it being made in maya. I'm also pretty excited because if I can make this model it will lend itself very to importing into zbrush (for the extra fiddly details needed to achieve a nice wet surfuce and to model suckers etc) and then make a displacement map to texture back on in Maya

Nissan Renders

Here are a few renders of the finished chasis of my nissan 350z, enjoy.

Here is the second set of images of the construction of my Nissan 350z. There are a few more images but due to blogger images per post they will be in the next post. However the only thing that is missing is a few bits of glass and the wheels I need to import into the model.

Nissan 350z

I was quite pleased with my model of the ford focus, but it didnt smooth very well due to the flow of the mesh in places not being very good, the result of this was streaking in the mesh. But seeing as it was my first attempt I was quite happy with the overall result. But I decided to attempted a different car using a different method of modelling. This is the start of my Nissan 350z model, the main difference in modelling technique was to construct different parts of the mesh seperately as opposed to box modelling the entire car from one cube. I also applied a phong material so that when I smoothed the car I could instantly see areas that were not smooth (due to the reflective properties of the phong). As a result this car mesh smooths much nicer that the ford focus. I am tempted, once I finish some of my other projects to go back and model the ford using this technique and comparing the results.

Car Renders

Here are some quick renders of my complete car mesh. I am quite pleased with how the model has turned out (apologies for the poor textures I just applied a few coloured blinns to get the feel of the finished model). I could take the time to texture the mesh completely, but right now I am beginning another car model, this time experimenting with a different method of working for hopefully better results. This mesh is by no means perfect (far from it) although there is only 2 triangles, which I am quite pleased with, the topology is not as even as I would like and it does stretch and streak when smoothed. This has prompted me to try again using a different method, partially to improve my modelling speed and also to improve the quality of the model. If the quality of this next model is better I may spend some time texturing it to a high standard.

First Render: Car

This is a quick render of the smoothed out car model. It smooths pretty well, just a few points here and there that arent quite as slick as I would like, due verticies moving in the smooth etc. But on the whole pretty good. I am going to work on the glass next, just decide and number of polygons required to make it look smooth and then match the panes up with the chasis. Then its just adding a few more details (I'm thinking licence plate, door handles etc) and then the model will be finished.

Car Model

This post is an update of my earlier posts showing my progress on my car model. At this stage the model is pretty near completion. Only a few last minutes bits need to me done. First on the list is to tweak some edges so that when the body is smoothed (for best results but with the most resolution) there are no gaps between chasis and other bits (doors, windows etc). Second is decided what I am going to with the base of the car, its not apparant from many angles but there isnt actually a base to the model, I am thinking of just using append polygon to fill the hole and then extrude it in and up. If I am going to animate the car and make it do any snazy jumps then I might have to model a bit more detail into the base of the car (exhaust pipers, wheel axis). Finally is how much small detail I choose to add. I have already decided that this model will not include the interior of the car, but its just a case of what nice touches I feel the model could use (door handles and such)

Ford Focus Continued

I have been continuing to working on my car model. When I began the build I was using references for a ford focus rally car, however as the basic shell of the model is complete and I am not using references as much I am starting to adjust the model in what ever way I think looks best. Since the last images posted the mode has improved a lot. I am spending a lot of time improving the topology of the mesh (getting rid of pesky triangles). The reason their were triangles to begin with in the mesh is that when the build was start (and put on hold some time ago) I was following a tutorial that showed you how to build a low res polygonal mesh for the car and then convert it to sub-d and use creases to finish up the mesh. I am not to keen on sub-d modelling and so decided to just add more polygonal resolution to complete the mesh. As it will have a similar result but can be rendered easier (as in order to properly make use of soften and harden edge tools you need to render in mental ray). But I have digressed, in the original tutorial a lot of the things you were told to do left triangles or n-gons, in certain places I just let them happen to make the shapes, but now I am going back in and removing them to improve the topology of the mesh. I have also started to extract sections such as bonnet, windscreen and doors in order to detail them further as seperate parts of the mesh.

Summer Work: Car Modelling

Another part of the hard surface modelling I have been practising over the summer was to construct a car (or other vehicle, but I settled on car). I have plans to use the finished car model in a scene. The idea is to create a derelict, urban street theme. I am then going to alter the car mesh (make it look burnt out and wrecked) and have a protagonist character crouched behind the car with the mech in the background. But for now I will settle for just finishing the car. The model is coming along well, just needs some more tweaking. At the moment I am removing faces such as the headlights and windows (some of these edges will be extruded in before I do anything else). The windows will probably be re-inserted using append polygon once the metal frame of the car is modelled. For this model I doubt I will be constructing the interior of the car.