Critiqued, and done.

Welcome to the very last day of class. I'd like to take the time to say great job everyone! It was definitely a tough quarter for everyone and although most didn't get to where they wanted, 10 weeks is a shorter time than we all thought. Really work time was more like 6-7 weeks, but what can you really do? It was so nice to work on a project for a full class time though, instead of having to divide our attention to other things. Some really wonderful projects came out of this quarter. Some highlights for me were Alex forsythe's project, I really loved Margaret's work, Bryan Di Fatta's work was really cool even though he didn't get to end it how he wanted. I really like James Ross' model was amazing, and I ended up looking up topogun because of it, so I'll be using that in the future. Thomas' second painting was awesome in my opinion, I'm a sucker for color. I liked Loren and Laura's asthetics. Lindsey's model was awesome! I love the face, and the clavicles. All of the environments I seen were awesome! There was a lot of inspiration in these critiques. Go EVERYONE!!!!!!

Last Week!

So we've come to the last week of the quarter. No pictures this time. Works done! I learned a lot about modeling this quarter that definitely will help me in the future. One thing i realized though is that there are a lot of things i should have known that I didn't know previously. We should learn how to light properly and animate things in the first modeling class. It really set me back this quarter in my other class because I didn't take an animation class or anything. I felt a little incompetent. I wish that we could really cover these things early. Also we should take portfolio in our sophomore year because a lot of companies are looking for sophomores and juniors for internships, not seniors. Well I'm a woman of few words so, I wish you all the best and happy holidays!

Some tutorials

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/fog_density/fog_density.html Fog density controls for awesome atmosphere

Lighting

here's what I'm working on with lighting. DOing light fog and stuff



EWW! it's all artifacty!!!



Sorta Fixed...

AAAARGH!!!

So my tower stopped working and I had to make an new one. Fortunately it came out ten times better.

Physical Sun and Sky: good, bad, but not so ugly

So I figured out the Physical Sun and Sky Mental Ray node. Basically you can create a realistic sun and control the time of day by rotating the directional light on the y axis. The good thing about this is it has perfect amounts of intensity. The bad thing right off the bat is if you're going for a stylized look, like I am, you can't just change the color of the sun and sky. you'll break the light. You however can create background fog. Here's what I've played with so far. I'm going to see if it can be combined with light fog and other lights.








also this is Image based lighting:

BAAAAAD TOPOLOGY!!!! BEETTTTERR TOPOLOGY!!!!

Ok so I screwed up!!! I did my walls together,which is bad, then when I separated them they were definitely not zbrush ready. SOOOOO I had to rebuild some features, but fortunately when you do something once, you can do it again 4x faster in maya :)!

BAD TOPOLOGY!






MUCH BETTER TOPOLOGY!!

CV Tutorial!!

OK!!!


SO this is what I did to get the railing


First, under Create, select CV or EP curve. Both are equally confusing at first but once you get the hang of them, you'll find your favorite. I personally like the EP curve. Here I used the cv curve.



now you're goign to click from point to point on the grid. You can do this on any viewpoint. It's actually better to do it in the front view than the perspective like I did. When using CV, it gives you straight lines along the curve, So in the middle of a curve, you'll have a point.



Next rotate your curve off of the grid. If you did it in Front View, don't rotate.
Now create a shape that you want to extrude. In this case, I used a cylinder.



If you used a cylinder or a shape that has multiple edges along the side that needs to be extruded, delete the faces on that side.




Now go to fill hole under the Mesh menu. This will create one big face.



Now put this new face of the object on the starting point of the curve.



Go to Edit Mesh> Extrude options box



These are my components, but you can adjust and apply as you see fit. Make sure 'Extrude along Curve' is selected, and also make sure your taper is set to 1.0000. this makes the shape stay the same size as it follows the curve. Hit apply.
This is what I got!:

I did the rails!!!!

YAY I did rails see!!! I used cp curves and extruded along the curve. Tutorial coming soon.

*sigh*

Well I got sick yesterday which blew a whole in my production time. Besides that, I basically met my deadline of having things blocked in. I just don't have vines coming over. That's something I'm going to have to tackle. Now I need to finish putting the windows and bars in and make a rail for the walk ways. I also need to figure out what to do for the ground plane. Making the well was the most difficult part since I had so much trouble with the curves I was making. I figured out that it was easier to import the curve from illustrator then trace over it in Maya then extrude a face along it. I also figured out that I can use an EP curve for really ornate things and revolve. Here's what I have so far.

blegh

So I'm signed up to do a lot of texturing for a LOT of animation majors. On top of that this project and my lighting stuff, and I'm spending most of my time trying to figure out nuke and after effects because before Bridget's class, I'd never touched either of them. It sucks that we don't go over these things in game design. I am absolutely hating this.

lighting test

here's the mood I want.


By deeseabrook at 2010-10-06

Here's some pictures!

My final pitch has been molded into a one frame render.

My final pitch has been molded into a one frame render.

so.... by next friday, the 15th, I plan to have everything blocked out atleast. 
the next week, all of the details, including normal, displacement, and spec maps should be done.  (i'm going to kill myself)
the following week, Rock Band 3 comes out so therefore I will probably take a two day break and then work double time(sorry Darrel). At the end of this week, all lights should be in place.
then the first week of november, I'm going to fix everything that needs to be fixed with the textures and put in the water and try to get a matte painting done, or enlist the help of a painter.  We'll see.  and of course the week after that is crunch time, so I'll be working to do some awesome rendering and packaging.

Now of course these deadlines probably wont be followed perfectly and that's why the crunch time week is so free because, lets face it, I'll need it!!!

post 4

my character ideas were shot down so I'm doing a scene based on the count of monte christo.  I'm going to pitch a diorama of the Chateau d'If .  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Chateau_d%27If_-_1641.PNG

post 3

Time to present Ideas.

Day 2

Ok well we presented our three ideas and past projects.  I feel like I didn't really have the time to do everything he wanted us to do but hay, it's done.  So I'm doing a little mini environment to showcase my lighting and texturing through an environment.  I'm really inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, since I'm re-reading it.  Maybe I'll do the Chateau d'If or The Isle of Elba.  I could do a little Napolean over winter break and hide him in it :)  We'll see.  Anyways, I can use my pictures from Fort Pulaski and Castillio de San Marco for textures of d'If if I choose that.  I'll probably do the Isle of Elba so that I can have nature contrast with the large coquina wall structures.
Here's some pictures of these places.  Keep in mind, Elba was far less populated then so I wouldn't have all of those buildings with the smooth walls.  It would just be Porto Ferrajo.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_QNKa6eyFpTo/RwziW5beAdI/AAAAAAAAAHY/klHvFBCXqK4/DSCF0801.jpg
http://mobysnewt.com/Home%20Page/Design/Porto%20Ferrajo%20Frejus%20--%20proof%20engraving.jpg

Day 1

Wow, so the quarter is starting now.  I'm pretty excited to improve my skills.  I really want to work hard and produce highly professional work. So far I'm thinking about doing a realistic character, a monster and an abstract character with completely painted textures.  I really need to get a new camera.  I could just get jess to help me take pictures of textures because I need a new HD texture library.  I used to not use picture textures, and I would paint everything and create realistic textures from scratch, but I know that it's quicker and acceptable to do it with pictures.  I don't quite know how fast it is supposed to take me to texture a model. That's something I need to find out. 

I also need to work on lighting and rendering.  I don't really know what else to say so....



Love and Peace people!