Getting the Ball Rolling

With the drawbacks of my laptop, as previously mentioned in earlier blog posts, and the limitations of time, I had to make a few changes to my desert environment. I intended for it to be as photo-realistic as possible, but aside from the time it would take to model and texture to that standard, it would take far too long to render on my fragile, broken system. I had to settle to aim for a video game style, and gave up on the idea of including my model lizard.

A still taken from World of Warcraft

So, with two weeks to go, I began modelling the assets for my environment. I began with my tumbleweed - unsurprisingly, I couldn't find any resources online on how to model one, so I had to create my own way of doing so. This involved extruding long, thin cubes, lots of duplicating, and eventually taking it into ZBrush to gain more control over how the branches curled around into themselves.

Once I was happy with the results, I started rendering and testing different light sources:

I then started on the large piece of driftwood - like always, starting out the rough 'sketch' in Maya, then taking it into ZBrush for a more precise sculpt.

 

I took my texture maps into Photoshop for a quick edit - the maps looked almost like silk! I made a number of different versions so I could experiment to see what I liked most.

Edit: I've since added some wood grain to the textures for a subtle add of realism.

He Lives!

After I was finally able to make some progress with my laptop, I was able to start modelling my lizard again - third time lucky! I was still having to put up with countless problems, such as slow laptop speed and my system crashing at least once an hour, so considering the setbacks I like to think that I've done quite well.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have been so determined on getting the quality of detail in Maya, but rather saved it for the sculpting process in ZBrush. Good geometry was always a top priority of mine however, and it was worth spending the extra time in Maya to really become fluent with the modelling tools.

I knew that sculpting scales in ZBrush would be a highly laborious task, so I was apprehensive to say the least. I wanted the model to be realistic and organic, so I looked at some reference photos of scales, and took some of my own photos using my lizard as reference.

I took the photos into Photoshop and made some custom alphas, which I then tried painting on to spheres in ZBrush to anticipate what they might look like. Pleased with the results, I took some more photos and made them into alphas too, which I then used on my model.

This took a long time, but the results were well worth it. I used a combination of different alphas of different scale patterns, painting them on my model bit by bit using the Projection Master in ZBrush. Each limb and every area was a patchwork of different alphas and some of my own hand sculpting of scales.

I had originally want to hand paint the model as I'd never tried digital painting and wanted to give it a go. However, due to time restraints, I largely textured the model by using photographs and the Spotlight tool, much the same way as I'd done with the alphas.

Again, this took many hours, but I'm pleased at how the model looks. He's semi-realistic and looks somewhat organic due to the use of asymmetry. I hope to include him in my desert environment.

This is my final showreel containing the modelling work I've been able to produce for 'Industry Exercises':

https://vimeo.com/68377551

Rigging Practice, Or Not

At the start of term I had every intention of doing rigging as one of my specialisms. I wanted to rig my lizard model and eventually do some animation with him, but I thought I should start out learning the basics of rigging on a biped, not diving into the deep with a quadraped. So, I figured I'd get some modelling practice in and knock up a simple, female biped.

Which started off as simple, but then I started adding in more detail...

I wanted to keep her as anatomically correct as possible, whilst also keeping the geometry as low as possible. Very difficult when it came to the hands and feet!

Using the base mesh, I modelled some shorts and a T-shirt for model to wear, as well as a ponytail for her head and eyelashes for the eyes.

I then took the OBJs into ZBrush and practiced sculpting for the first time.

 I'm proud of the results, and from practicing on this model, I know I want to pursue this skill further. Here are some images looking at closer detail:

 I then applied some simple textures and gave it a quick render in Maya. I'm looking forward to trying to rig her!

 

Slowly, Slowly

Since my last post I've made very little progress in regards to my broken laptop. I was unable to use it more or less entirely for a month, putting me far behind my peers for this term's projects.

After seeing a computer specialist on a number of occasions I wasn't any nearer to solving the issues - he was able to stop it from blacking out and shutting down, but he wasn't able to work out why my computer would freeze and shut down from opening Maya and Mudbox. Any work I did in ZBrush was also difficult as my computer would slow down to a halt and eventually crash. Someone kindly suggested in the comments that it could be a graphics card issue, possibly proven by the fact that when I did eventually get Mudbox working, I couldn't make new layers due to insufficient memory. I found it difficult getting into university to use their computers as well; they weren't available at most of the times I needed them, didn't support my version of Maya, and didn't have ZBrush on them.

Eventually, I discovered that my Wacom tablet was the root of my freezing issues, so I borrowed a mouse and was able to start making progress - roughly 2 weeks before the deadline! Also, bearing in mind that I've never used a mouse before! It was my original intention to focus on modelling, texturing and rigging for this project, but due to being a month behind, I've had to skip out on the rigging process. I will, however, take this up in the weeks to follow.

In the time in between fixing my laptop, modelling and texturing, I started getting into the software, Nuke. As my projects next term will be based on Visual Effects I wanted to try doing some compositing. With the help of a Digital Tutors tutorial, I learned the basics of camera tracking, rotoscoping, colour correction, rotopaint, animation and lighting, the results of which you can see above.

Tests & Problems

Before I got into any modelling, I thought it would be a good idea to do some lighting tests where I'd play around with different types of terrain.

As I was doing a desert, I began by doing sand. I added a fluid bump map to the surface and played around with frequency, amplitude and direction of the waves. I quickly modelled some rocks to play around with shadows. This is the final result, after taking it through Photoshop.

I added in a ripple effect in the background to create a haze and used a simple gradient for the sun.

I then experimented with a more mud/soil based terrain.

Using paint effects in Maya, I built up some patches of grass. It was originally meant to be a hilly area, but I liked how it was developing into a close-up of a patch of soil - a very bumpy patch of soil! I then used some depth of field on the Maya camera to enhance the Macro feel of it. I like how the light catches the blades of grass and the kind of shadow they create.

Unfortunately, from here onwards I've had to cope with some extreme setbacks. As I've written previously, my Maya has encountered many, many bugs which results in a very slow workflow. I've uninstalled and re-download all the different versions a number of times each, all to no avail, so I decided to go down the route of re-installing my operating system.

After an entire day of backing up (6+ hours for a bootable back up, and almost the same for the manual backup) I wiped my hard drive. Unfortunately, this caused many more problems as an error occurred and there was no operating system to reinstall. This meant that I had no working laptop - possibly the worst case scenario for a 3D animation student. As apple are incredibly unhelpful to anyone whose machinery is more than a year old, I couldn't purchase the operating system through them so I had to contact a mac specialist. 

Eventually, I was able to buy the OS and get it sent to me. The new install seemed to go well at first, and I had tonnes of extra space on my laptop now only my essentials were transferred on to it. However, most of my software wouldn't work on it anymore as it recognised the OS as too old, therefore I'd have to buy all of my software again if I wanted it to be compatible - but of course, Apple doesn't sell any of it anymore because it's over a year old. Then the real problems arose - occasionally my laptop blacks out and stops working with no warning. And most importantly, I can only use Maya for all of 3 minutes before it freezes my laptop, meaning I have to restart the laptop.

These problems have spanned over 2 weeks now which means I'm severely behind on work for my two projects. I will be visiting the mac specialist during this week to have a look at my hardware, but for now I will have to ask around for a spare laptop!

Conclusion: I'm saving up to buy a PC.