Sharpen the Blade

I don't think I've posted anything at all about my Gurus and Grasshoppers project.. Oops. The task was to design and model a weapon, textured and with bump maps. Now that I've finished, here are a few screenshots of it in progress.

Initial axe silhouettes

First attempt at modeling

Different approaches to the axe head

Design for normal map

I chose to put runes on the axe, and chose a quote from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'; 'where the offence is, let the great axe fall'. I originally planned to have the quote on one side of the axe, and just repeat the map on the other, however it became a bit of a squeeze so I split the quote in half. Also I chose to used the traditional Anglo-Saxon runes, also as used by Tolkein in 'The Hobbit', which I was reading at the time.

Below are images of the final model.

The Branches of Life

I feel terrible that I haven't uploaded any of my progress on the latest 3D project - the foliage project. The brief involved making two trees, and I tried slightly different techniques for both.

For the first tree I used quite a lot of polygons on creating the trunk and branches, meaning that when it came to adding the leaves I couldn't use as many alpha planes as I may have wanted. However, in terms of the diffuse texture of the canopy, I used a photograph of a single leaf and created my own texture sheet with it, meaning the planes themselves are of high quality.

For the second tree I used a minimal amount of polys on the trunk and branches allowing myself more freedom with creating the canopy. I loved the colours in this tree, and the leaves worked out quite well considering they were taken from a photograph with a bright sky. I think many people found difficulty obtaining decent texture photographs due to the branches and leaves appearing very dark in contrast with the white sky (since all of the light is above it).

Unfortunately since I have not documented my progress it is difficult to explain the stages I worked through to the finished models, however I did make notes on problems I encountered, particularly nearing the end.

• alpha textures had white lines/marks around the edges of the planes suggesting a fault with the psd file, however editing would not remove them
• adding specular maps caused the alpha to stop working - I solved this by making the specular map black in the areas the alpha is black
• I'm not fully satisfied with the shapes of either tree - they tend to be a little flat on side views so perhaps I should have used more reference photos
• seams on the branches and trunk are visible - I've now placed them in areas where they are less likely to be seen, but they are still there
• while making LODs for each tree, feathering occured and the poor quality of the render meant the alpha was harder to make
• on 'realistic' in the viewport some of the leaves have very dark shadows that look odd

All in all I am happy with how I have come on with this project, though since the project itself was quicker and easier than previous ones perhaps I should have pushed myself further and tried out new things.

988 tris, 1.44mb texture

912 tris, 1.44mb texture

Abbey Pumping Station

This week we visited the Abbey Pumping Station. Unfortunately I didn't have a proper wander round learn anything about the history of Leicester because I was desperately getting sketches down during the limited time we were there. Being winter the pumping station is usually closed, so I wasn't able to return - instead I worked from a few photographs after I'd done as many initial sketches as I could fit in.

For this week I was specifically focusing on shading and trying not to get too caught up in the line drawing. Instead I'd shade as I'd add tone as I went along, emphasising depth more than accuracy of form.

Abbey Pumping Station final

Have a Hobbit-Happy Birthday

Spent a couple of hours making a birthday card for Chris. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed doing this sort of thing.

Reunited with the Steering Wheel

This weekend I worked on some more car studies (since I feel I didn't do enough last week), thanks to being at home and having a subject that I knew for sure wouldn't drive off and disappear on me.

Vehicle Final Piece

Still Life

For this week in visual design we were looking at still life, however to warm up we first did a few pages of blind contour drawings of our fellow students. These were a bit of a nightmare but quite funny to do and compare with others.

There was a desk in the centre of the studio with various odd and interesting objects displayed on it. Unfortunately there was not too much time so I didn't get as many sketches done as I had hoped.

So this morning I set about arranging my own still life on my desk before I set off home for the weekend. I arranged a few objects considering lighting and composition, then set about sketching the scene.

Still Life Final Piece

Life Drawing

Today we used charcoal again and I think I've improved a bit on last week.. though now I have a black rubber again...

2 minute poses

2 minute poses

30 minute pose?

40 minute pose?

I'm really bad at remembering how long I spent on each of these...

Architectural Project - Complete!

I have finally finished my building! I had a little issue this week in that I was unable to save my alpha textures as targa files on my version of Photoshop (7.0.. ancient, I know) and show I had to keep transferring the files back and forth from my friend's CS6 in order to edit and save them properly. (It might be worth investing in a later version...)

Although I was happy overall with the alphas, the positioning of the planes annoyed me. When zoomed out from the building, the planes began flickering, as if they were too close to the wall behind them. However, zoomed in there is a noticeable distance between the wall and the plane. Perhaps a way to get around this next time would be to make the plane slightly larger in size so that the distance isn't noticed? I don't know...

So to finish off I went into the labs this morning to finish off my height maps and test them out on CrazyBump. I found that when applied to the model they sometimes had an odd effect - making certain polygons more shaded than others at certain angles, for instance.

Now everything is tidied up and finalised, with all of the references, textures and renders in their allocated folders. Here is the finished model:

Vehicle studies

Looking at cars this week! Despite it being incredibly cold outside, I enjoyed drawing these. I should probably focus more on rendering though, since they all seem to be line sketches.. old habits die hard I suppose.

History of Games - 1980s to 1990s

A lot can happen in a short amount of time. Although the 80s holds some very well-known and successful products in the game industry, it is also known for the fall.

In terms of successful games at the beginning of the decade, Namco released Pac-Man in 1980, while Nintendo released Donkey Kong in 1981 which was also widely successful. Shortly after in 1982, Midway released Ms. Pac-Man, which became the biggest arcade game in American history. The original designer of Pac-Man was not involved in the creation of the game, instead it was designed by nine university students. It was an improvement on the previous best-selling game, with faster movement, more mazes, and more challenging ghosts. Over 100,000 Pac-Man­ and over 150,000 Ms. Pac-Man machines were sold - more than any other arcade game.

At a similar time, the Commodore 64 was released - an 8-bit home computer with a slot for game cartridges as well as a separate floppy disk drive that could hold more data. This attracted many new games companies to the market, probably the most successful being Electronic Arts.

However it wasn't all sunshine and sales in the game industry. Firstly, a connection between gaming and truancy began to emerge into the public eye. Governments called for restrictions on minors being allowed to play arcade games, due to the sheer popularity and amount of time people spent playing on them. But more notably, in 1982 Atari released an ET game, based off Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie, for the VCS. Although the leaders were confident it would sell well, the manufacturers were unhappy with it, especially considering the incredibly short amount of time they were given to create the game. In the end, due to its disappointing play and basic graphics, the game was a bust and millions of worthless game cartridges were dumped by the company. Despite the crash for Atari in America, its international market kept fairly steady in Europe and Japan.

Another important moment in the 80s is the invention of Tetris, designed by Soviet Russion mathematician Alexey Pajitnov is 1985. I don't think it needs saying how successful that particular game was..

Meanwhile Nintendo kept on ploughing through time, releasing the Famicon in Japan in 1984 (which was a big improvement on previous video computer systems), and it's American version - the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. At the same time, Sega released Master System and Atari made a comeback with the 7800 game console, leaving the trio of new releases to battle it out in the market.

Then in 1987 Nintendo did it again, this time releasing The Legend of Zelda. After its success in Japan, there was concern of it appealing to American audiences - the game had a much more complex story line than previous games, and involved boxes of text. However their worries were of no need, to the dismay of my tutors who are convinced that the game ruined game art forever.

Nearing the end of the 80s, consoles were beginning to fade away as PC games became more popular, notably with the release of Wolfenstein 3D. However, computers were not all the rage since Nintendo's release of the Game Boy in 1989 witnessed immediate success, and its sales did not slow down even after superior products were being created and released. In fact, its sales were so high and steady that the product was only discontinued in 2003.

So, into the 90s. It is around this time where I start recognising games from my own childhood...

References:

Kent, S L. 2001. The Ultimate History of Video Games. Prima Publishing.

Image References:
donhodges.com, giantbomb.com,

I'd much prefer to unwrap presents

Righto, quick update on the building before I continue working on it today. This week was a little more productive than last week (and by that I mean I spent a hell of a lot of time on it, but I haven't progressed anywhere near as much as I though I would have).

After completing the model I spent a while sorting out smoothing groups on the whole building before creating the textures for tiling. I decided to make each tile texture a 512. These weren't too bad and were actually almost enjoyable to make.

I could then start unwrapping. My only worry was since I chose another 512 texture sheet for the windows and doors, the quality would be quite poor when zoomed in. I guess we'll find out soon.

To finish the texturing I plan to use a 512 for the alphas and a 1024 for the remaining polygons. I started laying down planes for the alpha textures and noticed that although I'd placed them a little in front of the building itself, they would flicker when zoomed out. Not sure what to do about that.

I spent pretty much the whole of yesterday just unwrapping the 1024 sheet. Who knew it would take so long? I spent an hour on drainpipes alone!

Plan for this week is to finish the texturing (including alphas) as soon as possible so that I can start working on bump and specular maps. Wish me luck!

Dem dry bones...

Last week we headed to the New Walk museum to do some sketches of dinosaurs (horray for the warmth of the indoors!) which was quite enjoyable. Below are some of the pages:

At some points I tried to focus solely on the rendering rather than sketching lines.. Though this method is pretty tricky because it's so easy to want to get back into the habit of drawing the outline! I guess it's something I'll have to work on..

Considering this week's drawing project was located indoors, I don't think I spent as much time on it as I probably should have. (Most likely because I was getting tired and was distracted by the excitement of my family coming to visit for the weekend.) Better up the pace for the following weeks!