Fuel: Lemon and Ginger Tea

Put together two rough videos of the 2 art projects I'm going for my major project. We had 4 projects worth of time to fill, and each project is meant to take roughly 4 weeks. All of my project's were involved in the Echoes project.

I only have 2 art projects as my other two projects got consumed by directing and game engine stuff. 

Project Echoes - Dragon from Ruth Beresford (C) 2013 on Vimeo.


Project Echoes - Props from Ruth Beresford (C) 2013 on Vimeo.

As you can see from the videos, I need to quickly wrap up all the props I've made, while also wrapping up the games engine and directing. About 3 weeks left, so you can really feel the tension rising on the course, but the excitement is quite a good feeling to be around. Everyone is really motivated and positive atm, so let's just hope that continues ;)

3 and a half weeks left

Been quite quiet recently, as a lot of my work at the moment has been either directing for Project Echoes, or scripting for it. But as we had to submit a bunch of our work this week for '1st submittal' (I suppose a tester round of our final hand in) I had to do some renders anyway and thought I would share this one. 

I know, I know, I know. I need to optimize that ivy. It's on my do to list once I've got a bunch of the game-play straightened out!

In other news, I've applied for an erasmus program to Sardinia during the summer. It'll focus on doing live briefs creating informative animations. Had the interview and I'm really hoping that I'll be successful. I really want to get involved in projects outside of game to help widen my skill bases, and refresh my creativity. Also, it'd be a great opportunity to further my (possibly dreadful) communication skills. I should find out Friday, so wish me luck! (I suppose if I don't get on I can have Download Festival/Rezzed/WalesGameDevelopmentShow to keep me from sulking ;) )

Project Echoes - Further Ruins

Been working on the ruins for the summer environment, and been experimenting with different types of brick beneath the plaster of the ruins. 

Echoes - The Nursery

Been working on this the past couple of days, to give myself a break from trees and plants.

I'm modelling stuff in batches, and then will texture the same, so I think over the next few days I'll move over to texturing a bunch of the stuff that I've modelled.

In the game, these are looking to go into the Summer environment amongst the ruins, so I shall be texturing them decayed and knocked about a bit! But these items are going to be in one of the central rooms of the level, and hopefully the area where you find out a lot about the back story of what's going on. I just need to get around to writing the fluff with the rest of the team and it's starting to look very real!

Echoes - Trees

I choose to create the trees for our games project, and while there was an option to try and find a tree generator and tweak the stuff, I took this opportunity to learn zbrush a bit better.

I got some really nice shapes from using zspheres, they were based off bonsai trees as I felt this style of tree but much bigger would quite fit the sort of fantasy/surreal feel which the game is going for.

I then imported them into 3dsmax, and optimized them a bit. My plan is to take them into the engine and just move each one around a bit, scale and that sort of thing so they don't all look too similar. I might also come back and try and place one of these trees cover a rock or something.

Other set pieces I have left to create - rocks, plants, bushes, hedges, cliff like pieces and shaping the terrian!

Dresden Codak - Part 1

And so Maya happened. Well, we have been instructed that for our first university project of the year we have to model 2 props and 1 character in 3 weeks, but instead model it in Maya instead of 3dsMax.

We we're told to try and pick something that already existed so we didn't have to spend too much time putting together turnarounds and so I choose to go with items and Kimiko from the Dresden Codak universe, as I'm just a little bit in love with the webcomic. (Webcomic here http://dresdencodak.com/. Go read.)

Here's the two props I choose to model, and will later texture. It's Kim's bag and the Nephilopolis (that's like a prop... right?). All designs belong to Aaron Diaz and have been bastardized for 3D.

Evaluation

Crazy Skull Lady
This was my only character that I modelled during major project, and I found that it was the project which interested me the most. While orginally not expecting to enjoy the character project as much I found that the organic modelling process was more enjoyable. The modelling on the character could have done more to incorperate edge loop principles around the different muscle groups to allow for nicer modelling for shape and for deformation. I found that the texturing on the character was very fun, but that it fell short of what I wanted in many places. Though I did take the model into mudbox I fell that I could have done a better job on the normal map, as although it looks good from some angles, at others it's too subtle.

 Alice in Wonderland Hotel
This project ended up moving much further away from my orginal intended colour scheme, though still incoperating many of the elements I had intended. I had orginally intended to use much darker colours, however I found that with the theme having such dark colours made the hotel room feel grotty and unclean. Instead I moved into a cleaner colour pallette and brought in some lighter greens and creams to help the brown look cleaner, however still bringing in the feeling of the rabbit hole.

 Pier
This was another project in which I struggled with the lack of details in my concept work and found I had to make up a lot of the details while modelling. If I could have redone the project I would have liked to have spent more time focusing on the textures and how they would effect my modelling, so that I could have done more work with normal and spec maps. While I did use these within the project I feel I could have used them to greater ability.

Victorian Street
While I got through the modelling of this project fairly quickly, I should have allocated more time towards the texturing of the project. I feel that the detail they're lacking really takes away from any sense of realism, and that I should have had a greater focus on the construction of buildings and details during the texturing stage.

Glammies

Very late update, seeing as the glammies was about 2 months ago now?

In short: the glammies was awesome. As a 1st year I worked in a small group to come up with a stig to go inbetween the categories. I never thought being so stressed could be so enjoyable! I've really missed the energy and stress of uni since the summer hols, and I really miss working with other people.

In this video I modelled Tink, textured her, textured the background, textured and modelled a lot of the environment (didn't do the lillys, or the background painting), and did her sparkle-trail and the sparkly-fart (which I was very pleased with!).

Since then I've mainly been slaving away at my part-time job, and sketching to help improve my design skills. My drawing and painting progress since May can be seen here (and I'm quite glad, there has been improvement! phew) - http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3200090

Character Exploration

Just some videos from our character exploration project. Not very happy with the hands on the character, or the dress/neckarea... but the face worked out well :)

Enviroment, I just wish I had more time to make more props for it!

Wip - Scene

Still haven't got my character textured, however I thought I'd move onto the props for the scene, with the hope that the change of working-process will stop me getting stuck in a rut with different aspects!


Not textured yet, but some props I've been making for a little cramped shop.

Also wanted to make a skull for her desk, so I've been playing around with zbrush for a bit to see what you can do with it. First time I've actually made something in zbrush, and discovered that it's actually a really nice program once you get used to it!

The Mystic's Dream

There's a little snow storm outside my window. Sometimes the 20th floor is wondrous <3

Finished my first environment on Monday in time for the deadline, and am quite pleased with it. I learned a lot of new things about modelling, and while I can see some key things I'd change now (the trees, the weeds so they aren't all separate planes x-x gods what was I thinking? And probably change the tents a bit, add a rug... so many things! Oh, maybe a lamp.), I'm generally quite happy with the modelling. Texturing a little less so to be honest, I learnt tons of new stuff, but I think only some of it was pulled off really well. And... lighting... I still hate lighting. Lighting is a bitch and I have no idea how it works. So, more lighting practice needed!

Now, I'll get onto completing that character I'm meant to be modelling...