Week 31

Hand in week. So I attended a drop in session with Chris on Monday to just double check somethings with the metal map and roughness map (if they're black and white). I was able to make the metal map rather quick due to the fact that its very binary in the sense it's either on or off and the only thing that wasn't metal on my piece was the carbon fibre that surrounded the mount for the limb to go in. The roughness map took a bit longer with Chris showing a good technique to produce over spray and to lift the paint up. For example the infinity logo on the top, I used a dark grey underneath that part on the roughness map that really brought that logo up and makes it look as if its sitting on top of the rest of the paint. I was also able to make the finger tips look warn down with the roughness map and on the wrist I was able to make it look as if oil had been dropped on the surface of it. I can really see the potential of a program like substance painter that allows you to paint directly on to the surface of an object because it ends up giving a more cohesive look to the piece. Where as doing it the old fashion way like I did it can be hard to match up the exact amount of ware on each piece. I've also ended up putting my pillar into Marmoset to get some cleaner more professional shots as you can see below. I'm really happy with the way they look and how they've come together.

Week 30

After completing my low poly last week it was for me to begin baking the normal maps for the robotic hand. I attended the drop in session on the Monday to do this due to the fact that I hadn't baked multiple objects before, as with my pillar I merged the three objects and baked them as one. Chris said it basically exactly the same except each item has its own cage and when you produce the normal's you need to make sure they're set to save as PNG's so you can then open them all up in Photoshop and bring them all on to one normal map.
       I began with one of the finger tips to my hand i put the required parts into the XNormal program, I then opened up marmoset as we'd been shown that morning how to use it to create turntables for hand in and it works as a quick way to view work without having to open up UE4. As soon as I put the normal maps on to the low poly instantly it looked bizarre the best way to explain is that it looked as if the normal was too big for the low poly. The other issue was that because of how many items i was trying to fit on a 2k texture was causing some pixelation around the object and losing a lot of the detail I was trying to retain from the high poly. I asked Chris and we came to the same conclusion that to reach the required poly count I had removed too much of the geometry and there wasn't a lot I could do about this issue. Chris said to just complete the baking process at home and see what it looks like. I was rather annoyed as I'd spent a lot of time and effort designing the high poly and it just wasn't coming out remotely nice. This was when I came up with a solution, hopefully, to the issue it was to take the low poly that has the geometry that has been changed to far and start adding in edge loops to create a "low high poly". This was an attempt to try and bring back this project and have my final piece look nicer than what was being presented to me at that time.
        I then spent the next couple of days making such a piece, of course I tested one piece, a finger tip and compared it to the old work which Chris and I agreed looked much better. Although I'm disappointed I couldn't use the high poly I am happy that I was able to come up with a creative solution to the problem. I encountered some issues that I had to overcome with the typology due to the fact that I'd been trying to reduce the amount of polygons some edges were causing my edge loops to band together causing pulls in the mesh which I had to fix manually. In the end however I'm happy with overall outcome of the piece as you can see below, I also was able to get the ambient occlusion done this week and worked over the weekend to get an albedo done. My inspiration for the albedo was a gritty Borderlands and overall I don't think it looks too bad, unfortunately however this has put me behind a little as I still have the metal map and roughness map to complete. Thankfully however the week I've left for getting things ready for hand in has allowed me the time to do this work.

Week 25

After getting a reasonably nice bake first time on my pillar last week, I asked Chris what I could do to improve some issues that were appearing on this bake of my normal maps. For example on one of the corners by the base of the statue their appeared to be a black spot appearing, which he explained was an issue with the cage not reaching that corner quiet correctly. I also had some weird lines appearing on the rear of the statue that were due to some poor topology which he said was something that would take some time but isn't impossible to fix. So I looked at what time I had left before we moved on to the next task, the time machine, I really wanted to have a go at unwrapping and baking the low-poly of the Mayan statue I posted on here last week. Yet I assessed what I believed I could get done within the time period we had left for this task and decided it was best to take something I knew was possible and make it the best possible iteration I could. So I spent the next day re-working the topology until I was happy that this was the best I could make it, also going back and seeing these issue's really helped me to get an understanding of how to miss these issues in the future.
              After working all the issues out with the topology and re-aligning the cage I ran this script that essentially hardens all the edges that surround an UV island and soften the inside. After running my first bake for normal maps I soon saw that this was going to cause some issues in places and needed a little bit of adjustment for example where I had run cut down the main the section of the pillar to unwrap it correctly the harden edge was causing it too look like a crease running down this section of the pillar. It was a simple fix, all I had to do was change this particular part of the edge of the UV island to a soften edge to compensate for the issue. After I done this all over the normal maps were coming out really well I couldn't be happier with the outcome of them. I also then ran my ambient occlusion maps through and this just helped emphasis all the details that were somewhat being lost, this really helped my Roman pillar to look realistic. I generally don't think I could have made this particular pillar any better without starting again. Looking back at the amount of time I had left for this part of the project I believe that this was by far the best option. As I think the Mayan pillar would have caused some real issues due to the inspection of the geometry I did before making my decision. After last week's attempt at painting a landscape In colour I've also been giving my characters ago trying to become more diverse with the styles I can do, so below is the beginning of a painting of a Disney inspired character.

Week 23

I began this week by making a silhouette of a Roman Pillar inside Maya this is the most basic form that the pillar can take. I then cut this pillar up into equal quads so that inside of ZBrush the pillar will deform correctly to come out with the correct out come. I then had problems when bringing this object in however as for some reason ZBrush was telling me my object had a face with more than four sides and for the life of me I couldn't see what it was. I then showed Chris the problem the following day and he two couldn't see the problem and said not to worry as when I import it it would have fixed the problem. I then watched some YouTube videos on how to make a good rock texture and what works best. After doing my research I began the destruction of the pillar crafting the rock texture and moving some of the pillar work around inside ZBrush. Once I'd got the work to a place i was happy with I then looked into Alphas for my brushes as I remembered Chris saying how they could really help with the texturing. Once I'd had a play with some cracks I then called It finished.
        After finishing my Roman Pillar I decided I wanted to have a go at a slightly more detailed and complicated design within ZBrush as I now seemed to have a slightly better grasp of what all the functions do within the program. So to start this I made a little collage of Mayan pillars as this was the route I wanted to take I then quickly made up a silhouette of the pillar and divided it equal into quads, i then put this into Zbrush, this time without any problems and began sculpting. For this design I turned on mirroring a lot as most of the Mayan pillar were basically mirrored down with only a few exceptions. I then spent the next couple of days detailing out all the damage working from big to small trying to get as much detail in as possible without it looking over done. After our lecture with Merlin on Thursday I began to think about what would interest me and is something i can relate to make the essay just a little bit more interesting. I decided that the essay I want to do will be based on the desensitization of video games and how that might be related to the real world. In my opinion this ridiculous but I've began looking into articles and gathering research and can see with some of the tests that have been carried out how they could relate to such things. On the final day of the week we had a texture session where we did digital life drawings which was refreshing from the normal life drawing sessions we have as it meant we could experiment with colour as you can see below. After the session I finished up my Mayan pillar with some crack Alphas and called this one done too. I really felt like my progress inside ZBrush has come a long way and can be seen below.

Week 22

After a couple weeks off due to the presentation week and reading week we're back, jumping straight back into it. I started this week with my second programming session where we had a re-cap on the last session where i made a version of pong. This weeks programming session looked at how to use programming with in a 3D programming, the one we looked at was Maya. The programming inside Maya is done using a language called Python an old but very versatile language. Personally I haven't really enjoyed the programming sessions but this is just down to the fact i don't enjoy programming all that much. Yet i can see how impressive the knowledge can inside a program like Maya.
      Tuesday was our first workshop since coming back. This is where we were given the "Pillar Project". Which i basically we can do what ever type of pillar we want we just need to model it and texture it. Chris showed us how to make some basic texture's within ZBrush and how to correctly divide up an polygon so that when in ZBrush the polys are smooth when adding and taking away details. This is fairly daunting to me as I'm not particular great with ZBrush and still don't really understand the program in all honesty. During the session I had a go at making a simple block as shown by Chris with some very simple re-bar which in the long run worked out well. After the session i decided to have a think of some really creative solutions to the task at hand one i came up which I really liked is the quick painting below, the idea being the pillar would be a vintage ticket booth. I really liked the idea but having never really used ZBrush extensively I decided it's probably best to practice and try something a little easier.
       That was exactly what I did I started with some easy squares dividing them up so they sculpt correctly in ZBrush and did some research on YouTube on what brushes give the best results. The next day I then tried something a little more pillar like too see if i could divide that up correctly which seemed to work okay I then tried out this feature within ZBrush where it divides up any separate poly shapes so you can work on one and not all of them. For example with my work I used this feature to separate the re-bar from the concrete outside of the pillar. This is how i got my work to look so broken and decrepit below are some pictures of this pillar this is my first pillar I'm looking to do another and see how that turns out with a more artistic flair over the car park pillar like design below. This week has been fairly productive as I haven't really worked with ZBrush and was another program this unit I have had to learn and get to grips with. When considering where else I wanted to take this project I created the image below of the old fashioned ticket booth, I created this very quickly using my knowledge of Maya and applying it to Photoshop. I quickly made silhouettes using objects created in Maya screen capped the objects silhouette and opened the image in Photoshop and got to work. This was really simple and easy to do and will come in very helpful in the future.

Week 18

This week was focused on looking at baking textures and how we would insert objects into the Unreal Engine 4 (UE4). During the presentation we had lots of videos looking at baking trying to explain how hard and soft edges work, although hard and soft edges were explained well I didn't really realise until getting hands on the next day that the Normal textures are created artificially using a program called Xnormal. After this lecture I returned home looked and doing some more paintings using a new style of tablet I had acquired. I also started looking into some more information to do with our written task.
        The following day we looked at taking a simple cube with smoothing into UE4 using baking and the Xnormal's program. This process showed us also how exactly soft and hard edges work and to cement them, we also looked at how sometimes with a cylinder when extruded can extrude with hard edges which give of a more hexagon atheistic to the new extruded surface but this is easily sorted with the soft edge button that returns this to a more curved and cylinder effect. After cementing the new desired edges which made our cube look like a dice we then made the UV this time taking into account some bleeding and saved a snapshot.
         This was when we booted Xnormals up for the first time this program looks like something pulled straight out of the 1980's with awful icons but does exactly what you would want the program to do and is an industry standard. This program basically does everything for you and all you have to do is put in the mesh and its UV and it'll process and sort it out for you! After getting the normal maps we booted up UE4 for the first time and began looking at how to set up a low poly mesh in UE4 with its high poly maps. This was where the real fun began we started putting metal maps just tinkering within the texture UI making some plastic looking cubes and some metal crate looking cubes too. This really opened my eyes to the possibilities with just simple zeros and ones in the right place creating completely different object entirely.
          After the workshop I meet up with my group and went to the library to rent some books for our presentation and began delegating what we wanted to do who was doing what. We went through quiet a few ideas before coming to our conclusion. We then brainstormed everything we could with our idea and began making notes. This was a very productive session that ended with a good outcome that we hope everyone will like when we present. I then returned home and did some research on the part of the project I was handed and loved every second of it. Especially a book I rented because I have heard such good things 'Masters of Doom'. My research continued into the next day I also looked at some Zbrush tutorials to get brushed up on my hot keys and to get adjusted to the program to some degree, as Chris had mentioned we might be using the program soon.
         Another thing Chris showed us was a different technique which to me looked liked a productive and effective way of modelling from concept art. Which is too pull out a polygon flat square and to have a picture of the concept art in the background as you do so. Below are a few screenshots of the outcomes with some concept art that I admire done by Tyson Murphy a concept artist at Blizzard for 'World of Warcraft'. I really liked this method and could see myself doing this method with my own work.
         On Thursday I tided up some of my 3D work from the day before and we looked at some programing this was the first of our programing lectures and was my first interaction with the process, personally this isn't why I do art and didn't interest me much at all. Yet I see that this could be a great thing to have on a CV when looking to get a job so any extra lessons going I will be attending to broaden my CV and in turn the likely hood of me getting a job. After this lecture I went home and dug deeper into my written project and particularly looking at some of the requirements they have and any information or help on the portfolios.
          On my final day of the week i had a texture session where we looked at photo-manipulation using the RGB channels and blending options in Photoshop. This was an interesting lesson where we learnt how to paint using masks in a non-destructive fashion and the difference between a non-destructive affect and a destructive affect. I also got Kayleigh to help me with my pencil to digital problem which essentially is that I struggle to convert some of drawing style and skill into my digital work. She then proceeded to show me a new way in which to think about each brush and how by using F5 and opening the brush options I can make my brush react something closer to a pencil and how to get the smuggling affect I enjoy heavily in my drawings. I was really happy with the help I got as it really started clicking by the end of the lesson. Yet again this has been a productive week with some really good outcomes that I couldn't be happier with.

Week 15

Christmas week, unfortunately last week I wasn't able to get any work done due to the fact I was working everyday but Christmas day. This week however was different. This week I focused on texturing my cart with wood textures, bringing it up to a level that was better than the basic colour layouts that I left it with last time. I also started and finished my barrel design focusing on lighting design shading from one side to another and emphasising heavily on my wood texture design. Due to the lack of time around my Christmas break I haven't returned to my last barrel design that I created in the workshop but I am looking to return to the design before the hand in of this project.
        First my cart design I am really happy with the outcome of my cart texturing, it isn't finished by any stretch I want to design more of the main body than I have. Yet it being an extra I wanted to do over my Christmas break I'm really happy with the outcome. This has also taught me alt about painting, texture resolution and most importantly UV layouts. Having had to re-do my snapshots on many a time, I have learnt an absolute shed load of information surrounding it. Which I think will be put into true action later in the project when we have to design a more advanced mesh and texture it. If I had more time I would like to have put in a sign, some bread and maybe a leaflet of some description on the table. Overall I think my initial mesh was a success as It was an easy mesh to design but with a complicated aesthetic that lends it's self to games like World of Warcraft and Dota 2.
        All I learnt in the creation of my cart was then put heavily into the design of my barrel as you can see I focused heavily on lighting which helped to make my texture look 3D rather than a 2D surface. I really like the colours that I used focusing hard to use a very select few that work well together. I enjoyed creating my barrel, after finishing the texturing I am really happy with the overall outcome of the brass rings around my barrel and the fact that I went with a top heavy design. Overall I think the barrel was a success and I especially like my cork as I tried hard to replicate the texture of a cork. If I'd had more time I would have like to have made up a tankard to go on top of the barrel along with the gold I've already stacked on top of my barrel.
        I'm also going to include some photo's below of them sitting together as I imagine they would be, when I put them together I saw that really creating something as big as a cart I probably should have increased my texture resolution of 1024x1024. Overall this week has been very productive and I'm quiet happy with the outcomes of my Christmas task.

Week 13

This week lecture was very similar to last weeks one except focusing more now on the side of texturing looking at the difference between normal maps and albedo maps and then looking at some programs we will be using in the future. He focused heavily on albedo mapping this is the texturing map that would have been used in a game like World of Warcraft  where you basically paint all the information in that you will need i.e. the lights and darks of an object. Normal maps however work differently they rely on computer generated lighting to light an object and so the texture map would look rather bland with basic colours and no real information. This week he told us we would be texturing a barrel in the style of a World of Warcraft, Dota 2 and League of legends.
        So that following day that's what we did being the first session of the week that Chris see's we spent a good amount of time building the barrel and unwrapping it where as the other groups would be handed this. After unwrapping the object he showed us a new tool called a UV snapshot which basically takes a screenshot of your UV layout and puts it into a JPEG format that you can then re-open in Photoshop to begin texturing. Unfortunately for this session for some reason my tablets pen pressure wasn't working and so my textures don't look particularly good due to this but it was more about what I had learnt during the lesson that really excited me.
        At the end of this workshop we were given a task to do over the Christmas break which was to create our own barrel and texture it accordingly. When I returned home having learnt my new skills and wanting to put them to use I decided that I wanted to do a "in-game cart" next to my barrel to make more a scene than just a barrel by itself. So I spent the rest of the day looking at references from games like the ones I talked about earlier and building a simple yet effective mesh. I then spent the next day unwrapping this slightly more complicated mesh which was hard to do and really pushed me at times and in the end not everything was unwrapped correctly but it was a great learning experience but everything was unwrapped correctly eventually with probably at least ten iterations where I refined my unwrapping skills. I then got the meshes UV snapshot into Photoshop and began laying down the ground work for the design focusing hard on my Photoshop file arrangement like Chris insisted us to do during the lesson and to work non destructively with masks. By the end of the week my cart had some basic colours and had been unwrapped successfully.
        On that Friday I had my first texturing session with Kayleigh, finally a session that focuses in detail on 2D art in Photoshop something a lot of us  have wanted for a while. I learnt things in this lesson that I didn't know how to do before I'd heard a lot of talk of custom brush presets but I though it was something you downloaded from the internet but she showed us how to make them ourselves. She also brought back my interest in the basic Photoshop brush with all the adjustments you can make using the F5 tab. I worked on a piece of fan art I guess of Bioshock that I have been working on at home in my free time what she showed us helped with the dirt and grime on the dress.
        This week has been productive and has been more of a learning curve than previous weeks unfortunately I wont be posting anything next week as I'm working everyday that week.