UV Unwrapping 1

UV unwrapping is one of the subjects of animation that I like the least. But I love texturing and working in Photoshop so it is very necessary for me. I have unwrapped plenty of times in the past so I know my way around the UV tools in Maya.

I started with unwrapping the head first of all as it is always the hardest part to do. Automatic mapping I used on the face and then began sewing all the pices back together. 6 pieces I left the head in. The face I did not sew to the head because it will be textured differently as I am painting clothes onto the model and will be two different almost opposite colours. Other pieces include the inside of the nostrils, inside of the mouth the chest and neck. Very little warping of the textures should be found.

Environment Completed

The environment was completed last week as well as the music box. The room its self it 25m x 12.5m x 15m high. I wanted the room to be immense and grand to set the film in a palace yet to look plain so that it can be called nothing more than a storeroom. The mirror is placed on the far wall opposite the doorway. On the Left side of the door are four great columns, and on the left are three arched windows where the source of light will come.

Modelling the environment was very simple, with crating the original mesh, for instance creating one window or coloumn, and simply duplicating and welding the verts together. Normal values have been put onto columns and arches so to make it look smooth and save on poly budget.

This model is for the kib320 project, so the model will be broken up and put back together in Unity. The windows, wall arches, columns and doors can be brought in once and then creating an instance of these models to recreate room. This should save on memory and make it all run faster.

Environment Modelling Continued

The environment is really coming along. So far, I have plotted out all the major elements of the room such as the columns, mirror and various details on the walls. What I have left to do is the windows, Doors and the fill the room with various objects. I'm thinking that because time is an issue that crates may be enough to put into the space. If I have extra time later in the year, I will go back and model out some more objects

Model Completed

I have completed modelling Crayon. In the mean time, I have been learning how to bone and skin the model ready for animating. I'm quite happy with this model as it has good edge flow and below 5000 polys required to put into the game engine. Friday I will begin skinning the model but before that, it will have to be unwrapped.

There were some problems that occured during the modelling process. I started on a model of Crayon before this one and soon found that the edge flow was no good. So I ended up scrapping it and began on this one. Another problem was that Crayon's arms were at a 45 degree angle rather than horizontal which I was then told by my lecturer that having them at this angle can cause problems when trying to use Auto Rig, which is the program that I'll be using to rig the models. After fixing those problems, the model was set to go on to the next stage.

Character Modelling pt 3

With the body completed days ago, I had begun on making the head. I started out by creating a box then from there I have extruded and add lines to the model until it looks to what you see now.

I needed help on how to do this since I don't model faces that often but know that there are certain rules to follow in order to get the face rigs to work correctly. So I have been on youtube and studied various videos and following tutorials on google and animation websites to make sure there were no mistakes.

Character Modelling pt.2

I have continued on modelling for the last few days, rounding out the body and adding more detail to the neck line of the suit and the joints, such as the knees, elbows and shoulders. everything looks nice and square and happy with it so far.

Colour Boards

I have made up a couple of colour boards to give myself an idea of what I want the textures on both the characters and environment to look like. Dark, almost grey scale tones will be used in the film to give a little of a sombre feel to the film. This is not a happy story, so no bright colours will be seen. The environment will have marble textures in order to give the feel that the characters are in a random room of a palace. Veiny marble textures will be made in photoshop. I have found some pretty neat tutorials on how to do this so I will test them some time in the future.

Environment Concept 2

I have researched a bit on the Internet for the environment and found a couple of pics that can show just how large I would like the room to be. I went travelling Europe a year ago and visited the palace of Versailles. And I remember the immensity of the palace chapel with it's high ceilings and great pillars and balcony's. I certainly want the environment to look something like this. I have also found that the dimensions of the chapel to be 25m x 12.5m x 25m, so I will be following these measurements my model.

Environment Concept

I sketched out a few plans of what the I would like the environment to look. I want the film to be set in a palace for the jester to be living in. So a large room with high columns on one side and windows on the other. Crates and other bits'n'bobs will be placed around the room to give the suggestion that this room, although once grand, is now nothing but a storeroom.