Legacy Work: Uni Outcomes

This post features some of my legacy pieces of work from my university days. I felt that these videos were particularly important to my progress throughout CG art and animation.
The topmost two videos display my Minor and Major project outcomes, whereby I had to devise game assets and an environment using Autodesk Maya and the Adobe Suite (2015).
It was my task to develop a concept from scratch, develop the concept in 2D before creating the assets in 3D. I stumbled across the idea for the Aqua Marines because I was particularly concerned with the contemporary environmental issue of trash vortexs inside the Pacific Ocean. I therefore decided to make a game designed to educate young children of the environmental disaster. The game concept featured a series of animals from the Pacific Ocean who used the various personal attributes to overcome missions to save the environment. (Think ThunderBirds but with live creatures instead of an assortment of machines).

The final video was a small project I undertook to produce some assets based on historic evidence. I chose to design assets from the battle of Arnhem WW2. This was an excellent project which introduced me to the notion of LODs and correct UV texturing processes for games. It was also really nice to learn about the sacrifices of the soldiers and to build something important and meaningful to our history.

I hope you enjoy these legacy videos, it's a pleasure to share some of my professional past with you all.

Bourbon: Texture Modification

Before I jumped into rigging I wanted to make some basic texture changes to my character, Bourbon. For starters the blue and yellow/cream fur diffuse was too punchy and bold. I opted to a paler shade of yellow and a still strong copper brown colour as I still wanted my character to reflect a stylised approach rather than realism. I also made some adjustments to the Nut texture on the helmet and pads. I'm fairly happy with his overall look now, although I think I will come in and tweak textures between the rigging process (the carrots for example could do with an SSS2 MTL and I would also like to add a logo to the chest plate). 

Fig.1 Bourbons fresh new colour range. 

Fig.2 The Raw output of the Complete Map 

Fig.2 displays a simple 'length map' for the VRay fur, which utilises monotones to determine a the length of a hair on the basis of 0-100% (black to white value). To produce such a map I used the 'render to texture' tool and rendered a complete map, placing a VRay Dirt MTL into the diffuse channel of a  100% self illuminated white standard 3DS Max shader. I then had to analyse the complete map and paint over a few sections (such as the nose) where I knew no hair would exist. The VRay dirt basically allowed me to bake an ambient occlusion channel across Bourbons UV texture space, meaning objects such as the bag straps and the military vest which previously were penetrated by the hair were now being shortened to a degree in which they were no longer. 

Bourbon: VRay_Fur and Block Texturing

After getting Bourbon modelled I've gone straight into UV/ Block texturing.The textures I have used so far are by no means the final look but a place holder for me to think upon before I come to the final render. 

To make Bourbon look more bunny like and friendly I've also used the VRay fur modifier. Whereby I toggled with the thickness and length until happy and also added an opacity map onto the chest and nose so that those details weren't occluded. 

Fig.1: VRay Fur Base

Fig.2 VRay Fur Toggling Presets 

Fig.3 Texture Blocking

Fig.4: Texture Blocking (Rear)

Fig.5 Texture Blocking Complete

Bourbon_Modelling Complete

It's been a while since I last posted, understandably the Christmas period is extremely busy with work. However bit by bit I've finally, finally managed to get Bourbon modelled!
I'm very happy with the progress, this is my first attempt at modelling a character inside Max and I managed it all without the aid of a single tutorial.
I'll be making a bunny gun for the little soldier too, (which shoots carrots, of course) but the next step is going to be looking into UV'ing and rigging him which as far as I can see looks completely different from what I'm used to in Maya. Game on!

Fig.1 Bourbon Mesh Front

Fig.2 Bourbon Mesh Rear

Bourbon_Modelling

Just a quick update of my WIP so far. Bourbon is well under way, I'll just have to model all the extra little details now! On a side note I'm really liking the EdgeTex wireframe shader map in VRay.

Fig.1

Fig.2

Fig.3

Fig.4

Fig.5

Bourbon: Character Orthographic Sketches

From one project and onto the next. I've finished my tank and started to get to work on a very different project of producing a cool CG character, Bourbon the Bunny. I had this idea for quite a while but sadly I never got to develop it through out my time at university. Nevertheless I've come back to it now and I will be working on him during my down time. The aim of this project is to take something from nothing all the way until completion. Moving through the rigging/ texturing/ uving/ modelling processes one after each other (whereas my most recent projects in Max have been aimed at developing certain sections of my skill set). I'm very excited to start modelling Bourbon and start to translate the rest of my knowledge in Maya to 3DS Max. Without further a do here are the orthographic sketches I decided to draw by hand. 

Fig.1 Front Orthographic.

Fig.2 Side Orthographic

University Major Project: Outcome

Overview:

This blog pretty much kicks off from where Uni finished. This was the climax of my studies, my major project, which again focused on creating a series of Games characters and environment using Autodesk Maya, After effects and Photoshop. 

This project required me to think about the design of my characters and their target audience as well as pushing forwards  my existing knowledge of a CG games pipeline (see the attached document for a detailed understanding of my various procedures and decisions in the progression of this project).  

The aim of this project was to:

a) develop five coherent characters with a complete character profile.

b) Out of those five, chose the strongest three to develop into 3D characters (along the games pipeline as detailed). 

c)To then develop am environment around the characters in which they would be able to perform. 

d) Create a turnaround for the characters and an animation which displays how the game may work. 

e) develop rules for the game. 

f) establish branding for the game which reflects the characters style. 

See what I came up with...

Fig.1 Nipper the Crab

Fig.2 Patch the Turtle

Fig.3 Woo-Zee the Whale

The Art of the Aqua Marines: Major Submission. by shanmason93