Week Summary

This week it was independent study week. On Monday, I continued my Zbrush model.

I started to add more detail to the shoulder pieces. Also, I added the wrist gauntlets. More will be added to the gauntlet’s. As I am still learning Zbrush I am finding new ways to achieve parts of this model. I have been finding it a little difficult to get this model to develop in the last week, I find that sometimes it can take me quite some time to get a part to look right or to be done correctly. I am still learning and I believe the more I continue with the model the more I will know. During the modelling stage for the shoulder pads I was looking through some of the different brush tools as I have only used mostly the dam standard brush, clay build up and move brush, I wanted to experiment with different brushes to gain a suitable style for my model now that I had a full version of the software. While doing so I came across some brushes that had already had sculpted elements such as hard-edged pieces to mechanical looking meshes that you can drag onto the model and edit if you wish to do so. I have seen videos online of others using Zbrush and seeing these clean edge elements in their work and always wondered how they created them, now I know sometimes it is done by using certain brushes. Knowing this it will help me develop my model in a more efficient workflow if used in the correct way. Some areas of the shoulder pads have had added parts like the buttons looking objects. It gives my model a cleaner look than my previous attempts. I also added some small but new elements using this method to the helmet. 

On Wednesday, I did go into the university to help a tutor for the women in games workshop. Coming into the university was a group of college students male and female. During the day, me and others from my year who participated had to guide the students through a series of tasks. The theme for the day was to create a positive female game character. First only a select few from my year gave a presentation of their work from past to present, they spoke of how they improved and what the university has taught them and what they would like to do in the future. After the presentation, we were given a task with our selected students to write down ‘What was wrong with female game characters’. The two students who me and my friend (Olivia) had during the day were confident in their views of the topic, we worked well together and everyone had their say. After this we then had to write down ‘How should female character be different’. Both tasks went well and I did find out how the other student’s perceived female game characters. After we had to do a drawing task of the exquisite corpse game. This is a game I have not played since primary school. In doing this task it made me realise how an idea can come together and how people’s differences in design and style come across. I did discover during this task the students did not feel very confident in their drawing skills because they were looking at how us the year 3 drew. This lower their confidence. Me and Olivia did tell them that the drawings did not have to be polished. 

We continued this task till around 1:30 PM. We then moved on to a fairy-tale brief and drawing session which we all had to draw our representation of a character in the fairy-tale story presented to us. I noticed that one of the students me and Olivia were with they were still not confident in their drawing ability and asked for guidance in which we gave them. Because of this I found that this student did not produce as much work as the other student. Overall both students seemed to be enjoying themselves. At the end of the day we put our work from the day up and it was judged and prizes were given. Also, a tour of the University was given to the college students which I also attended just in case questions arise in which I could help with answering them. It was an enjoyable experience. Something that I would happily do again. It was rewarding to give guidance and help to the younger students and to share my experiences with education and progression, and also hearing how they got into art and why they would like to do a creative course in higher education at a later date. 

On Wednesday night, I continued with my Zbrush model creating the arms of the model. I added armour. I did not get too much done of the model that evening, but it was good to get a nicely detailed area done. To achieve the armour on the arms I used the dam standard brush to add a lot of the detail and the move tool brush to achieve the moulded shape.

On Thursday because I was not at university I had more time to complete some of my model in Zbrush. During this time, I added the chest piece. For this part of the model I was fairly lost with how to achieve this so I had to play around a lot to finally create a piece for the chest. Because I was having problems with the masking and then extracting the masked area, it was doubling the mesh for a reason I did not know. Because of this it took a lot longer to achieve the effect I wanted. After having this problem for a few weeks, I have finally figured out why this was happening. 

The reason why this was happening was because I was masking from the bodysuit which was quite a thin mesh. The mask would then be showing on both sides the front and inside the bodysuit mesh. I only realised this was the reason for my problem by watching a Zbrush how-to video on YouTube about masking. To correct the issue, I had to hold the ctrl key and then go into the brush tab, masking subtab and click the backward facing tab. Such an easy fix which caused my model to take a lot longer than necessary I am pleased that I have finally fixed the issue and learning by the experience. 

On Friday, because the university have won a TIGA award, TIGA came into the university to have a look around and see how the tutors present sessions to the students. Because of this I went to a session that I have not been to before which was to learn how to create a wooden crate in substance designer. This is my first attempt using the software, I wouldn’t say I am very confident using this as it does use nodes similar to UE4 which I did struggle with, as it can become a little overwhelming with a lot of information in front of me at once. I did manage to keep most of the session but during the end I did lose track. I could see if I used this program more and worked at home in my own time using this software, I could end up producing nice textures, it is something I will consider as I always want to learn new skills. 

 This picture shows what I ended up with at the end of the session.