Week Summary

This is the last week of term before we break up for the Christmas. On Monday, I didn’t have any sessions in university but I did go in to see my tutor to help me with posing my model and to lower the poly count. I was in the media labs for quite a long time and didn’t leave till late, but I did finally get my model posed and lowed in polys, thanks to my tutors help. The method I was shown on how to lower the polys of my model was to group selected meshes then duplicate the mesh I wanted then I had to play around by using the zremesher and dyna mesh sub tools. If needed I would edit the settings to keep as much detail as possible but still trying to keep the poly count down. At first my model was around 11/12 million polys in the end the poly count went down to around 5 million. Because of this I could pose the model easier. I chose to pose the model by using the transpose master to temporary bind the mesh to one sub-tool, instead of rigging the model like I was going too I masked areas and used the transforms tools such as move and rotate. I did have to blur the mask so the edge of the masking wasn’t so sharp, if it is too sharp of an edge the model will badly distort. Using this method did take a little while longer to pose but overall, I did manage to get a clean pose by doing it this way. The pose wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it especially with the legs. I had some problem posing the legs because the legs of the model where close to each other anyways so this caused the masking difficult and stretching was a problem which was hard to tidy up. I did find that the arms did not bend well and cause distortion which became difficult to tidy and fix. I would have liked to have had the shield arm raised higher. I still aim to add a mace weapon that the character will hold.  Overall, I did gain more knowledge of the software which will help me in my future projects.

I added this image because I wanted to show that I did quickly pose the built in demo soldier model in Zbrush using the rig method. This was the kind of pose that I was trying to achieve.

On Tuesday, I did have an anatomy workshop session that I did not attend due to icy conditions. I did continue with my character model which I added the mace weapon and posed the hand around the weapon using the same methods for posing such as the mask and transform tools. Because this is a sculpture piece I added the character to a podium, which I edited using the fracture brush and the clay build up brush and others also with alphas to achieve the damaged worn look. To add extra detail, I did decide to add some small rocks to the podium. 

On Wednesday, I went in and saw my specialist tutor for my one-hour session. In this session, I wanted to go over my introduction of my dissertation that I have started so far. Because my introduction was very high in word count roughly 900 I wanted to lower it to a suitable amount. By the end of the session the word count went down to roughly 500 words and some edits were made to the introduction.

Also on Wednesday, I had a lecture in the lecture theatre by one of my tutors. In the lecture, my tutor went over job roles in the games industry from 2D to 3D, and what to expect and tips when it comes to working on projects in the workplace. What was said in the lecture was very useful to know, I believe some things have been mentioned before in previous lectures that I have had in year one and two, but it was good to be reminded. Also on Wednesday I textured my model using the poly paint method in Zbrush. The texture I went with was a brown like marble. Using different alphas with the brush I managed to get effective results showing details such as dark lines and other marks and colours. I did use the masking options such as valley and peaks to gain an effect of depth within the painting and to create some markings/spotting. I set the intensity of the brush high and added a gradient to the brush. Adding a gradient to the brush and selecting my two chosen colours they blend together when painting, this gives the effect given, it worked well. I have used poly paint before in personal and previous project in year two but this was still trial and error. I was happy with the results. Also to add, a noise effect was added to give my model a stone like texture.

 This image shows the first base colour.

This is a close up showing the noise effect and colour.

This image shows a brown marble texture, this is what I was aiming for or trying to achieve for my model.

 This image shows some added details to my model using the poly paint method using alphas.

On Thursday, I went in for my concept art session but no task was given. I did see my tutor and I showed them my project so far and got their opinion on my piece. They did mention about the legs of the piece which I explained that I have had problems with posing this area. I also mentioned that I will be doing a concept piece of the character, a paint over piece. With this piece, I will be able to give the character more personality and an insight of what the character would have been in his world, for example, giving the character colour showing what his armour would have been like etc... Also on Thursday I did follow a tutorial on YouTube showing how to render images of your Z brush model. I did produce a few render shots of my model by using their techniques.

This is the video I used: https://youtu.be/Dj5Ucox1jLs

 

 On Friday, I had one session in the lecture theatre with a tutor in which they went over the dissertation and guidance on the hand in. This session was more of a re-cap session. The session did give good insight in what should be added in the dissertation and how it should be added in the correct format, such as adding an abstract or a table of illustrations which will be beneficial to me as I will be adding illustrations to my dissertation so this was good to know. This is the last session of term and I will be back after Christmas. My model is now completed I will continue with my dissertation to completion. Using the sources, I have gathered and research. I did buy the book ‘How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design Katherine Isbister. This book is an important source for my dissertation I will use this book to gain the relevant information I need. As well as continue my dissertation I will also be continuing my character project by adding a concept piece of the character which I have mentioned before these two tasks are my focus throughout the holiday term. 

Week Summary

This Monday, I focused on my Zbrush model. I aim to get the high poly model completed by this week. Including posing if possible. I did manage to complete the high poly model on Monday night, I added further details to the leg area adding two extra armour plates. I felt like the legs where a little bare and it needed more of a bulk to the legs to flow with the upper part of the body and give the model weight. To do this I used an extracted mesh part of my mesh that was hidden. It was hidden at first as I didn’t want to use it and it was going to deleted. Instead I moulded it into a shape that I wanted and added the information using the dam standard brush and added a drag in mesh part to complete the area. After the mesh was completed I mirrored and welded the mesh to bind it into one sub-tool. This was the outcome; the model was completed in all its detail, I also added in damage marks too, as the model is a old sculpture piece.

On Tuesday, I had my weekly anatomy workshop. In this session, we went back to the big scale model and focused on the legs by adding in the final upper muscles of the legs, and tendons. Only one side of the model needed this as the other will show other areas of the muscles possibly, we were told not to add to both sides. We used a brown wax for the muscles and red for the tendons. 

Also on the Tuesday I went to see my specialist tutor for my hour session. The focus of this session was going over the book I got from the library ‘An introduction to game studies by Frans Mayra’. As this is a source for my report I wanted to go over how to correctly pick areas of the book and put them into my report if necessary. I sometimes feel I go over the top by picking quotes and placing them into my essays and less focused on other methods of placing in research. I wanted to get a clearer understanding on the correct procedures. Also in this session, we went over how to write an introduction. I was given a sheet of paper that put in context what should be added into an introduction. This will be a great help when I start to write my report at the weekend, ready for it to be looked at in my next hour session next week. 

On Wednesday, I was home for a hospital appointment so I did not do any project work, but I did have a quick look over in the book ‘An introduction to game studies by Frans Mayra’. I did have a better look and added post it notes to relevant areas. 

On Thursday, we did not have a concept art session this week, so no task was given. Because of this I stayed home and focused on posing my character model. I had looked at many YouTube tutorials on how to do this correctly, which where helpful but I kept having problems. Because my model is very detailed it as a lot of polys, in total my model has roughly around 11/12 million polys. The method I intended to use to pose my model was using the ‘Transpose master tool’ in which lowers the model to the lowest its sub divisions then you can rig your model using zspheres, which lets you edit the rig using the transform tools such as rotate or move. I used this method as it seems less complicated and gave good results from what I had seen on the videos. When it came to posing my model, and editing the rig and moving and rotating it, it lagged so much. It was possible but the results where hard to judge, it took so long to see a simple arm movement. I knew it was because my model was high in polys even if it lowered it to its lowest poly count, it still was too high. I wasn’t confident in how to correctly lower the sub divisions and keep the high detail, so I emailed my tutor. I did still try some methods on how to do this but nothing seemed to of worked for me. By next week when I get the help I need to pose my model I think my model will be completed by the end of next week. 

Here are some very rough sketches of poses I wanted to put down. I didn't want the pose to be too drastic anyways, so I was planning on going with a pose like number 2,6 or 8.

On Friday, we had a guest lecturer come into the university. His name was ‘Jake Gumbleton’ He is a concept artist, he has many skills in character art to environments pieces even knowledge in 3D but his focus is 2D. He is currently a freelance artist but gets many clients. I always hear stories of freelance workers not getting enough work or money but Jake seems of done well for himself which is good to see. He has worked in many company’s before as well, he has worked in games. He also has written a graphic novel that is still in the works. He gave us some good advice and told us how he started out as a concept artist. He also gave us some good books to consider that helped him to improve and some online web sources that are also beneficial. I will look more in-depth at these and maybe even buy some of the books he has mentioned. 

 

Over the weekend I did manged to write down my introduction for my dissertation by using the information given to me by my feedback from tutors and my specialist tutor that I see in the week. When it comes to writing, because I have some difficulty I tend to write down too much on what I intend to say in the report and this sometimes can become over the top and increase the word count. I have made the introduction a little too long so this will need to be shorten down, I will go over this next week in my one hour session. From there I can then start to write down the main chapters of my report.