Sunday, 17 December 2017

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. 





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