Character Modeling Update

Just a quick update.  Week 8 and we are finishing up our characters with some costume modeling.  I really like this process, rather than modeling in the wrinkles in with Zbrush the workflow we are using is to create a slightly lower resolution control mesh which has NCloth (Maya tool) dynamics applied to it allowing you to simulate real cloth folds.  What this means is that once you have modeled the fabric geometry you can make your cloth fold realistically.  The character I am working on is wearing tights but I wanted to try out this workflow on the trousers first since its one of the easier pieces of clothing.  The far left image is the trousers with the denim preset (and a little tweaking) the far right image is a simulation of what would happen if your pants suddenly turned to honey... :p Maya is awesome I've always wondered what that would look like!

Gnomon_Update

So its been a while since I last posted and I thought it would be a good time to do a general update on how my Environment and Character modeling courses are going.

So above we have a very cool (imho) looking gun for my pirate character.  I have been finding myself with a little free time after completing my Zbrush sculpting homework for this course so I thought I would get on top of modeling some of the hard surface props she is going to have by the end.  :)  I approached this model in a slightly different way, by building each of the components piece by piece I was able to keep the very refined detail without running excess loops all around the model.  I think if this was going to go into a game engine I would have to retopoligise the mesh but I am planning to do that anyway after I have sculpted in the ornamental detail you can just about see from the concept art behind (not mine from Pintrest)

This is the first stage of my block out for my environment modeling final.  I found a great piece of concept art from Feng Zhu's website check it out there is so much amazing work on display there!  The camera angle was soooo hard, Jen gave me some help but in the end the shot cam has a FOV of like 12 (normal camera is 35) that's very fish eye lens.  I finally got the camera to look right and the rest was pretty easy :) Looking forward to starting the next stage tomorrow

Lastly this is the most recent version of my female sculpt.  Sculpting in the muscle definition was very easy when the underling topology is already there but Jen and I took a trip to the V&A in London just to check out some nice sculpture to help out.  I was previously having a little trouble with the forearm muscles (those things are twisty!!) but after the trip and getting to see some beautiful Greek mythological sculpture I think I got a better grasp of how it all works. Next stage is to sculpt in some skin pore and wrinkle detail and then apply that to the base mesh in Maya with displacement mapping.  Kevin also taught us how to set up a very cool shader that allows for variation in displacement or bump detail.  The example he gave resulted in his human male sculpt being able to animate between smooth skin and bulging veins!! it might sound a little complex if you have never done this before but seeing it in action was so cool!! cant wait to try it out for myself!

Gnomon_EnvironmentModeling Week 04

So my pillar came out pretty well using the Zbrush decimating and uv mapping tools.  It was really fun to try out proxy rendering which worked out well but I was using it for hero props for my last image where I think it would have been better to either use a different technique or more complex proxy shapes that better reflected the silhouette of the model.  It was still a very cool technique to learn though and I will definitely be using it in the future.  I decided to try out the same techniques we learned in class on a more complex model too.  I wasn't able to get Zbrush to retolopogise the high poly mesh without leaving big holes destroying the wings and fingers.  So I used TopoGun to build the low poly mesh instead.  The normal maps worked well and I am getting used to Maya 2016's new hypershade... :p another fun week, looking forward to next class since we will be starting on our finals :D