Unity project.

As our main assessment we were tasked with creating a grey box level within the unity engine.

I decided to stick closely to the brief, constructing my 'Asylum basement' level out of basic primitive shapes within unity itself, instead of building mesh within Maya and importing it in. I quickly built the blueprint of the first floor of my two level design.

I built along my level in the same order the player would play through, beginning within one of the multiple cell blocks.

I only built and imported the most basic of props within Maya, more to convey to myself what each space was used for as i walked through, using the first person controller as defined by the brief. I also repeatedly played through new areas, using the cameras perspective to judge, and if need be alter the scale of rooms, doors, objects etc within the level.

Once the lower level was completed, i cloned the outer walls and proceeded to make the second floor in much the same way.

Staircase.

Once the general build was in, i reflected upon what i had. At first, i was kind of concerned, hoping to achieve an almost maze like quality to the level, but during its creation, and then backed up by research i realized that that would be unrealistic of an Asylum, and so i decided i would focus more on the atmosphere, lighting and feel of an Asylum to create that depth.

Once the base lighting was in, i then went through and fixed any sloppy building, overlapping surfaces, miss-aligned sections etc.

I baked the lightmaps in, giving a smoother, more polished effect, which combined with the ambient occlusion included within the process, added another dimension to the atmosphere.

Once the level was built, it was just a matter of programming the scripted events, these consisted mainly of locked door/key combinations with the additions of GUI text and different hint messages.

For our Maya assesment, we were provided a 2D image of a temple-like building, and asked to reconstruct it as best we could through Maya.

I began the process by boxing out the basic shapes, and tweaking the proportions and spacing's of the most noticeable features of the building. 

I then textured the basic brickwork and roof tiles with the textures provided, by applying a blinn, switching this to "file" and swapping the textures in, before using either planar mapping or automatic mapping, depending on individual results, to map each face into the UV editor, where i manipulated them over the relevant texture until i was happy. I also used a basic cube, dual selected using shift with the buildings main structure object, and going to 'Mesh > Booleans > Difference, in order to create the window reveals and door reveals, which i then filled with shutters made from primitive cubes and textured using a basic blinn.

The wooden cladding around the central construct was made in a similar way to the shutters, and the pipework around the upper section was made from cylinders, which i extruded, rotated the end face, extruded again, rotated again, and so on.

The final overall model.

From the same angle as the reference image.

And one from the front.

Generally i am quite happy with how this turned out, however i have noticed i stuck to simpler methods of achieving certain aspects of my modelling, where devoting more time into a more complicated procedure in the future would increase the quality of the final object.

In this Maya tutorial i was tasked with modeling, and texturing furniture props.

Starting with the chair i used basic primitive shapes with simple tools such as extrude, align and snap pivot to construct the model.

The table was constructed using similiar techniques, however the second chair introduced me to tools such as the "add curve" tool for the first time.

I then assigned a blinn material to the models, and uploaded the chequers file provided in the exercise files of the tutorial, using the UV editor i manipulated the faces of each model to decrease deformations using these chequers as a guide.

Once all faces were aligned, i swaped out the chequers texture for a basic wood texture.

The final models, with an improved wood texture, worked on in photoshop, aswell as irregularity added into the models in ways such as loosened planks on the table.

A speed painting tutorial from reference.

Starting out from a basic blue background.

Squinting to see only the basic shapes and colors from the reference image, i roughly painted in the mountains in the background.

Using a similiar method, i plotted in the distant treeline, keeping to relatively neutral, pastel-like tones to deliver the feel of range.

This was continued as i built into the mid range of the image, notching up the saturation just a little as i worked closer.

Blocking in simple form and adding highlights.

Final image after adding in the fence in the foreground.

A basic lesson based around the 1,2,3 shading method and the half way to black gradient scale.

Taking the base color's value (top face of the box), you then find half way between it that value and black to find the value of your shaded surface, then half way between these two values for the middle tone.

Gas pump texture

Starting out from the basic model from a previous tutorial, i went into the texturing tab and created a PSD network.

Setting this to include Color, specular and bump.

This transferred three separate groupings within photoshop under those respected titles, ontop of the UV maps created within Maya.

To begin, i added a base coat red over the base layer within the "color" group, saved this, then updated the PSD within Maya.

Using the marquee and gradient tools of photoshop, i created the ridge at the top of the side panels, along with the vents, within the bump layer.

I then used the same method, only via circular marquee and radial gradient to create the rivets and pump holder.

As the rivets, holder, vents and trim look once updated in Maya.

Following this, i masked out areas of the base coat via separate photoshop layers and added the white pannels, the dials text and a base for the rust all in color, aswell as a gradient recession on the dials under the bump layer.

Next i used a textured brush to add rust bubbles, which i then gray scaled into the bump and specular layers.

Then i duplicated the red color group, and replaced the base color with a blue to add variation between the two pumps.

I then repeated this process but with the rust, duplicating the corresponding layers, erasing areas and re-applying the rust texture, simply by hiding the original layer i was able to use the same file, re-saved under another name, to create two variations.

Basic rigging in maya

The skeleton of a simple cylinder using the joint tool.

The same principle applied to the more complex fish model from earlier in the course

I then animated the fins, flippers and tail by setting key frames in order to observe any deformation the movements unintentionally caused elsewhere on the model.

With the deformations identified i used the paint skin weights tool to eliminate these effects.

Finally i manipulated the individual joints of the skeleton to create the animation of my fish swimming across the screen.

2D Anatomy study pt.2 proportions

After learning about the idealized proportion methods of an average human (being based upon the 8 heads high idea) we were instructed to explore both opposite ends of the extremes, essentially creating a fantasy dwarf character (at 4 heads high) and a fantasy elf character (at 9 heads).

I began with laying out the basic frame work for the height of each character side by side, adjusting the height of each characters individual head to keep the proportions correct while maintaining a decent relationship between the two characters.

I then began to rough in the general pose, keeping to the general guidelines but tweaking slightly to allow for the squat, top heavy physique of the muscular dwarf achetype.

Which i then used to plot in the details of the character, from hair and beard, facial features, to clothing.

The same process was followed for his elven companion, however this time the characters physique was elaborated by raising the mid-way crotch height above half way up the overall figure height in order to give the impression of legginess, as well as reducing the shoulder width.

Although i ran out of time, i really enjoyed this exercise and am really happy with the relationships between the proportions of the two characters.

Before i realised i could just hide the dwarf character, the two extremes side by side made drawing the elven character very difficult, as i kept thinking he was WAAAYY off.

Another attempt at the 9 head elf.