Monday 7 September 2015

The Big Recap Super Post

I have decided to start fresh.

My previous blog(s) were very rigid and academic, possibly too much so. I want to make this just a little bit more freeform.
Don’t get me wrong, with this blog I still want to keep my 3D work as the main focus, but sometimes I also want to touch on related subjects just to keep things interesting, and give a little more insight into different ways I am developing or applying my skills. Now that I have graduated I have the freedom to be this flexible… We’ll see if this is a mistake further down the line.

First thing to mention before I get ahead of myself- I recently remade my portfolio on a better site (i.e. the one everyone else uses) so please check it out if you have the time to spare. Criticism is very welcome.

So, since I finished University a couple of months ago a fair bit of my time has been spent playing Wildstar, an MMO with stylised visuals that I first got into just over a year ago. I’m making a point to mention this due to what has ended up being a slight trend in theme with the two projects I’m about to talk about- consider this a disclaimer!

3D Portfolio Project- Wildstar Toaster Resonator

I chose to create an object using this game’s art because I’d never before worked on something so stylised. This is a piece of concept art that I knew was never used in the game as it was part of a public vote and did not win, so I could practice working from a concept without the ability to copy from an existing model.


In addition to all this, the project also became my first foray into using hard-edge modelling techniques in Zbrush, but I started by blocking out the different elements of the design in Max to get the proportions right. Having knowledge of the game presented me with an interesting predicament right off the bat- These kinds of weapon are always taller than they are long, as they are based on shock paddles. I didn’t want to stray from the concept too much though so I tried to settle on a nice looking middle-ground. Another issue was what to do to fill in areas I couldn’t work out from the concept or weren’t physically possible without compromising symmetry. All I could do with this was use my artistic license and improvise on the design. Once I was happy I chamfered the sharp edges and threw it into Zbrush.


For this stage I started with the handle since it needed a lot of work, splitting the piece off to another subtool first. What I found worked best was to sculpt masked areas and then retopologise and make adaptive skins to replace them with smoother shapes. Using polygroups and creasing the edges helped in making curved sections. For details such as the cross-hatched pattern on the handle I used Projection Master, another tool new to me. I see myself using this tool a lot in the future; it has been super handy for drawing in panel lines and embossing shapes.

For some details that were too small to bother with at the start or I’d just plain forgotten, I had to append extra shapes. This included using ZSpheres to draw in the smaller wire at the back of the gun. For this I smoothed out the resulting mesh to get a slightly more blobby, cartoonish feel.


Now that I’m getting comfortable I’ve started work on the front of the weapon. What I’m really finding helpful is the ability to subtract one mesh from another using Dynamesh. It’s much more simple than using the same thing in Max, though I have had some issues cutting out concave shapes, none of which I couldn’t fix. I’ve just recently sculpted the rings on (what I assume are supposed to be) the pancakes. It’s been difficult working out how to deal with spherical shapes in this style, as they theoretically should be blobby and irregular like the rest of the art style but from observation of other hard-edge props from the game they usually are normal. With this in mind the edges of the pancakes are perfectly round but the rings (of sauce? Maple syrup?) I’ve kept irregular as it seemed fitting.

I hope to be able to give more updates on this project soon as I’m very keen to move on to the texturing stage. That’ll be what’ll really make or break the piece.


Side Project- Making a Mechari Head Prop

It’s probably going to seem like I’m writing an awful lot here for just a side project, but there’s a lot to say since I actually started this project over a year ago, just as something different to do in my free time. I was taking a lengthy break from the aforementioned MMO to ensure I wasn’t distracted from my 3D work. I have a particular love for the design of one of the playable races, the Mechari, so at the start of this break I decided it would be fun to start making a wearable version my character’s head as a more unusual fanart tribute and in the future maybe even as part of a costume.

If I wanted the piece to be wearable I had to make a lot of adjustments to the design. After finding model rips of the characters the first step was to put together the different facial elements to match my character, then make sure all the verts were welded- it turned out there were a lot of holes so this step took a surprisingly long time, and that’s without including having to cut and stitch together intersecting pieces. The actual adjusting to fit my head was an interesting process. Getting the shape right actually involved bringing in a self-portrait piece from my second year of uni and then stretching out the back plate of the head to try and fit around the head shape.


The next step was importing the model into a program called Pepakura, making sure the settings preserved the scale. It unwrapped automatically, but of course this was an unusable mess so I had to cut the pieces to be easy to work with myself. Since Pepakura is designed for papercrafts it adds tabs automatically, and is a very simple program to use. It’s not very expensive either so I recommend it.

So with all the pieces printed on thick card, I was all set. I worked on and off the project over my final year at uni, and then rushed to finish the main piece once summer rolled around.

The reason for this is that to reinforce the model you need to use resin, which loses heat if applied in thin coats and therefore needs a decent temperature to cure. From what I’ve done already I’ve had problems with not getting the ratio of hardener right which causes the same problem. It would be helpful if the packaging used actual units so I didn’t have to guess- centimeters per milliliter? Is that cubic centimeters? Centimeters up the container? Centimeters of the line squeezed out of the tube?!


 But that’s more or less as far as I have gotten at this stage, I’ve just made the mandibles so I can coat them too. The real challenge will be coating the inside with a mix of resin and car body filler, and then doing the same to the outside to sand it down. I’ll probably give more updates on this project at a later date, but it’ll depend on how the impending cold weather impacts things. Bring back the heatwaves, I wasn’t done with them.

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This post turned into a bit of an essay but I thought it would be good to start with everything up-to-date. I’m not estimating a schedule for posting as living at home again has proven to slow things down considerably, but I’ll be doing what I can. It’s all about staying positive and continuing to improve!

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