WEEK 8 TECHNICAL STUDIES ( ANATOMY ADJUSTMENT AND NORMAL MAPS EXPERIMENT )

 My 2nd set of costume was passed to my teammate for retopo while i start working back on my 1st costume.

I receive feedback from hillary that the anatomy of the model have problem and have to be adjusted. Its a problem and time consuming process since i have to readjust all my subtools in zbrush which is also my costumes, and most importantly, i cannot mess up the retopologized geometry.

I also begin working of experiment normal map which is very important to create an illusion for the details of my model for free with lesser render time compared to displacement/bump.Lucky to have masterclasses regarding the exporting and methods for working with normal map.

Sculpted my character outfit with very dense geometry.

Saved the Dense and Low poly geometry into 2 different .obj

Plug into a software called XNormals

Render out the normal map and plug into MIA shader inside maya

The results i get after rendering in mental on the right.(*this experiment was done before I adjusted my character anatomy. )

More normal maps and sculpting to be done for the next week!

WEEK 7 TECHNICAL STUDIES ( SUBSURFACE EXPERIMENT AND 2ND COSTUME SET)

 MIA FAST SKIN test after saturday's masterclass with Elvin. Subsurface scattering experiment.

 Modifying and tweaking face features.

 I send my first set of model for retopo with my teammate and i move on to sculpting my 2nd set of costume where my tvc character is going to wear a swimsuit!

On 2nd set of costume i using a new set of brush made by zbrush professional ryan kingslien for cloth and a few other brushes found on zbrushcentral.

WEEK 6 TECHNICAL STUDIES ( SCULPTING CONTINUES )

This week we have a critique session with Chris. Was critiqued that my sculpt doesnt look good like the concept art and the limbs were abit too short . 

 Have to resculpt all my costume from a scratch including my anatomy...

Reference for modelling anime-ish character. Inspiration models from ZBrush professionals

By Ikedan

Zbrushcentral 3D Artist

By FLCL38

Final fantasy 12

Final Fantasy 7

Drag on Dragoon 3

WEEK 5 TECHNICAL STUDIES ( Beginning Of Sculpting)

This week is the beginning our modelling for our character. I took the role of sculpting/modelling and texturing.The progress is as below.

                                   

First attempt for modelling an actual studio practice assignment with zbrush. The model right now is still very rough as i'm trying to match the concept art chosen .

The character on the right*
                                        

WEEK 4 TECHNICAL STUDIES ( CHARACTER DESIGN)

My group's TVC idea have changed around 4 times from promoting milkshake - > champagne ->Crackers ->Helmet-> Telecom -> To the current one which is Animation Course.

The brainstorming problem we have is we couldnt think of a good way to connect different elements of the TVC idea to our product and to finally how is my team going to execute it since my team have only me and jeff.

And so I came  up with simple storyboard and some sketches while jeff come up with his own sketches and develop his animation course idea.

Some commercial we reference while brainstorming different idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDfW5RmqvWU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51wRSgSPyS8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAX4bju7tAo

Done By Me

Done By Me

Done By Me

Done By Jeffry

This course target audience is otaku and basically its a course that teach them how to build a dream girl of their own.

                                          
  In the end we finalise the designs by using jeffry design since its more would be more appealing toward otaku !

WEEK 2-3 Technical studies (Matte Painting in Maya)

During week3 , i was assigned to do studies of 3D Matte Painting in Maya.

The 2 websites i went to study from was

-http://www.qvolabs.com/maya_camera_projection_basic.html

-http://conceptartandmattepainting.blogspot.sg/

During the research , I found that matte painting is much restricted than i thought.In 3D mattepainting for films , it is basically a combination of camera projection and painting.
My earlier thoughts regarding matte painting was able to use it to cheat the backgroun for 3D films
so there isn't a need to model and texture every single detail that you only need to show for just that
'one' shot. Camera projection is the key to create the illusion to fake a 2D painting into a 3D background. The restriction here is the camera movement. Since it is an illusion , after the camera move to a certain degree of rotation or movement , the illusion will be broken. This is because in real world, there is always perspective and eye level affected human field of vision,so matte painting cannot be use if there is crazy camera movement.

A problem i have with the 2 tutorials i study was
The maya version from the tutorial that the artist did was an old version compared to mine
Which results in some function and tools not appearing in the toolbox.

For example the projection node in the hypershade

Was not available there in Maya 2014. It can only be found under Hypershade - create - utilities - Projection.

Next thing I need for doing projection would be many amount of images which layer together for e.g foreground /mid ground /back ground and the B/W alpha version of it.

LOW QUALITY RENDERING

 HIGH QUALITY RENDERING

                                                                      MENTAL RAY
           I sculpted the image planes according to the shape of my mountains and plane to enable the illusion when the camera moves.

WEEK 3 REFLECTION ( MONTAGES )

MONTAGES is the technique of selecting, editing, and piecing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole. 

It is somewhat like a filler for the show which tell audience a long timeline of story within a short amount of time. Which also one of the part which i feel how most audience would remember a film because many information is included within a montage which quickly build up the storyline for audience to relate to.

It reminds me of the 2009 movie X-Men Origins : Wolverine,when the film show wolverine fighting not in one but four wars right at the opening credits. I also recall of a montage from a film which sylvester stallone directed called Rocky IV which really impacted me alot because of the training and emotions.

                                                   X-Men Origin : Wolverine (2009) 

ROCKY IV (1985)