Substance Painter - Book

This week we looked into substance painter and the pros to texturing in this software. Substance painter is completely new to me, however, I found this instantly more user friendly compared to the photoshop process. Being able to see each texture build up in both 2D and 3D format simplified the process from me. You start by exporting the existing objects into substance painter, there are lots of materials already provided to texture objects like the one used below. From there settings can be changed to effect the size and scale of the texture, these textures when baked also provide normal maps e.t.c. The gold pattern is added by using a copper like texture and another fill layer textured with the actual design, which is then inverted. This designs height can also be altered to simulate the idea of depth and difference in material. Once all of this is completed it can be exported back into maya, by placing each texture map into the correct inputs. I feel that this process is easier in terms of visualisation and for me personally time saving compared to the alternative methods. The outcome is also of a high quality.   

 

Premise - Developed Sketches

I have worked on developing some different designs for a main character. I have spent some time looking into some Japanese folklore, and some ghost/ creature designs. Studio Ghibli really excels in the mixture of source material and personal style. While I am not working from an existing piece of source material, in terms of style I would like to take the best aspects of all my influences and mix them with my own style. Currently in my designs there is lots of contrast in colour to environment. I am not completely decided on the look that I want to create but after some more sketches the idea should hopefully be more clear. 

Kitbash

Today we took part in a kitbash, the task was to create a robot character out of already given parts in Maya. This was a good way to get thinking about design in a fast pace manor, creating a character in a short amount of time is important as most of the projects we have had so far account a large amount of time for design. This is a much longer period than industry standard so it was interesting to see what could be created out of spare parts in a few hours. 

Final Render

Non- Colour Render 

Premise - Ideas So Far

Starting premise I knew what direction I wanted to go down in terms of content, to create some characters and have a story based narrative. I am not necessarily the strongest when it comes to maya so I want to play to my strengths. I started off with a few quick sketches of some ideas I already had, looking into different examples of animation in the area that I am interested in. After developing some ideas I have decided to go down the more abstract route, having at least one detailed character but the environment and any other characters more basic.

 

The narrative so far is based around the character below and her anxiety's around re-entering the world. The idea is based on the current pandemic and the fear that comes with going back to normal after being away from other people for so long. This world that she sees is bright/ overwhelming and too much to handle all at once. I have looked into Japanese and French animation, as much of the story telling is more abstracted than typical western animation. The ghost like characters in Spirited away have also influenced some ideas around characters that populate this world. 

Jet Pack Jones - Part 3/4

I have developed the model further, including finished rough modelling of the of the overall head structure and shaping round the eye. I have also modelled the mouth the a good point. The actual process of modelling is taking me longer than I anticipated. I want to make sure that I properly intake all the information so I benefit from this process as much as possible, which will help me significantly throughout the next projects.

Mouth Modelled 

Character Design Bible (and Location Design) - Toolkit 2

Location 1

Location 2

Maya Tutorial - Book (Texturing)

 In this class we started preparation for texturing the model below. The image below has been lit with three light attached to a constraint aims. The scene was then rendered out and save as a .exr file.