Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
22nd May 2013

I took my test renders to my lectuer to see if they needed ajusting, he suggested a number of points that I would need to change. He is happy with the model but said the textures were letting it down and I agree. The textures on the gloves definitely need changing or touching up in Photoshop. The texture on the helmet also needs to change. He also said the chainmail looked a bit big and that I need to include a background which he has said before.  

He said add the background and use Depth of Field which I have used before.

I have built a background in Maya for the Knight to stand in, I have touched up the texture on the helmet and on the gloves. I have set up depth of field and will be rendering it through the night to get it done, but I have done a few test renders.

I think adding the background alone has made a huge difference already and the Depth of Field should make it look even better, its has taken many hours to get the render settings right but hopefully the image should look as good as I hope. I'm using Mental Ray to render it.

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
15th/16th May 2013

My Knight is now fully textured and I am really happy with the way the chainmail has turned out.



The gloves still need re-texturing because they look flat. The tunic looks good, maybe I need to add some dirt to the texture but I'll do it at a later date. My lecturer has suggested that I should add a background in Photoshop and I agree, my last character had no background just the horizon line and it looked boring. He suggested putting the knight in an archway and told me to look at this image for ideas.


. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://pic.leech.it/i/6a591/4ff74179masteringm.jpg. [Accessed 22 May 2013]. 

The Knight's armour is now rigged, I have not used Ncloth because I couldn't get it to work and it has really frustrated me because I don't understand why. But the model is rigged and I have put it into a pose.

This is the pose I want to go for, this pose with a background will look good and I can't wait to get my final renders finished and see what they look like. I did try other poses but this is my favourite, my rigging isn't that bad apart from on the elbow joints and the fingers. It really doesn't look natural but I don't have alot of time to do much about it.

The final image will probably need touching up in Photoshop, like darkening the visor so you cant see the head inside. The texture on the sword is a bit streched but I'm not to worried about it, I need to see what my lectuer thinks and then I will begin final renders.

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
1st/2nd May 2013

I have named all the joints on the rigged and skinned it to the mesh, the mesh move fine apart form on the elbow joints. When the rig is oriented it doesn't bend properly and looks quite horrific, if I have time I will try to sort it out. 

I have made a texture for the chainmail in Photoshop and bump mapped in Crazybump, I have rushed it and just pasted an imaged of chainmail over the UVs but it still looks good.

 When the chainmail is rendered it should look 3D, I did do a test render on the sleave and the texture works quite well. I still need to do a few tweaks with the lighting but I will worry about that on the main renders.

The problem I am having at the moment is moving the armour with the rig, is just won't work. My idea was to make the body mesh (which is rigged) collidable with the Ncloth materials, I tested it a week ago and it worked. Now when I apply Ncloth to the meshs it doesn't work and I cant figure out why, if this doesn't work I will try parenting the armour to the joints.

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
24th/25th April 2013

I have created the sword and axe and a shield. I spent some time on the sword adding bits to the hilt to make it look unique, the axe is just something I modelled from a picture and I made the shield in about a minute.

The last thing to do is unwrap the weapons and shield and then texture them in Mudbox, with the sword and axe I will be adding more detail to them and the paint on top of them. Texturing them should not take to long, I have about 3 and a half weeks left to finish the Knight and get it rendered. Once the weapons are taken care of the chainmail will be taken care of. I will use an image of chainmail and make a normal map then apply it to the Knight in Maya.

I have completed the gloves, the texture does look a bit flat and some people are confusing the gloves with hands which is quite embrassing, I will be redoing the texture. I have made a test rig for the Knight, I have not made a full rig before so making a test rig was the best way forward. 

The rig was simple enough to make and I will be using this rig to skin the Knight, I still have to name all the joints so I don't get confused when painting on the influence of each joint to the mesh.  

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
17th/18th April 2013

I have been playing around with the plugin Ncloth, its quite simple to use and it basically animates the cloth for you. I have made a flag and put a wind field next to it and the flag looks like its being hit by the wind. I have also applied Ncloth to the tunic and that acts like fabric, I am still amazed how simple the tool is to use and I will be using it for my final renders.  

I have also made chainmail sleaves and textured them in Mudbox but I am not happy with it. The chainmail looks flat, I spent a lot of time trying to get it to look right in Mudbox but its looks flat and its strenched in some places. I have used Roadkill UV to unwrap all my meshs for the Knight, this program increases your workflow and I will be using it for everything. Unwrapping has never been one of my strong points so this program really helps. 

For the chainmail I will have to use a bump map, I may redo the texture in Photoshop and then use Crazybump to make a normal map. I have also created a mesh for the legs as aswell, I have found a preset on Ncloth called chainmail which will be most useful.

I still need to make the weapons and then to unwrap them, the weapons are a major part of the Knight so I will be creating them shortly, the only other thing I need to do is rig the Knight so it can be put into a pose. One thing that has been on my mind is how to get the armour to move with the rig, I have been told to can parent each part of the armour to each part of the rig, I test this once the Knight has been rigged.  

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
10th/11th April 2013


I have completed the Helmet, I have added a lot of detail to it in Mudbox and textured it. The polygon count is quite high but I am not worring about polygon limits, but it will affect how much 3D I can do in college since the Imacs can only handle low poly models. 

  
I am quite happy with the helmet, I have also completed the tunic for the Knight, it is a blue and black texture and it does look like fabric.  

I made the texture in Mudbox, I used a fabric texture the create a stencil so I could paint on the fabric. The upper tunic mesh was made from the body and the lower tunic I made from a box. My lecturer has told me about this plugin called Ncloth which could really help me with the movement of the fabric. 
I still need to make the weapons for the knight, a claymore sword and an axe is what I have in mind and I may include a shield. But the next mesh I want to create is the chainmail, I can see that being an issue.

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
27th/28th March 2013

Today and for the past week I have been concentrating on development sketches. From what I have been researching I have been taking a lot of reference from history, as I have said before I did want to create something that was completely fantasy but obviously I have changed my mind. I'm not sure why I have shifted from the fantasy theme, a lot of the armour I have looked at does seem unrealistic and the armour from the 1500's - 1600's is more believable. I have looked at armour from the 1100's when the French Crusades were taking place. Knights and Soldiers at the time wore a tunic over their chainmail armour. This is the type of style I have decided to go for and I have drawn it in my sketch book.

I have also drawn other ideas for armour as well, I have drawn some armour from a game called Dark Souls which is a game set in a fantasy world but has a vareity of armour sets which look medieval. Other sources I have drawn from include Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, I have taken screenshots from in the game to sketch from. I have also drawn some of Durer's work - Knight, Death and the Devil, St.George on Horseback and St.George on foot. 

I have almost completed my final design, my lecturer has advised to add colour to my drawings but every time I add colour to anything I draw I do end up ruining it.

Next week I should be starting my 3D models, I'm yet to figure out how I am going to do the chainmail, for rendering sake I may just normal map it on or paint it in Mudbox.

The Helmet will be the first thing I do, I believe this to be one of the hardest parts to model so getting that out the way will be the first step forward and then I'll add detail in Mudbox.

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
20th/21st March 2013

My lecturer has shown me two artists that could help me a great deal - Albrecht Durer and Albrecht Altdorfer. These two artists were operating 1400s - 1500s and were both German. Both artists drew Knights and battles, Durer even drew a bit of fantasy - 

Knight, Death and the Devil -

Knight, Death and the Devil by Albrecht D� ArtinthePicture.com. 2013. Knight, Death and the Devil by Albrecht D� ArtinthePicture.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.artinthepicture.com/paintings/Albrecht_Durer/Knight-Death-and-the-Devil/. [Accessed 21 May 2013].   

Altdorfer created a large painting called The Battle of Issues 
  

These two paintings are very inspiring and I have included them in my research. I will begin development sketchs as soon as possible and i'll definatly be using some of Durer's work to infulence my sketchs.  

Many of the images I have looked at and used are concept images taken from games like Guildwars 2 and Warhammer. I have compared some of the Warhammer images to Altdorfer's Battle Of Issues and they are very similar to say the least. Alot of the banners look the same, some of the soldiers and even the sky. Even though some of the Warhammer images have their own style I believe Altdorfer was an inspiration to some of the Warhammer artists.

Other areas I have been looking at for research are games and films. I have found Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven very helpful, the way the Knights and Soldiers are dressed in the film look really authentic. I have also looked into a game called Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, all the armour and weapons in the game are historically accurate even though the environments are of fantasy. With these two films and games in mind, I already want to move away from fantasy and make my Knight look historically accurate.  

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
13th/14th March 2013

Today I have pitched my ideas to my lecturer and explained which idea I want proceed with, Character Design. I have given it a lot of thought and I would like to create another character, even though my last project was a Gladiator character I feel I gain more from creating another one.

My idea is to create a Knight, the theme I'm going with is fantasy so I can have a bit of room with creativity. On my last project I had to create a character that was historically accurate, I don't want to get tied down to something like that but I will be taking reference from history. 

I've been given the task of collecting another 50 images of characters, I will be concentrating on characters in armour. I've not even decided if the character will be human yet, I will see what inspires me.

The next step after this research is to begin development sketches, I have also managed to get into some life drawing classes to help with my drawing in general. 

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway   
6th/7th March 2013


This lesson I have begun collecting images for my research, I am collecting 50 images in total, 10 for each idea. I already have in mind what I want to create for my FMP but this research is a good way of confiming my idea. 

The five ideas I have come up with are Weapon Design, Vehicle Design, Environment Design, Architectural Visualisation and Character Design. I will gather the images and place them in a sketch book with annotation. I will then pitch 3 ideas to my lecturer and explain which one I think will be the best to do. 

Once the sketchbook is annoated I will then collect another 50 images for research on what idea I will be proceeding with. At the moment I want to do environment design or character design, these ideas are my favourite areas in games design. Another reason I want to do character design is beacuse I want to include a rig, I have not done any rigging on this course and I would like to learn how to do it.

Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
27th/28th February 2013    

27th

The first lesson we created a Powerpoint Presentation to consider options for the end of year project. The Powerpoint had to include seven slides -

-  Slide 1 included What I hoped to gain from the end of year Project and why.

- Slide 2 identified five existing skills I would like to develop and five skills I hoped to gain as part of the project.

- Slide 3 showed areas of research I would have to investigate to meet skill expectations, like looking into industries.

- Slide 4 was Academic research, this research included three different types of sources books, magazines and internet. At least five texts, four magazines and three internet sources.  

- Slide 5 showed five specific sources.

- Slide 6 was about resources i would need to complete the module.

- Slide 7 was my ideas.  

The first slide I explained that I wanted to bulk up my portfolio, with interviews coming and currently putting together my portfolio I wished I had more work. This project is a good opportunity to get more high standard pieces of work in there.

The second slide I explained five skills I wanted to develop which was modeling, texturing, Photoshop skills, Rendering and lighting. The reason why I picked these areas because they all could do with improvement. My modeling has improved significantly since I started this course but my models need to be polygon clean, my last character I created was actually quite clean I just need to be more consistent. My texturing is terrible, definatly needs improvement above all else. Photoshop goes hand in had with texturing, my skills do need improving but I do know how to use it. I need more experience in rendering and lighting, so far I have been lucky with my renders and lighting.

The skills I hoped to gain was Sculpting, Normal/Displacement mapping. I've recently started using Mudbox which I have mentioned before and I do really enjoy using it. I have already made a few models in Mudbox and I want to use with this project. I tried creating normal and displacement maps during my last project and I could not get them to work. I created them in Mudbox and transferred it over to Maya but they failed. I may try and do it again during this project.  

The third slide was identifying areas of research I will be looking into. I included games industry, the reason being I may be linking this project to games, I also decided to include films, I like the high poly models and the detail which is another possible idea for this project. Architectural visualization is another area I could look into, i've done it before and I quite enjoyed it, this would give me the best opportunity to improve my rendering and lighting skills.  

The fourth slide I included texts, magazines and internet sources.

Books -

•Photoshop for 3D Artists: Volume 1

•Digital Modeling -William Vaughan, 2012. Digital Modeling. 1 Edition. New Riders. -0321700899

•Game Character Development: Digital Sculpting for the Realtime Artist

•The Game Artists Guide to Maya  

•Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques for Artists Mike de la Flor, 2010. Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques for Artists. 1 Edition. Focal Press. – 978-0-240-81203-8  

•Character Modeling - , 2005. Character Modeling: Digital Artists Master Class. Edition. Ballistic Publishing. - 1921002115

•Character Modeling 2 - , 2010. d'artiste Character Modeling 2: Digital Artists Master Class. Edition. Ballistic Publishing. – 1921002352 

•Character Design - Gonzalo Ordonez Arias, 2011. D'artiste Character Design: Digital Artists Master Class. 1 Edition. Ballistic Publishing. 1921002913      

The first book is about Photoshop for 3D artists, I picked this book to basically help me with improving

my Photoshop skills. I chose Digital Modeling because to help improve my modeling the same reason a

applies to The Game Artists Guide to Maya and Character Modeling 1 and 2. Game Character

Development and Character Design are to help me with developing ideas for creating characters, 

character design is also an area I am looking at the do on this project. And finally Digital Sculpting with 

Mudbox, I have only looked at one book about Mudbox and it gave me great help in understanding on 

how to use Mudbox. Reading another book on the program will hopefully advance my skills.     

One point that was picked up on was that I had no theory, all the books are tutorials but I do have a 

book on New Media which has a chapter on photorealism and explains the theory behind it. 

Magazines -   

3D World 

Edge 

3D Artist 

All three magazines are similar especially 3D World and 3D Artist, Edge is more games focused but 

will still be helpful as they look into the industry in depth. 3D Artist and 3D World are great for 3D 

techniques and tutorials in 3D, they cover a variety of 3D programs like Autodesk Maya.   

Internet Sources -  

—Its Art - IT'S ART - Your CG source of inspiration and learning. 2013. IT'S ART - Your CG source of inspiration and learning. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.itsartmag.com/. [Accessed 27 February 2013].

—Concept Art World - Concept Art World . 2013. Concept Art World . [ONLINE] Available at:http://conceptartworld.com/. [Accessed 27 February 2013].

—3D world - 3D World - The Magazine for 3D Artists. 2013. 3D World - The Magazine for 3D Artists. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.3dworldmag.com/. [Accessed 27 February 2013].

Its Art is a great website for inspiration, they show a large amount of artists showreels and tutorials 

which would help me with anything I wanted to do in 3D and character design. It would also give me a 

standard to aim at. Concept Art World is a gallery full of concept art all relating to games. films and 

adverts. It has some really inspiring work on there, and a great website to gain inspiration.      

 

Exploring speicalist pathway 2 
6th February 2013  

The helmet is unwrapped all i need to do is texture it, still no luck with the displacement map, so I might forget about it and use the base texture.  

This texture looked good in Mudbox with the other layers but i'm not too sure how it will look in Maya, hopefully not too bad. I am running out of time, I still need to do my evaluation and im not sure if i'm going to have time to rig my character.

Exploring Specialist Pathway 2

31st January 2013   

I have fully textured the shield and weapon for my character, the shield looks good but the sword looks like its straight out of a PS1 game which Neil quickly pointed out. The unwrap for the shield looks good but the sword could be better.   

Im starting to add all the files together as they are being textured, i also need to texture the helmet and i'm running out of time, it'll be the next model i'll do and i still need to get the displacement map to work. I do have a basic texture but its a backup. 

Exploring Specialist Pathway 2  

30th January 2013 

I have extracted the displacement map at home, it wasn't as simple as I thought, I have gone through the process 5-6 times and it does not work. Extracting the texture maps was not the hard part, getting to work in Maya is unbelievably annoying.  

  The displacement map looks like its worked, the normal map is no where to be found and applying it in Maya make the character look really bad, all the muscles look like they have inflated. For now I have gone back to unwrapping the other assets for the character.  

Exploring Specialist Pathway 2 
21st Janurary 2013   

At home I have taken my model into Mudbox and sculpted in details following a tutorial in a book i got from the library - Digital Sculpting with Mudbox. It has a very good section on sculpting a character and has pages of information on anatomy which will be useful for sketches.  

 

I have sculpted, textured and bump mapped the Mudbox model, I am really happy with the end result of the model. I have read into getting the detail into Maya and I need to extract a displacement map, it looks pretty simple, and there is a tutorial on how to do it in this book, but from past experience nothing is as simple as it seems in 3D.

Flor, Mongeon, M D L F, B, 2010. Digital Sculpting with Mudbox. 1st ed. United States of America: Focal Press.

Exploring Specialist Pathway 2     
14th January 2013 

I haven't taken my model into Mudbox yet, I looked into to models from Maya to Mudbox and they need to be unwrapped because texturing in Mudbox relies on UV coordinates to add the colour. I went back to my base mesh and unwrapped it. Instead of Unwrapping it in Maya I sued a program I found on the internet that makes unwrapping a faster process. 

The program is called Roadkill UV, you load your model in and start cutting edges in the model. I looked at a tutoruial before I used the program - ( http://vimeo.com/6902104 )    

This program is really useful and I will be using it when I can, it can get frustrating at times as it is a bit glitchy. The program can be found on this website - ( http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm ).   

RoadKill UV Tutorial on Vimeo. 2013. RoadKill UV Tutorial on Vimeo. [ONLINE] Available at: http://vimeo.com/6902104. [Accessed 07 February 2013].  

pullin shapes - Roadkill UV Tool. 2013. pullin shapes - Roadkill UV Tool. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm. [Accessed 07 February 2013].

Exploring Specialist Pathway 2    
9th January 2013 

I have finished the base mesh of my character, it doesn't look to bad and i'm happy with it. I have been teaching myself how to use Autodesk Mudbox and I am thinking of sculpting some of the detail in Mudbox and then taking back into Maya as a texture. I need to look into how it works, as far as I know you can create normal maps in Mudbox which would be perfect for Maya.

When I had finished model my classmate Calum had showed me his, he followed the same tutorial but he had done more to his model. He added in edge loops across the chest, around the shoulder, the back, knees and elbows to stop stretching when the character is animated. So I went back to my model and did the same thing, and it has improved it quite a bit from what it was.  

The model is now ready to be taken into Mudbox, I have done a tutorial to get used to the program, find out what each of the core tools do. The tutorial is really helpful and I learn quite a from it, next step i'll do is take my character into Mudbox and start sculpting in the details.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRYMCyshLQo )    

Getting Started with Mudbox Tutorial - YouTube. 2013. Getting Started with Mudbox Tutorial - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRYMCyshLQo. [Accessed 07 February 2013].

Exploring Specialist Pathway 2  
12th December 2012

I have begun to create my character following and tutorial I found on Youtube.  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLkY6U6Jh14 )    

Using the image planes I built up the model, only modeling half of it to save time. I got to the basic shape that I wanted before the lesson ended but the model is nowhere near done. The edge loops are relatively straight and does not look a mess at all, but I can see once the model gets more complicated I will struggle trying to keep it clean.

I went back to the Murmillo helmet and improved it, it looked to thick so using the soft selection tool I drew in the bottom half of the helmet to make it more helmet like. Once i've finished the base mesh of the character and can then properly size up the helmet. It would have been a better idea to model the character first and then the helmet but it shouldn't really be a problem.

Character Base Mesh Part 1 of 2 - YouTube. 2013. Character Base Mesh Part 1 of 2 - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLkY6U6Jh14. [Accessed 07 February 2013].

Thursday 6th December 2012   
Exploring Specialist Pathway 2  

Today I had a light day of unwrapping and texturing a shield, I unwrapped and then applied the number checkerboard texture to check for any issues like stretching. Fortunately I unwrapped the model without any problems and applied the shield texture that I found on CG Textures. 

I used the number checkerboard because my tutor recommended using it and it is a lot more effective than using the black and white checkerboard, it shows up stretching a lot more clearly. I will be using it for every model I make as I unwrap to make my workflow proceed a lot more smoothly.