FINISHED

Well, I handed in the project today.It's been tough but I'm quite happy with the final movie. There's always room for improvement but I'm just glad that the projects didn't end as disappointingly as the last one. I'd like to thank Jared, Alex, Jamie, Dan, Simon and everyone else that helped me. You're help was very much appreciated. Now comes a break, I'm off to play Resi 5!

Render

"Adrian you haven't been the same since you had the kid!"

I AM SURPRISED! The render today actually went smoothly. A bit of lag, here or there and a late day but all went pretty smoothly. What with the fiasco of last term's rendering. There where parts of the day where I thoughts I was being beaten by the computer, but I fought through it just like Rocky...Cue 'Eye of The Tiger'!

Thoughts

I've started rendering today and there's just a few comments that I wanted to make. Firstly I've given up on the canvas texture, I just can't seem to get it right, I've followed tutorials and tried to recreate what Jamie helped me do, but I can't. Ya win some ya lose some. Secondly I've decided to keep the shininess of the blins. I was originally going to take the shine off, as I know it makes everything glimmer and that games don't ideally use blins. But, I really like how it looks, I like the shininess, it makes it look like a varnished wood ornament. Lastly I like the outlines as they are. I've previously played around with outliners, especially with Jamie, but I've never really been too happy with the result. But for some reason, I managed to get it to look OK. So I'm happy. Jared himself said, that you have to know when to say stop and just start rendering the final thing, I think this is now!

Cutler in living colour!

Today was a mixed bag of ups and downs. The main down is that the computer I was on was really laggy. It didn't bother me as much in the morning because it was usable, but by the end of the day it was so bad I thought it had crashed. It would honestly take 40 seconds to select one face, and when you've got soooo many to do, it can be quite infuriatingly. The situation was only remedied when Stewart left to go home and I nabbed his computer. Apart from that everything was okay, I had to tweak Cutler's colours a bit more than Mr X's as the model looked a bit to golden. I used the same way of texturing Mr X, on Cutler. I'm quite happy with the result. I was looking into making the lines more sketchy like Jared said, but I quite like the look of the models. It's time to keep moving forward and hopefully finish the project.

P.S I did do the checker board test, but my Maya at home was being buggy and wouldn't render, I've hopefully remedied the situation so I'll have to post that up!

Big Mr X Colour post!

I've been hard at work today, colouring my character. I spent the weekend creating cylindrical maps and colouring them. I put my colours on top of a washed out canvas texture to give it a smeary effect. Thanks to the help of Dan ShufflyB and Simon I was able to put my textures onto my model. The Blins that I used gave the model of Mr X a slimy fish like quality. Some adjustments were needed here and there but all went well, It just took all day! The textures gave it an almost chestnutty feel. One hiccup was when I tried to put the canvas texture on the model, It just looked like his face had melted AHHHH!. I applied a toon outliner, thinly, and with a more subtle colour scheme than just black. I am quite happy with the way it looks. For once, something went well!

Spontanious combustion!

I was so enraged with maya that I just stared and stared at it. Eventually my model burst into flames... my telekinetic abilities never stop amazing me. Shame it has no positive effect in Maya!

Another play with the toon shader.

Not much more to say with this one. I got annoyed with the bump mapping so I played with the toon shader...it looks bad.

Failure upon failure

Today was an epic failure for me. I had a good discussion with Jared, and Dan showed me how to UV map (which I'm pretty sure I'll screw up!). But the first failure came with the bump mapping. I tried to retrace Jamie's steps but I couldn't remember properly, so instead of looking really cool like when Jamie helped me, it just ended up looking like poo. No, I actually mean this literally looks like poo, instead of canvas. I then tried applying colour to it, but I could only apply one colour, and not a variation.. arrggggh! I then did a test shot with an occlusion which looked OK. Bad Day, Bad Day!

ANother play with the Toon Shader

I was bored whilst sitting in front of Maya so I decided to have another little play with the toon shader. It looked a little better this time around but I'm still gonna try texturing though.

Cutler Model

Today was spent finishing the Cutler model and redying him for texturing. I had to make sure that I combined the vertixes properly, as the hand mucked up when I mirrored the body and it imploded so I had to make sure that I was care full. Next is Mr X and then its full systems go on the texturing. I'm quite happy with the way that the model has turned out. It's not as good as I think it could be, but my limited skills inhibits me.

Smooth..like Shaft!

Over the last few days, I have been refining the models. Seeing as I am ill today (and off work) I decided to do some Maya and post up my progress. I have mainly spent time on both the characters bodies making the details more refined. When you smooth the model, you loose some of the punch of the drawings, so you have to spend a lot of time playing with the vertexes trying to get the model right. Everyone said, and I agreed, that Cutler's legs are too skinny, so I sized them up, and then proportioned his body accordingly. With both of the characters faces, I had a tough time placing the eyeball in the model (just as Jamie predicted). I had to really play around with the eye sockets to get it right. I can't really explain how I did it, it was just playing around with the vertexes. I did do Mr X's body as well, but the computer crashed so I can't show you any images. Lucky I saved before...that's the second saving crisis I've had this project.

Texture test

Today I consulted Jamie on how to texture my characters. He took me through how to UV texture, how to take the snapshots into photoshop and all that. However, I told Jamie that I was thinking of going for a stylistic look of a canvas come to life. We experimented with UV mapping a canvas texture onto the model but it didn't work out that good. Instead Jamie set the canvas texture as a bump map, to which we can apply colour on top of. As well as that Jamie created a smudge effect in photoshop, which we then applied as well. This gave it another dynamic. I also expressed how I wanted the whole thing to be quite bright like Street Fighter 4. Jamie told me that he thinks they use a combination of textures and ambient brightness with a colour on top. We applied this use of ambient glowing onto the model. I then expressed my interest in the toon outliner, which we both played around with. Overall, I am really happy with this look. The toon outliner needs a little more playing with but I can imagine how these models could look in the end...that's if I don't balls it up! Thank you for you help Jamie, it's much appreciated!

Mr X Hand and stuff

Hey guys, Putting the last updates on the rough model of Mr X. I spent a while trying to get his last two fingers correct, this was difficult because they are not separate but joined together by skin. I achieved this by creating a two fingers, then creating a sixth one, deleting the side and merging them together. Using the extrude tool I defined the edges to his waistcoat, his fly and his pocket. I think I'm done in terms of the rough version of this model. I still needs more tweaking.

Big Mr X Update!

I've decided to proceed with the Mr X model, rather than the Snubbs one. I became worried about how Snubbs would move and how I would texture him, so I decided to leave him. The last two days have been pretty productive with the modelling. I've almost completed the rough model of Mr X. Using the same modelling techniques as I used with Cutler, I made Mr X's arms and chest. What you will notice is that he is allot bulkier than Cutler, this is because he is supposed to be more imposing than skinny old Cutler. I want him to be more muscular than Cutler so I spent some time defining his chest and neck muscles. I then spent A while creating his moustache and hair. It was pretty tricky but I think it turned out OK. My own personal achievement was his foot, I just kept extruding things and adding vertexes, but I think it turned out well. Still needs more work though.

An Attempt at Mr X

After the disappointment of modelling Snubbs, I decided to give MrX a try. I basically used the template of Cutler and fiddled around with the vertexes. I made his cheekbones higher and more defined, his forehead and jaw more pronounced, I made his nose bigger and flatter, as well as sloping his head more. I made his eye smaller and changed it's shape. I think I will have to do this with Cutler too, as his eye looks too big. I also noticed that in Street Fighter 4, their characters eyes aren't as big as I have them in my models. Anyway, I'm quite pleased with this model, there is still more work needed. Guys I need to know which one you want to see made ...Snubbs or MrX.

An attempt at Snubbs.

Here is a rough model of Snubbs. I decided to give Snubbs a go as I thought he would be different from Cutler. Unfortunately the result is not that great. The face is yet to be smoothed, but I think the whole thing looks rather amateur, like some really early cgi from the 80's. anyway let me know what you think.