Dinobird: Sorting Out UV's

Today I have had a lot of issues with Mudbox starting from the retopology tools not working (I would select a target poly count etc and Mudbox would process the retopology process however the end result would very clearly not be retopologised as the poly count and layout would remain identical as though it had just been duplicated. I also had issues with importing UV's not replacing the Mudbox generated UV's, this appears to be due to a slight UV overlap which has since been fixed however the version of Mudbox on the university machines still has issues with retopology and I still can't access the mudbox community or use the image browser so I will be doing the majority of texture painting using my copy of Mudbox 2015.

In Roadkill I cut out the UV's and adjusted them so all were selected

In Maya I then relaxed and used 'layout' so the UV's fit the UV space more effectively

Painted in some flat base textures, when I can use the image browser I will be able to get a better effect

Dinobird: Detail update

Added more detail to the model by adding feathers by creating a stamp using the image below.

I also edited the eye to look more like a reptile using the following image for reference

Dinobird Progress

 

 

I have been looking at the structure of wings such as where the bones are, the arangement of the feathers and how the feathers sit when the wings are in different poses such as being folded. The bottom image is particulary helpful as it outlines the base shape required in the geometry and shows where overlaps are on a folded wing which will be the pose of my model. I may redo the wings in a way that would allow me to animate them to realistically relfect the folds of a birds wings since this would be an interesting study of anatomy and would be good practice for making game ready models.

 

Today I altered the geometry to match the reference images better, I will need to find a feather stamp to add the details of the feather in, alternatively I could create my own feather stamp in Photoshop however I will need to watch some tutorials first to ensure less mistakes.

Dare to be Digital

Over the previous week I have been working on concepts for my team - The Toasted Wellingtons Dare to be Digital pitch

Promo art

Possible enemy. Chose the king vulture as it is from South America and is depicted in ancient Mayan art

 Here is our pitch video: http://youtu.be/mJYJP_vupas

Dinobird

Been struggling with the model of the house so I've decided to take a break and do a Mudbox sculpt of a creature. As I did a camel last time I thought I'd try something different and make something from my imagination. I thought I'd make something avian so started with the Mudbox T-Rex model, removed its arms in Maya and bridged the gaps. I then made a wing model in Maya using this image for reference on how the wing would fold: http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs4/i/2005/141/4/b/Folded_Bird_Wings_by_keaalu.jpg

I was half thinking of making a more bat-like pterodactyl wing but thought a feathered wing would contrast better with the hard surface of the face.

Sculpted into the wings in Mudbox.

The wings aren't finished at the moment and need more working into

Texturing and crashing

Been having issues texturing the building. Realised I have over complicated things for myself so I will rebuild the tower using two cylinders which will be cylindrical mapped and scaled then duplicated and resized. While doing this Maya crashed so I decided to do a quick Mudbox sculpt of a hollow log for a change of scene. The textures used look fine however my UV's weren't right. Unfortuantly Maya crashed before I could get a decent screenshot of both.

 

Mudbox has also crashed on me on patching a hole left by retopologising.

Added windows and doors

Added windows and doors will combine the geometrey and unwrap the UV's and then import into Mudbox to sculpt extra detail which can then be baked down in a normal map to the base maya model. I might apply base textures in Maya and then paint more detail in for Mudbox or I could just paint in the texures to give the model a painterly feeling like the concept art it is from.

Building: Low poly progress

 

Progress so far - Low poly model of the building. Since there was no back view I added an extra part of the building to the back

I've added basic elements to the pulley system, the next parts I will make are windows and doors with the intention of them being modular (where possible)

Environment

I want to pick either a real location or environment art which is relatively small and contained for my next project

So far I have been looking at St. Michaels mount as a real location since it is contained to a small island, however for the time frame I would want to complete this in it would take too long.

http://cghub.com/images/view/684063/


This is a decent sized building with interesting features and could be completed within an ideal time frame

http://cghub.com/images/view/116062/

Likewise this is also a good size building however the amount of detail would mean it would take much longer to complete.

 

http://cghub.com/images/view/838481/

This castle is quite large scale so would most likely take a while to complete

 

http://cghub.com/images/view/354455/

Like the above this is also on a fairly large scale but not quite as much since its more modular and compresed than the above

 

http://cghub.com/images/view/354449/

This is a relatively small scale and would consist of two small buildings however there would be a lot of detail in those buildings as well as decorations such as barrels and lamps etc. 

 

http://cghub.com/images/view/354457/

Again, a good scale, because its a ruin however there is a lot of detail involved incoluding decorations.

 

 

 

 

 

Next character: Broccoli Fairy

 For my next sculpt I will be making this concept of a Broccoli fairy by Carlos Sallas
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Broccoli-Fairy-Digital-Painting/15036945

Here is the low poly Maya model. As this concept is at an angle making it somewhat more complex to model I might try modelling some environment concepts to give my portfolio more variety and later return to this

Skullwoman: Finished sculpt

 

Finished Mudbox sculpt with turntable. I could of done this sculpt from a single angle and this might of made it quicker to do and also might have looked closed to the original image as it's not quite as big as the original painting however I shrunk it down due to the size of the hair looking odd in 3D space

 

 Here I have sent the sculpt to Maya and added planes with alpha maps to represent the loose strands, this is a render

I'm happy with how the face has turned out as it mostly matches the painting and the skull matches the face looking believable however I'm less happy with the hair as it doesn't look as natural or as flowing as I was hoping for.

 

Skullwoman: Update - Hair

Today I have made a base mesh for the hair in Maya which I will further sculpt into in Mudbox. For the strands I will be adding planes with alpha maps on them.

Later today I plan to watch some Digital tutors tutorials for hair in Maya as this may be an alternative I could look into.

 

I have scaled the hair up to fit the mudbox model, worked more into the face altering the eyes, mouth and skull.

Next Project: Skull woman

I have decided to make a sculpt of this painting by Hugo Richard (http://www.behance.net/hugorichard), I will not be doing a full sculpt and will instead do a bust as that is where the majority of the detail is. I used the Mudbox base bust and a skull base downloaded from the mudbox community.

 

Used this image of facial muscles for reference when editing the base Mudbox bust

I have altered the face to look closer to the painting and removed half of the skull (which I will sculpt further into to show more detail later on)

To do the hair I will most likely create a basic mesh in Maya and then sculpt into it, the extra strands will be planes using alpha maps

Camel: Turntable + Renders of highest level of detail baked down to lower subdivisions

Face/Front view

Back view

Side view

Part of me is tempted to bake the highest level of detail from the Mudbox sculpt to a higher level of subdivision than this since this is quite low poly (2744 polys, aside from that I'm happy with how this model has gone and I will use the skills I learnt producing this and take them further with my next projects

Camel: UV's and Texturing

Unwrapped the UV maps on the model by exporting it as an .obj and then unwrapping the UV's using Roadkill and then imported the UV's of the saved Roadkill .obj file into the mudbox file


Used the projection paint tool to get the base colours and textures onto the model I will work into this using the paint tool



The unwrapped UV's imported into Mudbox with the base projection mapped image texture. I should of reorganised the UV's to make better effective use of the UV area, especially for the face to ensure I get the most detail where it is needed.

Finished painting the camel, these are screenshots of the finished textures on the highest level of detail