Do The Hedgehog!

Drawing courtesy of DJ

Raise The Rufus

          So this morning i started messing around with sketchbookpr (continuing from last night) and i just wasn't feeling it, so i decided to go through my vast collection of images from the net and DJ to see what i thought might be fun coloring and getting used to my tablet, and i came across a few chibi versions of notorious FFVII characters. I knew i wasn't going to be able to color all of them, so i picked the one with the simplest outfit and printed out a hard copy. I scaled it down and layed the paper over my wacom tablet and traced over it, transfering it to photoshop. The image to the left is what i got.


          I darkened it a little bit, because when i first traced it (and mind you, no line was gone over twice) i had the pencil's opacity on about 30% - so if i went over a curve a few times, the median of them would be darker than the rest. But i realized that without taking more time to go over and refine it in PS, it would be faster to ink the printed copy, and scan it into PS to then color.




     So the left is the inked version of the drawing DJ did so long ago. It's of Rufus Shinra from FFVII. And the right is what i ended up with after...an hour or so? I'm not sure exactly when i started, but i know i first got on my computer around 10 am and i finished this around Noon (and there was time spent in sketchbook pro, looking for images, printing, inking, and scanning....so an hour is a good guess). It still has that 'sketch' look to it - because of all the little specks and stuff around the lines, but when i'm done coloring it, i'll go in and use the smudge tool to get rid of em.

A Head On Our Way...

          So since i got kind of board waiting for stuff i'd rather leave up to "professionals", i went ahead and started making some things on my own for the FF/Sonic Mash-Up. One of which is a few facial expressions that a "Hedgehog" character might have (cuz in the Sonic Universe, certain 'species' have different facial feature constuction - like eyes that are connected or eyes that are seperate from one another).






          So I took this "Shadow" (as only he would look so angry by nature) profile picture DJ drew and erased the majority of the arching 'eyebrows'.

          That gave me this picture. I took this image and went over it a couple of times, drawing in the rest of the eyes as they might appear for various expression (much like eyebrows are used.....though evidently Hedgehogs, through some evolutionary marvel, are without eyebrows and have the capacity to camoflouge their mouth when not talking). So after i thought of the most common ones, the ones i'd need to make Blend Shapes for, i put them side-by-side and got this:

          I then started to go over them with pencil to plot out my edgeloops (*wink* Alex *wink*) and how i'd need to deform the default face to get good representations of these expressions. I haven't finished doing that yet, but i'm well on my way. One of the main hurdles is that i haven't plotted edgelopps on the defaul expression.....so i don't really know how which loops would move since i don't know how many and where and what-have-you.

          But to remedy that, i started making a clay head for what Cloud would look like. I only got about an hour and a half on it (a little less after getting situated and figured out what not to do). I only got as far as his 'jaw' and the left half of his eyes (and while i threw a crude ear in the picture....that's no where near what it's going to look like, just to show where on his head it is and how it looks prior to putting in spikes/hair).

          So this is what i got so far. The eye/pupil is just for kicks...i won't need to plot edgeloops on that - so the finished model won't have any iris/pupils. With the exception of the ears and the spikes, the eye/face is probably only every going to get as far as what i've got now, since it's symetrical i only need to model have and just mirror it when i'm finished. I'll model both ears since they'll be helpful in determining where the spikes go on reference pictures.





          Since it won't really matter unless I got way further than the scope of this 'Short', i figure i might has well post it somewhere...otherwise it'll just be on paper forever.

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          So everyone pretty much knows the elements that compose a Sonic The Hedgehog game right? Robotnik/Some evil force threatens the world in some way and Sonic is seemingly the only who can stop him with his carefree attitude, disregard for personal safety, and a psychopathic desire for the consumtion of Chili Dogs. Early in the Sonic games, it was possible for the player to beat the game without need of the 7 Chaos Emeralds, but not too long ago (i think it might have been Sonic Heroes as the first game to do so) Sega started making it part of the sotryline to collect all 7 Emeralds in order to completely beat the game. If you didn't have them all, you'd get someone of a happy ending, with a little teaser at the end of it.

          And I'll be the first to admit it....Final Fantasy isn't for everyeone or even just anyone. So not too many people might be familiar with the elements that make a Final Fantasy game (although to a certain extent, they're the same as Sonic sans the Emeralds). So rather than generalize it for a Mash Up, DJ and I picked a specific scene that is basically Iconic in the FF Realm - where Sephiroth kills Aeris (and i really don't care what people say.....it's ends in S not TH!)

          So how we're combining the two is by taking the general character designs of Sonic characters and transfering Final Fantasy 7 characters to match the Sonic universe. We're really only going to focus on 3 characters; Cloud (Hedgehog), Aeris (Hedgehog....probably much like Amy), and Sephiroth (Echidna...so as to allow for long 'hair' rather than spikes). We're retelling 2 parts of the FFVII game; where Seph. kills Aeris, and the end where Cloud uses Omnislash. We're also going to encorporate a "Super Sonic" element to allow for the Omnislash (which will be similar to the upgraded version at the end of Advent Children).

          We'll encorporate the Chaos Emeralds too, although they'll basically be like Materia and have powers by themselves (more than Chaos Control too i might add).

          So below i'll go over the concepts for the Emerald/Materia breakdown as far as i took it (and i'm just using stock imagery of gems, actual materia/emeralds might have their own unique look to them - definitely color).

So here we have the Materia of Force. It allows it's user to control Fire based Magic and gives them great physical strength.

Here is the Materia of Agility. Its user can manipulate Lightning based Magic and gains unparalleled speed.

This is the Materia Longevity. User gains limitless Stamina and the power to control Earth based Magic.

This one is the Materia of Mentality. It bestows upon its user the skills of Air based Magic and great Mental Fortitude.

The Materia of Knowledge grants upon its user Water based Magic and unbelieveable Wisdom in every aspect.

This is the Materia of Being. It allows its user to conjur Spirit based Magic and provides Imortality.

This is the rarest of Materia - it might not even truely exist. It is the Materia of Unity. It allows for the manipulation of Time and all Magic and gives its user the ability to assimilate any and all other magic and Materia.

The Texture Of It...

So i know it's been over two weeks since my last post, but i swear i've gotten a lot done - esp. in Maya; a few oculuses and texturing aside, i've got the "Altar" exterior completely finished (the interior is going to be the real challenge...no joke when it comes to lighting). So since i'm trying to go to school to eventually work in some kind of pipeline (and i'm not studying to be a pro surfer), i figured i'd try and adhere to the order of things as best i could; i wasn't going to texture or worry about lighting a single thing till i was as done with the majority of the model as i was ever going to get - and it worked pretty well.

Once i was done with the model, i was kind of on a Photoshop binge, so i finall came up with a logo/title for this Sonic/FF collaboration that i think turned out pretty well. Nothing too goofy like most Sonic logos (for a while i was considering the Sonic 3 logo, and putting the comet behind it somehow...ever having a pink ribbon around it to reference Advent Children - but there would have been too much going on), but it's vague and "Times New Roman" enough for a Final Fantasy logo. I'm going to eventually try and make this into a 3D model so i can do more with it in the trailer, but we'll see when we get there.

So once i started to get into the grove of texturing, i realized - although i always knew - that i didn't just want to have some stone texture endlessly tiled for all eternity. So i spent more time in Photoshop putting great detail into some of the major areas where a nicely developed texture will be appreciated. So one of the major areas i focused on was the front door - or rather two doors.

I didn't just want to have it be blocks of stone tiled up and down; i wanted it to kind of tell a story...like a mural does. So i went through my vast folders of 'royalty free' images and though about what would pertain to the main story of Final Fantasy VII (as that's the story we're following, only with the 7 Chaos Emeralds rather than rare pieces of Materia). And i think what i came up with works pretty well for those who know the FFVII story. I'm going to try and get the red around the right wings to look more like spplattered blood, and there's going to be some things that come out from other models laid over this that you can't see or get out of the picture (like gold lining...the kind of gold the Rings are made out of) but i think, for the most part, this works to my standards and what i wanted to accomplish.

So i've got the model finished, but i'm not going to show any updated pics of it until i've got it all textured....that way you can really take it all in. Another week or two and it should be done (floors and some things will, of course, be tiled and not have that much detail to them).

Altar Ego...

So i've been working on the design of the altar that i'm going to use for the FF/sonic collaboration between me and DJ this summer (or hopefully this summer....and if not then through the fall semester when i get a whole lot of professional guidence in the art of character modeling). So i wanted to leave it open for my mind to wander - because it obviously has to reflect the Final Fantasy part of it, but having it be a lot larger than the one in VII leaves it open to have random - no excuse being there - objects that adhere to the Sonic world (random rails to grind on, loops. long paths to run along...thins like that).

So i spent a few good hours in Maya last weekend - things started to pick up once i realized I could use "Instances" and save myself some remodeling and duplication time. And then it helped to remember i could reposition the Pivot Point to make rotation and alignment extremely more accurate and easy. So this is what i've got so far, some varied renders and the sketches that i did before hand. Another few good hours (or a good day and it should fairly finished and ready for textureing - depending on whether i feel like modeling the terrain/location it's set in).

So here's part of the sketching i did for the basic idea of the altar (but once i actually started modeling it....certain things needed to be scaled way up for it to be plausible). What it originated as, was a fairly sizable Dais, above which was a free floating Roof. The only place the Roof was connected to the Dais (where the Altar would be located) was by two columns that formed the "front" entryway. The Roof, as it's size is pretty formidable, would be supported by Flying Buttresses (not only because they are really the only way i could think of supporting something like that....without forcing the viewer to 'believe' me - but because i'm always a fan of arches, collunades, and romanesque architecture).


So here you can kind of see how the "Towers" (though i usually refer to them as 'posts' while sketching for some reason...) are cylindrical in shape (they're not 'square') and have a small domed roof with an area you can freely walk around underneath. They have Paths leading from one Tower to the next, and each tower has an inclined path (with some stairs and handrails - cuz Sonic characters will need something to grind on; walk up all those stairs...Knuckles Please....) that leads from the ground, or nearby rock face, up to the tower. It then has another inclined pathway leading from the Tower to the "Floating" Roof.

So those are the basic plans i started with. Last weekend i got quite a bit done - although i'm trying to do the whole thing in a pipeline style resembling the industry's standard: Concept -> Design/Reference -> Modeling -> Lighting -> Texturing -> Animating (if needed) -> Output. So you shouldn't see anything textured till i'm finished with it as a whole. So here's some of the renders of the "Towers" i spent most of that particular day modeling:



Here's a shot of every detail of the Tower. I had only made a basic design for it - height is easily adjustable. I extruded the pathways just a little bit for easy connection later on.






Here's a reference to how tall the archway/entryways are as well as a look at the railing system (in it's most basic form) - posts and such will be added later.





Here is a look at the underside of the Tower floor's rim - to show how i's supported. I ended up changing this to where the underside of the 'paths' only have the outer support so the buttress/arch can fit between them.





Here's a shot without the roof on; again, to show scale and open space. Once i'm done modeling the "Roof", "Altar", and "Pathways", i will return to add small ornamental details like hanging torches and Oculuses and such.



So there you have the "Tower" portion of the whole scene. What i spent the next bit of time on was forming the pathways between posts, how far apart each post was from each other (as well as the degree of rotation between each: if the middle of the altar is the "Origin" and you have any post, what degree do you rotate a duplicated post to get it to where it's supposed to be). After careful consideration and though, the value for rotation between each Tower is 39.375°.

So once i got as much detail in the Tower as i felt i was going to, i saved it and stared a new scene. I imported the tower (because if i kept working in the Tower file and screwed up beyond repair.....i would have to do some major remodeling and 'starting from scratch'). So i took the Tower, moved it out in 3D space, and crated a "donut", if you will, to represent the size of the roof so i could figure out how far away from it the tower should be. Once i did that, i started to Instance everything. I then connected the pathways (only the floor) between each tower and instanced those as well. This is what i got:

This is a dead on view from the "Front". it shows the basic size of the Roof's floor - of course it might not be so thick in the future. It also has a small platform in the middle of everythihg (on the 'ground') that represents the size the actual Altar is going to be - Manni is in there too if you can make him out. Mostly everything besides the Towers is used for reference...so don't think it's actually going to be so 'bulky'.



Here's a better view of the Altar's size and reference to everything else....although because it's rendered over black it doesn't help that much.





A shot from above and behind to better illustraite the spacing, rotation, and connection of each Tower.

So that's what i got done in the better part of a day ( imagine what i could do with 7 *wink* ) and am going to try and spend the better part of 2 days finishing up the Tower section of the scene, which will unclude roofing, railing, support arches, and making the base of each Tower look like it was cared out of the earth (you can what i mean by looking in the second sketch picture above). Once i've done that, i'm going to move on to the "Roof" section of the scene which will unclide a good sized Collunade, railing, decorative recesses, and if i can find a model of a gargoyle somewhere that isn't insane in poly-count, i might import it to give it some gusto.

Renders to come by Sunday

It's Been Spiked

     So here is what DJ came up with as a preliminary sketch to see how Cloud's spikes would translate to a sonic character's head and such. Front, Side, and Top views for me to import into Maya to make modeling easier (as i can model while using these images as a kind of 'stencil'). and then a perspective one that i started to go over, planning out how each object would be oriented and how the edges and faces would appear (to also make texturing and painting easier). So the only thing left to do is go into Maya and start making a first attempt at modeling the head/spikes/eyes. Once i've done that, we'll see how it renders and if there's anything that should be modified (maybe some more spikes added or moved, or whatever).

Iron Mad...

Just a joke for DJ from one of her pictures of Tony Stark....the darker side anyway.

Shadow of the Colossus

     So like my friend DJ did in her last post "A Gray Day" (btw....she mis-spelled grey - or rather spelled it the acceptable way while still being wrong), I took those greyscale art markers and went over some images (this is only one of them...others include the crystal in my blog's header) to further define the shapes and form of the subject so the eye has a bit more to look at then an extreme 2D image with no value. Maybe more later...

What A Fucking Sabbatical

I can't believe it's been 3 whole months since my last post. There's been a shit load of stuff that's happened since then. I got a girlfriend, finished the spring semester, and a bunch of other little things (like starting collaborations with DJ and her friends).

So i guess i'll start with my girlfriend, Crystal...Naw. I'll make that a whole seperate post once i've got some good pictures of us to include in it (and now that i don't have school i should be - and i know i've said this before - more regular with updates). But since i'm going to be working on a few things this summer - mostly Maya related - I hope i'm better at making regular posts so the people who need to know what i'm doing can see it at their leisure.

So the main thin i'm going to be working on this summer - mostly after the middle of june since i need to make up some art assignments to get a better grade in my Figure Drawing class and not have to retake it - is a collaboration with DJ that involves taking Final Fantasy 7 characters (just a few of them as the project isn't that big; it's just working on a kind of teaser trailer) and translating them into Sonic characters. DJ is going to be doing the conceptual drawings as well as character layouts (defining certain features in great detail so that i may create better models with ease) and storyboards once it comes time to render the trailer.

We haven't, as of yet, come up with a plot for the whole thing. We might just leave it as a trailer and never come back to it, or we might make little webisodes since we'll already have all the characters made. u we're probably going to have Sephiroth, Cloud, Aeris no way am i ever spelling it with a "th"), Reno & Rude for comic relief, and maybe a secret antagonist. Who knows, we might not even have Sephy in there at all...could be some new enemy - screw Jen, Seph, and their stupid Kaddy. One thing that'll translate over kind of effectively is the Materia into Chaos Emeralds. Materia can be a pretty common thing in the realm of FF7 - kind of like cubic zerconias in the real world - they're pretty but nothing special as everyone has them. But like the end of 7, there were the Huge Materia you needed to blast apart the meteor...and of course the Black Materia used to summon it.......which lead to the Holy Materia used to destroy it.

So if my memory serves me, there were 4 pieces of Huge Materia, 1 Black, and 1 White...which makes 6 extremely unique pieces of materia. In the Sonic Realm, there are always 7 Chaos Emeralds (and depending on the timeline or story, 1 Master emerald). So it'll be no problem to translate the materia into emeralds if i wanted to...so if i wanted to retell the events of FF7 as Sonic Characters and Emeralds....i totally could.

I think i'm going to eventually name them - the emeralds that is - because you're either always going to refer to them by the location they were found ("you know, the emerald found in the such-and-such stage") or by their color...which isn't a bad thing by any means....but it'd be nice if they had names - even if it were something like "The Emerald of Power" - of which Red is an Archetype for......why do you think Gannon's triforce piece was red?

DJ said she had started a collaboration with her friends using RPG Maker 2003 (a bit outdated, but still just as good as anything if you want to achieve that 'old school' feel) and asked me - if i remember our convo right - if i wanted to help out. So i said sure because i think it would be nice for me to get out of the directive position and be delegated to for once. I'm just surprised they didn't do this a long time ago because i had RPGM2003 a long time ago and tried messing with it myself, though it didn't get very far because my understanding of games and their inner-workings wasn't as good as it is now.

So i guess i'll leave this post where it is and go work on the Sonic Collaboration.....in which i'm about to disucss with DJ since she's calling me right now....Lates.