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).

Artistic Value...

My homework for my analysis of Form class was to draw the four basic geometric shapes (cube, sphere, cone, and cylinder) and shade them in full value (which is a greyscale basically). So the first one i did (sphere), which i hadn't intended on being my submission, actually turned out pretty nicely - and i enjoyed every minute of it thoroughly. It's not exactly an "A" in the teacher's eye because there are some flaws in it...but i'd give myself an "A" for effort and the end result having never done this before.






This was my second attempt having just finished the sphere. It's a little blurry near the bottom...which is how it scanned for some reason, but you can still see a vast majority of it and i'm proud to say that although it's not a 100% symmetrical cone, and there areshading errors in it...i think this is pretty good for someone with no prior charcoal experience.











This is the picture i took of the four shapes at once (i figured it would take me a while to draw and shade so i took a picture so the shadows would move). This was my reference during the two/three days it took me to do the picture below (which i know kind of defeats the purpose because sometimes your subject can't sit there for that long...unless they're dead - which wouldn't be life drawing anyway).

So here's the end result after two/three days work (including sketching the shapes and contour lines, going over it in one shade, adding contrast by doing black/white, then shading and smoothing out the transitions between values). I'm pretty proud of it - i already sprayed some fixative on it and will probably frame it and send it to someone (not that my art is all that, but for my and what i can do...it's at least a bag of Ruffles)

Here's the second pass at my bumper, with improved lighting and adjusted flare intensity (much improved).

Bumpers...

So my assignment for my ANM:105 class this week was to work on a bumper for my demo reel. A bumper is basically a little intro, usually no longer than 10 seconds or so, that'll basically become your calling card. Columbia TriStar's bumper of the 'statue of libarty' and 'Pegasus' infront of a cloudy background is pretty memorable.

So since i don't have a title for myself besides noob, i figured i wouldn't waste time doing something like 'Lighting' or 'Texture Artist'. So i decided to go with the mock company title i had been holding in my head for some time now: 'Omicron Entertainment'

I fixed some of the errors that were obvious with my previous assignment/post where people were not associating the large O with the rest of the word.

There are some issues with the flare intensity making it hard to clearly make out the surrounding letters - but all that's easily fixed by moving a slider down a few incriments; the only reason i haven't done that yet is because rendering it takes a while (and if i make it as perfect as possible on the first pass then it won't look like my skills are improving when it gets better the next time around).

That's it for now - homework for FND:110 tomorrow

Bells Are Ringing...

School started for me already...Thursday if you can believe it. The first 'module' (lesson) doesn't end until next Friday (or sunday...whatever the 15th is......i don't feel like looking right now - you do it).

So my classes are:

- Computer Animation Production: ANM:105

- Analysis of Form: FND:110

- Art History Through the 15th Century: LA:120

- Digital Photography for Artists: PH:103











I expect most of my time consuming homework to originate from my animation and form class. I've already had to do a little bit of work for my animation class. That's what these two pictures are of - the title/logo for our demo-reel intro. It seems kind of stupid for us to working on our demo-reel as the class is a beginner class and most wouldn't be expected to have anything to construct a reel out of anyway. It's like my friend said, "It'd be like taking an art class and your first assignment is to make a portfolio." So this is what i came up - just some stock images from way back when with some snazzy text of the title i'll probably use when i make it big.

The homework i have for my form class is to draw some elipses, cubes, and all 4 basic geometric shapes (cube, cylinder, sphere, cone) in line-only, no value (basically just outlines of the shapes without shading or anything). I'll probably go into town tomorrow and work on some of that while i sip on some Starbucks or something. I should have some updates tomorrow or by monday (they're not due until sunday night at the latest...but it doesn't hurt to submit the work early and get critiques).

Song of the Evening:
De La Soul - Me, Myself, & I