Photoshop - Armored Vehicle

I approached this task with the mindset of creating a visually unique and interesting vehicle, one that would stand out. I started out with a page of sketches which i took different ideas from to create of a walker/platform type thing and developed it from there. In hindsight this was a risky thing to attempt as my experience with designing and creating this type of work is very limited. And i should perhaps attempt a simpler design first. Especially in regards to drop shadow.

This is not the final outcome. I still need to shade more and colourize the image, furthermore the dropped shadow is completely wrong and I will have to look into getting help to address my issue with this. 

Autodesk Maya - Winter Project

I wanted to create a better spawning point for my level. Instead of just starting in or near a big hall. Since I've learnt a lot more about modelling I also think I could make a better, more detailed and generally nicer mesh. So I decided to make an underground starting zone where you begin by a locked door and have to climb a spiral staircase out. This will allow me to explore making interiors more and to control the spawn area a bit more. I think I will try and make this area a lot more detailed and try and introduce new elements I have learned into it.

I moved onto creating an actual spawn/starting point for the level now. I thought just waking up in a corridor seemed like a bit of a plot hole and/or too convenient. So after a bit of debating i settled on creating a surgery/experimentation room where the player wakes up on the table.

Autodesk Maya - Turret Animation

Photoshop - Insectoid

For this two week assignment we have to design and create a concept for an insectoid character and then produce the result in the form of a character design sheet similar too what a 3D model artist would be given with a front, side and 3/4 view. Below are a bunch of my initial idea sketches none of which are to any degree of high standard due to the fact they are just quick sketches to find pleasing forms.

I then took a few aspects from some photo references I found and tried to create a character from them. However I found the centipede like bottom half to be too much of a common theme and hence discarded it, I did however like the idea of horns on the head similar to the beetle. And the idea of an series of eye like patterns such as moths and butterflies have. 

Environment - Forest caves
Size - Human form (5ft 11) with Insect legs (6ft 1)
Role - Mystic for tribe
Aspects
-Long second set of legs for increased field of view, stabilizing
-Wings for flight also used to attract mates, colours of wings seen as attractive
-Carapace over chest act as natural armour
-Stinger, as a weapon, as a light(fireflies)

Photoshop/Sai - Face Practice 3

Winter Project - Further Development 2

Moving on from the last set of developments I decided to start the creation of more ruins/islands for the level and to adjust it too a way that would allow a sense of flow rather than just a monotonous going up or straight on. After sketching out some more level development ideas I began to implement them.

I decieded a ladder might be a nice way of going up and that it could enter a ruined building from the side or below. This gives me two things. The first it lets the player advance towards the object in ways other than stairs and two it presents a challenge of coding which I can use to try and advance my coding knowledge.

I spent more time working on my Respawn code this evening. After spending the morning looking into tutorials I couldn't work out what I was doing wrong. So instead of editing a script I had found I started one from scratch. Pulling parts that I understood from other scripts. It was doing this that I began to understand how to get the script to do what I wanted it to do. Perhaps not the way I expected but it does what the initial goal was. Which was too act as a safety net to teleport the player back if they fall off. Or "respawn" them.

Winter Project - Further Development

After I had altered some code within my original unity project to produce running and crouching mechanics for the player I ran into some compiler errors. And when I say some I mean a lot. So I decieded to restart my level from the start and design it from the ground up. Although I was kind of happy with "Setup 1" I started seeing some fundamental areas where improvement could be done. For example I didn't like the start. It did not provide enough build up or anticipation. The player was just sort of there. So I came up with a few storyboard sketches too take the place of the earlier parts of the storyboard for "Setup 1". Below are few of these images, one actually uses an altered image I had drawn previously this year.

I really like the idea of big ominous statues residing over the bridge, so I went into a bit of development as too what statues I could use for this.

The practicalities of modelling a statue are beginning to make themselves apparent to me. As i'm not entirely sure how to go about it as of this moment. I could do 2 drawings, a front and side view, and model from them but I have a feeling that might be too blocky. A second option requires me following tutorials for either mudbox or zbrush. And a third would be just to find a free statue from the unity asset store. However I find this last option not too my taste. I want to make as much as possible in my own level.

So instead of dwelling on the statue methods I got into modelling the spawn building using techniques picked up through the multiple maya tutorials we have done recently. Starting was actually one of the hardest points of this process. I didn't know how and where to begin. So i started with a basic little bridge and then a bounding box and as soon as there was something there I was able to see where I wanted things to be. I've actually learnt a lot of things in the creation of this. Enough that I could re do this too a much better standard I think. Or at least more economical. But I do not have the time at present to do so.

I have started playing around in unity a bit more with both particle effects and animations. Both of which are relatively easy to produce but are hard to make nice looking results with. As this is only a rough mock up of the starting level I have only put basic textures into the particle effects. I however might have run into a problem with unity animations where I have animated each of the path segments by themselves without taking into account that I will need then triggered and doing so without somehow merging them may be a bit of a hassle. I will have to look into this more and see if I can improve upon this workflow for the next set of animations within this project.

Autodesk Maya - Gas Pump

For this tutorial set I had to create a gas pump prop. And this went quite smoothly so far. The creation of the object in general as easy enough and now knowing the quick menus via combinations of right clicking and the shift/ctrl keys are improving my work flow. However I hit a problem with the last stage of UV unwrapping where a segment of the UV's would not align correctly. I tried cutting it from the combined UV I made but the orientation appears to be reflected wrong in the horizontal axis. I shall have too look into why this has happened and how to fix this before taking this model to texture.

Photoshop - Face practice

Photoshop - Speed sketch practise

Hi, today we had to do a copy of a painting in roughly 2 hours. We were given the image on a piece of paper and had to replicate it as closely as we could. The colours was a very important part of this process and I found parts of the colour allocation hard and others harder. For example O found the blue hues of the sky and the green-blue of the trees easier to create than the hues of the skin which I struggled with.

Photoshop - Monster

Initial Ideas collection

Further Idea Developments

Final Piece 

Photoshop - Face Practice

Some face practice based on a few drawing I did whilst I waited for my new tablet. Its an improvement from my usual stuff but I still have a long way too go. However I am quite pleased with this.