finals

updateUpdate

itsComingAlong

uvSorted

Well below are some rendered images of the scene all the uvs are now correct and are all in proportion to one another, what a long process for it to all be done, i think i may have done it the long way, but at the moment it is the only way i know, so not much i can do there, Now i need to go into photoshop and get the textures i need!

occlusionBaby

yeah im still at work but here is a occlusion i did always looks good!

UV layouts

UV laying is anther important aspect on any cg work, as it allows correct proportions for the textures that are going to be used, which gives the piece of work realism. I think, bit of a rubbish sentence to start with.

But anyway, the way i do uv layouts is by using planar projection and cylindrical mapping, when using this in the attributes window there are two things you should look at projection width and height thes two numbers should always be the same when using planear or cylindrical. This is because the uv shells will be the same for each object, which means none of your textures will be out of proportion or looked smeared when rendering. In my piece the projection width and height is 150 by 150 this covers the biggest object, so i know all my other objects will fit into this projection. Once i have mapped out an object i put on a new shader some just put a chequre shader i found a cool one on the web that i will be using. I chose it not just for the colours but also the letters and numbers on it as it gives me more accurate layouts i feel the shader is shown below.

Final model with Light Test

The image below shows the final modelling with some text etc on the right building. The whole scene is around 55000 triangles. Im not syre if this id a good amount for a game engine, but luckily this isnt for a real game so no one will have a go at me if it is to high :) i also played around with the lighting this is noway the final lighting but a little test to see how it could look. It consists of 6 directional lights, the sun, bounce light for the sun and four fill lights. More on lighting in future posts.

Pictures

How is the modelling going?

Well the initial modelling is done and dusted i feel and is ready to have its uv mapping done, which is always a fun party of the project if you enjoy it but more about that later on. So yeah the modelling is done the next post will have various stages of the process. the techniques in order to model the scene have been written about in earlier posts. Some tweaking and guestimates have been made from the concept work i may do some more modelling later on if i feel i should develop the piece like buildings in the background etc. But for now i am concintrating on the alleyway after all thats what the blog is called!

Another way of modelling

Converting nurbs to polygons is another useful technique as i feel nurbs are more fluid with there control vertexs, this allows for much smoother shapes, useful for wires and cables for example. Which i have tried and tested in my own work. The way to change a nurb to polygon is through modify - convert - nurbs to polygons now ther are alot of different options here that can get confusing. i normally go for quads and a count which then allows you to put in a number which stands for the number tris/polygons it will use i find 400 is ok for what i need. So below is one of the wires which is attached to the door mechanisms. The images from top to bottom are: nurb cylinder on its own, then nurb and polygon cylinder, then polygon cylinder.

Technique

Now, i briefly spoke about different modelling types, didnt really delve into them, but the way i have done it in this project is through; inserting edge loops, extruding and placing objects over one another. I feel its not the best technique especially the last part. As it can make artifacts in the images and glitches if the faces are on top of one another. Below is a breakdown of the different objects that make up one of the bins in the scene. This is the kind of modelling i will be doing throughout the project and deciding if i should extrude or create a new object.

Basic Modelling

Well, there are many different ways of modelling, people use all types of techniques. But below is the blocking out of the scene, or the very early stages. I did make a mistake i think with my imagePlane as it wont allow me to see behind it i think i didnt push it back far enough. But, im working mainly on the front of the image, so i should be ok.

Well here are few images of the progress i have made so far, a note to take this is preview quality rendering so it may look a bit dodgy, but if it looks this good in preview just imagine production quality.

Image Plane

Well first thing is first, putting our concept work into maya, i created a new camera called it 'imagePlane' i then imported our work by going to view - image plane - import image. This then brings the image plane into the cameras view. For placement i went to fill, i also played around with the color gain and contrast so it makes it easier to see our objects when making them. Whilst in my imagePlane camera i toggled the display to looking through camera this means the image plane doesnt effect my other cameras e.g. persp, side etc.














Once that is done i decided to create a plane for the floor as this will give me the most accurate perspective, once i was happy with how it looked i then locked the translate and rotate attributes of my imagePlane camera so it i wouldnt move it when building the objects, as you cant undo camera movements, bit anoying. This is done under the attribute settings.

Concept Art

The image below is the concept art i will be looking at to create, the artist is Robert Brown who has done various concept work, which is normally sci-fi/futuristic. I tryed to get in contact with him to see if it was ok to use this bit of work, but got no reply, so went a long with it. I decided to choose this piece as it has a lot of detail and as this is my first try at atempting to working in a new way. I wanted an image that had an easy perspective to use, as this will help me set up the scene a whole lot easier in maya. If i can produce it to a standard anywhere near the concept i will be a happy man.
Well here it is...

Purpose of this Blog

This blog is to show the workflow of building a digitial environment from concept. This will range from setting up a camera and placing concept work in the software to the final render.
The software i will be using is Maya 8.5, i will show you the techniques i use in order to create models, textures, unwrap uvs and render the work.
I hope people who stumble across this blog enjoy it and hopefully learn something new about maya or techniques on how to use tools etc. It will also be beneficial for me and to remind me of the stages and the time it takes to create a scene you can be proud of.

Enjoy...