Independent Self Initiated Brief: Classic Sci Fi poster

 For this self initiated project, I am going to create a poster styled after the classic, Pulp science fiction works from the 1950′s.

 

 

 Above: References that I will be using throughout the project.

 

 

 

 Using references and inspiration such as the Forbidden Planet, Tales of the weird and other assorted pulp publications I am going to use the classic Comic-Book look to create a poster for a product being sold by a fictional company.

First off I needed to come up with a name for this fictional company.

 My first though was something based off Bioshock. In the game, the location is a vast underwater city created by the games antagonist, Andrew Ryan. Ryan is the head of Ryan industries, his own corporation that is responsible for creating all of the assorted guns, gadgets, vehicles and other assorted equipment found within the game.

   The fact that the equipment and even the city in the game is created by  a fictional company adds a degree of immersion to the game.

  I have chosen several different names for possible use in this process, over the duration of the development of this brief I will test out various names in combination with logos that I will create in Adobe Photoshop. This process will allow me to visually inspect each logo/corporate identity to see which fits best with my theme.

 Each name I have chose is also accompanied by varying themes and colours.

 So far the selection of names I have decided upon are as follows

 

 TROJAN ARMOUR AND LOGISTICS – American based, Primary colours: Red, White, Blue

LUNAR INDUSTRIES – British Based, Primary Colours: Light Blue, Dark Blue, White

REISLER MASCHINENFABRIK – German Based, Primary Colours: Brown, Orange, Black, Red

 

 Each name is represented by different styles, colours and countries which will also affect the aesthetic of the products which they sell.

 I have decided that the product will be a weapon of some sort. Fitting with the pulp sci fi theme, I am plannning on creating the poster which will advertise a laser blaster, of the sort commonly seen in adventure comics such as Buck Rogers.

 

 Workflow

 For organisational purposes I will document the work flow of this mini brief and the process and iterations which the project will follow.

 

 Concept – First I will start in my sketcbook, creatin several drawings of the product in question, my laser blaster; the logo and text for the company title and the layout and visual aesthetic of the poster itself.

 I will also expermiment with different colour pallettes, the colours listed above may not be the final decision.

 

 Concept Development (Phase I) – Once I have a variety of sketches and thumbnails, I will scan in my sketch book and begin working on the sketches in Adobe Photoshop, using my WACOM Tablet to colour and texture the images

 

Concept Development (Phase II) – In this phase of the development I will start to create preliminary 3D models in Google Sketchup to outline the geometry which I will use in the final model. In this phase I will also be paying great attention to optimization, making a careful note of the amount of faces used in the final model.

 Concept Development (Phase III) – In this part of the process I will start to create the actual model in 3DS MAX. I will experiment with different renderers to assure the highest quality final render for the finished product. I will also be creating the finished poster in Adobe Photoshop which the final model will be composited onto. Atthis stage I will also be deciding on which “Company” and therefore colour scheme to go with for the final piece 

 Composition – In this part of the process, I will be compositing my finished 3D Model into the finished poster background on Photoshop, using filter effects and layer blends to make sure the model can be seamlessly inserted into the image for compositing.

 

 Finalisation – This last part of the process. I will be using finishing techniques in Photoshop to assure that the finished poster is of the highest quality including overlaying textures and noise effects onto the poster to give it a worn feel. I will also be adding scratch marks, cuts, small burns and other damage effects to make the poster look used.

 

 Throughout the project I will be keeping a detailed and updated account of the process on this blog to show the development of the work.

 At several points during the process Iwill also upload tutorials detailing how to use various software used in the process.

 

 

Craft & Media: The Street Brief

After the first attempt at the project crashed and burned once I reached the UVW Unwrapping process (See below image)

I resolved to create a simple building in hopes that the UVW unwrapping process would go smoother. By limiting and deleting various edges and faces during my first attempt in an attempt at optimization I created an otherworldy mess of overlapping and distorted verteces during the unwrapping process which rendered the effort futile.

My second attempt (fifth not including the various trial and error sessions in between) was much more succesful.

Using the same process as before; starting with a regular base primitve with the dimensions 5 metres X 5 Metres X 7 metres I first divided gemotry into the desired sections using a combination of segmenting the base primitve and then using the quickslice tool in the edit poly modifier to further partition individua faces for details such as windows and the alcove which would feature the door.

The process can be witnessed below in the animated GIF.

 

 

 

 

This process, while relatively simple, gives depth to the building. While not as complex or aesthetically pleasing as I would have liked, this simple extrusion method seemed the best route to attaining a workable and simple structure to UVW Unwrap.

After I was happy with the overall shape of the structure I decided not to try and optimise it this time, out of fear envoking the wrath of the eldritch autodesk gods and being beset by all manner of grisly face errors in the UVW unwrapping window like my previous attempt.

I added seams to the structure at places which seemed most appropriate; extruded ledges and inset alcoves such as the windows and door and pelt mapped each part individually.

 

 

 

 

One note about UVW unwrapping; placing the seems follows a logic which is at first difiicult to grasp; but to use a prominent and fitting phrase…

“Imagine unfolding a cardboard box…”

At first it is a daunting and complicated process, especially when dealing with such irregular shapes which are commonly encountered during modelling.

The approach I took was to isolate the regular parts of the geometry first, faces which lay along the same axis for instance such as the side of the building and the roof. And then work down the building from top to bottom, seaming each area, pelt mapping and then trying to neatly organise them in the UV window.

After I had created my UVW map template, I rendered it out as a .PNG, opened in photoshop and then used stock images and a few hand made textures to texture the map.

 

 

After texturing the map, I exported it as a .TGA file and applied it to the model. When I rendered it out I noticed several errors so I edited the image in photoshop and reapplied it.

Once I was satisfied with the UVW map I rendered the finished building out using the Mental Ray renderer in 3DS Max.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall I was happy with the result despite a few stretched/textures. Despite changing my idea halfway through and going through several bouts of trial and error to succesfully UVW unwrap a model I finally arrived at a satisfactory conclusion. Through the session on unwrapping we had in the studio, several tutorials and forums online and my own experimentation and perseverance I finally feel comfortable with the process.

While some aspects of both the modelling and UVW unwrapping processes still elude me, I have overcome a sizable learning curve which has confused me for some time now. One aspect of the process which I have realised I could have improved was the organisation of the individual maps on the UVW grid.

 

 

 

 

 

After reading this article online, I realised in hindsight that my usage and organisation of the maps on the UVW grid was not as efficient as it could have been. One of the techniques of effective UVW mapping is using the entierety of the usable space in the grid to ensure the textures are as crisp and high fidelity as possible.

The UVW grid is in essence a representation of the resolution of the texture to be applied to the model. The larger an individual map is on the grid, the higher the resolution the texture will be when applied to the model.

In practical turns this can be used to ensure that the accessible textures on the areas of the model which the player can view up close are of higher quality than the inaccessible areas.

For example, on my model the ground floor windows, doors and other textures should be allocated more space on the UVW map. Once in the engine, the player will be able to approach the ground floor, this is when texture stretching and pixilation are most notable.

Conversely, the first and second floor textures should have less space allocated to them and the non-visible and non accessible areas of the model such as the bottom and back faces should have the smallest amount of space on the grid, saving room for more important aspects of the texture such as the windows and doors.

This is a philosophy that I am going to keep in mind in the future which will allow me to make higher fidelity and more realistic models.

Overall I was rather pleased with the finished product. Despite changing my idea half way through I am satisfied with my finished building. It may not be as adventurous as recreating a life like rendition of a local pub but in hindsight that goal was rather high for my first model.

Despite the generic and squat look of my tenement building, I learned a lot in the development of this progress, I am rather pleased with the fact that my finished building is relatively similar to my original concept.

 

 

 

 

Craft & Media 2: Gareth “The Street” 3D Building Brief

For this Craft and Media brief we are initiating a collaborative project based around architecture much like the steampunk building brief from semester 1.

This brief is centered on taking reference and inspiration from real life architecture and transferring our research onto a fully modelled and UVW unwrapped building that will be imported into the Unreal Development Kit. The finished piece will be a full street consisting of various styles and eras of architecture provided by individual members of the group and organised into a cohesive whole, hopefully creating a playable leve for deathmatching in the Unreal engine.

I originally wanted to create a futuristic cyberpunk building, but after seeing the other group members more conventional styles of architecture I opted for a more traditional and conventional building.

I first scoured the internet for various references that appealed to me, I am interested in an industrial themed building so I looked at various warehouses. Because of the past industrial and mercantile heritage of Kingston upon Hull I also gathered photographic reference from local buildings.

The top four images in the above reference sheet are generic buildings in the Scale Lane/High Street area of Hull in the old town, the bottom two are images from a stock photography wesbite (Flickr.com)

Despite the rather non descript aesthetic of the top buildings, I am going to use them as a template for the base of my building and individually model seperate pieces to add on to give the buildings a lived in vibe and to infuse them with personality.

Armed with my sketchbook I looked at some of the details of local buildings on Scale lane and sketched several of the details that stood out to me. Each piece gives the building a unique vibe and tells of the history and character of the building.

Using the image in the top left of my reference sheet I sketched out the proportions of the structure, keeping the limit of  meters in mind and imported the line drawing into photoshop.

After adding texture and colour to my line drawing, a sense of character is being developed, although the structure itself is rather plain.

After another bout of street photography I decided to adapt my idea from creating a generic office building to recreating the “Lion and Key” pub on scale lane. The base structure of the building is similar to the image above, however the exterior facade spews character from every nook and cranny.

Hanging flower baskets, a pitched roof, large tavern tabard and wall mounted cigarette bin are all instantly recongnizable conventions of a pub.

I took several photos of the exterior from different angles, and heights to recreate the pub as close to its real life counter part as possible.

Using my photos as a basis I started to create ny building in Autodesk 3DS Max.

I started by creating a rectangle primitive with a “Footprint” of 5 metres by 5 metres and a heght of 7 metres and sculpted the overall shape of the building.

I segmented the base primitive so I could later extrude the outset and inset detailing such as the recessed windows and the doorway.

I continued molding the base primitive, extruding details and features such as the sign, windows and the small extrusions which stand out from the front of the building, much like my original design.

As I went along I removed unneccessary edges and faces hoping to dcreased the overall poly count and make UVW unwrapping that much easier.

I used the inset function of the Edit poly modifier in 3DS Max to create the window apertures. After a sustained and frustrating amount of trial and error I discovered that the easiest method to create the same depth of each window was to have them all selected simoultaneously and THEN use the inset function. At this point in the couse I am comfortable with the interface and workflow of 3DS Max, but I am still learning. Each little setback is just another notch on the “This is a ridiculously conoluted method to do something simple” belt.

3DS Max is a harsh mistress.

After I was relatively happy with the first floor windows I started to work on the pitched roof and the adjoining windows.

Even before I started working on the roof and the windows I could tell it would be a problem. If you notice in the first image, the base of the roof was several flat and angled faces. After trying to construct some feasible method of creating the intricate outset windows I turned to the internet for help and found an incredible useful tutorial on youtube.

Alas, even with the help of this tutorial I was still at a stalemate. Whereas in the tutorial, the roof is a standard pitched roof, mine was divided into two halves with both base faces at seperate angles. This was a problem. My solution was an extremely tedious method of extruding the top face of the ledge just below the roof to the same height as the first roof segment. I then cut the new polygon in half vertically to create a vertex for the apex of the roof. I then manually repositioned the rear facing edge of the poly in line with the roof partition and welded them together, removing the interior backface in the process. To attach the roof apex to the rest of the model I followd the same method.

Because I am still learning the intricacies of 3DS Max, I was rather proud of this small feat but I learned that it would create a a large problem later in the process.

After finished the roof and adding detail to the extruded pub sign I thought the building finished, I was rather proud of the finished result. But then came the mose arduous and time consuming part of the process; UVW Unwrapping.

Reading Week Work.

Over the course of reading week I have finished editing some more scans from my sketchbook and inked them in potato-chop.

This is a concept for a futuristic, modular set of buildings for the 3D Workshop brief to create a set of buildings themed on a particular time period for the Ferens Gallery.

This image is an inked quick sketch of one of Hull’s industrial areas. The factory featured is abandoned and overgrown with weeds and bracken and looks rather post apocalyptic. The actual sky colour is out of context but warm orange is a damn sight better than the somber grey which the skys of Hull usually are.

This is another building concept for the 3D workshop brief. This building is based around oriental pagodas. The original reference was from an image of the Forbidden city in China.

This is a fictional rifle based loosely on the pulse rifle from aliens. This image was drawn using the 2 point perspective technique from the drawing workshop.