Texturing update for last 2 weeks.

Due to the problems I have had with zbrush's exporter I have now only 4 statues. I have spent over a week texturing these statues. It got easier as I went along as each model had a similar process in terms of work flow- use a base texture which was a marble texture, tile it, use the clone stamp tool and then add the vines and grime.

Self-Evaluation.
I thought I did well, but I didn't do too well in terms of planning ahead in my opinion. One of the benefits of this has been that I feel that I am more down-to-earth with my texturing abilities and the amount of time that it will take me to get these sort of things done- which is quite a long time because I like to make sure that I do a good job. I think I did well with applying some industry standard techniques in to my work flow- using Photoshop, the Hypershade and the 3D paint tool all in conjunction with each other.


I used the 3D paint tool predominantly for the vines because I made things complicated by making the vines wrap around the statues legs. I think what also made it easier as I went along was that I re-used some of the same Photoshop layers for the vines and grime. This made the process really quickly for one of my statues as I had put too much grime on the defensive statue, so I fixed this statue up with in the hour which is a personal record for me as (as mentioned above) a texturing a model takes about a day.

Something that I haven't done well is balance this project with my other ones- compositing project has really suffered.

Other comments.
From doing this modelling project, it has made me realise just how much I prefer animating. Modelling, I find stretches me and makes me think, granted that's a good thing and I have enjoyed the Zbrush sculpting aspect, but I still prefer animating and I can see myself animating as a career rather than anything else.

I shall post pictures of my sculptures up later.

Week starting- 23rd February.
Texturing is now complete. We agreed as a group that we need one more week for texturing which means we would have had 4 weeks for modelling and texturing. We have now used up our reserved week (which we took in to consideration in our planning as we knew that not everything will go perfectly).
We then found out that Diogo was unfortunately unable to do any texturing on the buildings, which has put us another week behind. Diogo also came in late which meant that I had to send him another email (we had given everybody plenty of warning using emails) on the day asking where he was. Diogo sent us his files using rapid share, but the files he sent us were compressed using a format that could not be recognized by our macs (most of our group members have macs), fortunately the files could be unpacked using a desktop PC we were using at college. So as none of the buildings had been properly UV mapped we have split the buildings among us so that the texturing can be complete. Because of these unfortunate events the buildings won't have as much quality invested in them as we would like.
We have scheduled the group to be in on Thursday 25th February in order for the scene to be properly put together i.e. importing all the assets.

Group Evaluation.
Upon reflection I think the project may been over ambitious, I just think that most of us didn't have enough knowledge or experience in modelling and texturing for us to have done all the work quick enough and that the work may not have been equally shared.

Self-Evaluation.
I've learnt the importance of tidy modelling and naming conventions, as I inherited a 3D building from Diogo to texture, and I was amazed at how much stuff I had to delete. I think I did well in terms of trying to pull things together and recover from the fact that none of the buildings had been textured for the group and trying to come up with solutions so that we could come to some kind of compromise. I have also phoned Clym and Fahran to ask about what textures they have used for their buildings so that we can keep the consistency and still try and make it a run down greek environment which has only recently been abandoned. I think I have also done well on planning my work out and trying to balance my compositing project with UV mapping and texturing this huge building. I have also been able to adapt to changes in plan. (See screen-shots below).


Above: plan I made in the morning (despite what it says in the top write).




So UV mapping this building has taken far longer than I wanted to I planned 3-4 hours to UV map and texture this building, and I finished UV mapping this building around 2 oclock which means I have spent 6 hours on this- too long, not good!

Screen shots of UV mapping below.


The building which I had to texture was one of the largest in the scene, this is the bulk of it in 0-1 in the UV texture editor. I used planar mapping.


For my own reference: I assigned different colored Lambert Shaders to the different sections of this big building. I thought these different colours would show up in the UV Texture Editor but it didn't which left me having to annotate my screen shots (please see above).




For my own reference, I annotated my screen shots so that I know what I'm texturing when in Photoshop.

What I could improve on is not being caught up on the detail, as I have spent too long on UV mapping.

UV map screen shot of me using 3D paint tool on big building that I was given to UV map. I stopped doing this and used planar mapping.

Modelling Stage 5.

I've been having problems with one of my models in Zbrush, I managed to import my basic mesh in to zbrush, that went ok, but when it came to exporting back out after sculpting, it wasnt working. The problem occurs when importing the high res mesh in to Maya, it just doesn't show; I looked at all the display settings in Maya and everything was ticked. I ended up spending the whole of Friday 12th February trying to figure this out. I made up to 10 different obj and Maya Ascii files to try and sort this problem out, trying to figure out where the problem is- is it in Maya or is it in Zbrush? Each attempt yielded the same results- an invisible mesh.

I also looked on the Pixologic site to see if they has an obj export plugin so that I could re-install it- unfortunately nothing is there. There isn't anything in the help forums. I also looked for any other results from Google and nothing was there, which led me to submitting my problem through the Pixologic support area where the staff will answer your questions.

I also looked at a book I got called Essential Zbrush by Wayne Robson. Nothing.

I thought it could be something indiginous to the Mac version. So I sent it to Fahran to see if he could open it in Maya, here's his reply:

Right, I loaded the tool in zbrush, was fine, exported it as OBJ (145mb file size). May struggled to open it, but eventually did...and nothing appears. The polycount showed the model was there, so did the outliner...but no sign of it at all in the viewport. I tried to render..nothing showed...tried to scale...nothing happened.

The main reason why I didn't give up was because this is one of my favourite sculptures so far and I spent the whole day of Thursday sculpting this and now I can't use it, which really annoys me and I don't want to have to re-do it.

Self-Evaluation.
I think what I should do next time is be less precious over my work, as this is becoming a common thing for me- not letting go and this wastes time that could be used to recover from the situation(s) at hand. On the positive side, I thought it was good that I was using my problem solving skills to try and figure this out and I thought outside the box and I tried every method I could think of.

I've had an idea that might work, use an earlier file and see if I can work from there, I intend on putting the results in my next post.

Modelling Stage 4 + Self Evaluation.

Wednesday 10th February.
I set myself the target of 3 models in one day. It felt both realistic and ambitious. It got to late afternoon and I thought that I could make a decent start on a second model as I had finished the first model. Instead, I thought it'd be a good idea to experiment Normal Mapping. I had two options for UV mapping either I could do it in Maya or in Zbrush. Either way I felt comfortable as I could always refer to Digital Tutors if I had problems.



So at the end of the day I have finished one model. And I have spent the last 2-4 hours working on Normal Mapping. I have been having a lot of problems with these process as I expected as this always happens with me. I referred to Digital Tutors for help, but a lot of their tutorials were not relevant for me as I need a normal map process that does not involve z-mapper (a tool only for PC version of Zbrush). So I will now use Maya from now on for Normal Mapping, and even then, I have found Maya to be quite temperamental due to the amount of Polys I am using.


UV Mapping Screen-shot.
Another problem is that my UV map has distorted slightly due to a triangle around the bottom area- to resolve this problem I made it in to a four sided polygon with a lower res mesh, I worried that this would undo all my work from today. What I later found out is that you can then re-import the model it in to Zbrush, an option box will come up, if you click on "keep smooth" (paraphrased) it will then re-apply your sculpting work, thereby saving you all the hard-work.

I then tried doing the normal map procedure in Maya but it still wasn't making a difference. It then occurred to me that I hadn't changed the envelope and search envelope. After I had changed these options to what digital tutors had recommended it worked.

Evaluation of myself.
I think 3 models in one day was ambitious, but because I focused only on the necessary details for this sculpture I got this done in enough time for me to start on a second sculpture. The fact that I was thinking ahead is something positive, and so focusing on Normal Mapping as apposed to doing a second sculpt has benefited me in the long run for being time efficient. Another positive aspect of my performance has been I was persistent, and eventually it paid off.
Improvements.
Don't go too fast, I have a habit of when it comes to the final stage, I really want to get things done, which means I rush, especially for stages that I believe to be small stepping stones. One way I can improve is by slowing myself down and taking a thorough look at the options with a collected and calm mood.

9th February Group Evaluation.

We had our scheduled group meeting. We had noticed that when ever we got together, we were very productive and so Fahran and I agreed that the group should meet in the morning. So I sent out an email. [See below].

"Hi Guys

This is a reminder that we have a group meeting TOMOROW, which is TUESDAY 9TH FEBRUARY! Please be there for 10AM!

We will also be meeting on MONDAY 15TH FEBRUARY. This will be for us to have all our assets placed in to one scene, ready for Clym to work on the Dynamics and for Fahran to sort out lighting and rendering."

We didn't really do much in the morning as we were waiting for our formative assessment, but in the afternoon, we went over lighting, what and we intended on doing an animatic but unfortunately didn't get round to doing that. But overall I think we work really well together and everybody has their say. I am really glad that I got the opportunity to work withe such talented people.

Here are the notes I took from the meeting.

[Notes will be added later].

We did a little mock up of lighting.
Please see group blog.

Modelling Stage 3.

I have now finished modelling and UV mapping. As I wrote before, I tried attaching the mesh's verts' to controllers, but that didn't work. In the end I made a very basic rig. I then posed my basic mesh in to the statue poses that I have chosen. Very little weight painting was done.

I am now ready for the sculpting stage. I intend on focusing on the necessary details that way I can utilize my time properly.

Here are the modelling screenshots.









Self evaluation of modelling stage 3.
I feel that I have done well personally because I didn't focus too much on the small details and pushed through my perfectionist urges and posed all my models in one evening which I felt both relieved and pleased, as I feel that I am getting too close to the deadline for my liking and not having all the modelling work done. For modelling stage 4 which will be sculpting I will need to be quick and focus only on the necessary details as the camera will not be coming too close to my models.

V&A Exhibition Blog Entry.

I went to the V&A museum on Thursday 28th January for the Renaissance sculpture exhibition. I loved this exhibition and it is something that I would certainly see again. An added bonus was that flash photography was allowed so I took advantage of this and took as many photos as possible. I was also able to do a couple of sketches here are a couple of photo examples and my sketches.



There is only one drawing that I am happy with because the proportions are fairly accurate and I've done some shading which makes it look more complete, compared to my other sketches. I found getting the proportions alot harder compared to Photoshop, I think it's to do with the mind set that you can easily undo on a computer and I'm working from photo reference rather than something physical in front of me.

Photo Examples.

2nd February group meeting review.

Unfortunately Diogo didn't turn up again for our group meeting, this was because his laptop had to be re-formatted twice. We also didn't really get any work done, individually nor as a group. Jared confirmed with us that we need to send Diogo consistent reminders to ensure that he comes in on Tuesdays as this is when we get together as a group and go over what we have done and then confirm what we need to have done by the following week.

Fortunately this absence hasn't put a spanner in the works in terms of production as this week and next week are modelling and texturing. In addition Diogo, from last week, gave us a mock up of the scene so we have something to work with and Fahran is going to get an animatic done which will be posted on our group blog.

I have finally got the base mesh done for my statues. To be honest, I think I won't have enough time to model a minotaurs head so I will stick with human anatomy for this project; if I did otherwise then I'd probably be shooting myself in the foot production wise. There are still tweaks to be made on the base mesh- sort out triangles and diamond shapes on the face. Which I will be doing tonight. I aim by the end of tomorow

2nd Feb blog entry & UV Mapping Blog Entry.

2nd Feb blog entry.

Unfortunately Diogo didn't turn up again for our group meeting, this was because his laptop had to be re-formatted twice. w also didn't really get any work done, individually nor as a group. Jared confirmed with us that we need to send Diogo consistent reminders to ensure that he comes in on Tuesdays as this is when we get together as a group and go over what we have done and then confirm what we need to have done by the following week.

Fortunately this absence hasn't put a spanner in the works in terms of production as this week and next week are modelling and texturing. In addition Diogo, from last week, gave us a mock up of the scene so we have something to work with and Fahran is going to get an animatic done which will be posted on our group blog.

I have finally got the base mesh done for my statues. To be honest, I think I won't have enough time to model a minotaurs head so I will stick with human anatomy for this project; if I did otherwise then I'd probably be shooting myself in the foot production wise. There are still tweaks to be made on the base mesh- sort out triangles and diamond shapes on the face. Which I will be doing tonight. I aim by the end of tomorow to have 2 posed and sculpted models.
________
UV mapping blog entry.

I have spent the last week and a half modelling and UV mapping. These have taken a lot longer than I would have liked and expected to take. This is becoming quite a consistent issue for me and something Jared (tutor) calls optimistic planning.

One could say- not enough practice/experience with modelling and UV mapping.

I am however, in my opinion, an optimistic planner, who says they will get things done really quickly and then will realise that they need to ask for an extension.

Proof.
I planned a day for making a base mesh and 3 hours to get UV mapping done. But in reality:
-modelling- 7 days
- UV Mapping- 2 1/2 days.

During this time I was panicking that these tasks were taking too long and that I wouldn't have enough time to do the Zbrush and texturing. Would I have to cut corners? But after thinking about it, it's worthwhile to invest in these areas, focusing on edgeflow, polygon count and UV mapping- this way, it saves me time and yields higher quality results later on when it comes to rendering. It can also save time down the production pipeline.

What took the longest was ensuring that the textures wouldn't stretch, I used a checker texture to see a fast preview, but what I did find was that my computer lagged quite a lot whilst sorting this out, again something that took up my time. The reason why this happens, I figured out, was because the computer is trying to move the UV's and display the results on the mesh.

During the UV mapping stage I was understanding the concept of seams and the importance of planning where they would be located because on my model it was very obvious. So I needed to think about locations and where the camera won't really focus on. In addition the camera won't really be up close to the statues either which works to my advantage. So something I did well on was focus on the necessary details and planning ahead.

Looking back on this, 2 days, isn't that much, especially if I compare it to my character design project where I spent over a week on UV mapping alone. And a week for modelling a base mesh isn't bad for me as I can now re-use this mesh again and again for current and future projects.

So overall I am learning to plan ahead and more realistically and I feel more confident with modelling and UV mapping.

Planning ahead.
Do not move the base mesh in maya after exporting it as an OBJ.

Whilst sculpting in zbrush do not go above subdivision level 3. Anything above that level of detail is unnecessary, plus Maya is unlikely to be able to cope with that amount of polys. "Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you need to do it." Jared Taylor.

To-do list.
Adjust scale of feet on base mesh.
look in to texturing and normal maps on Digital Tutors.
Put the base mesh in to all the poses and save as individual .mb and .obj files.

Modelling Stage 2.

I started box modelling, (see above) using a CGArena video tutorial (http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/harshvideos/tut1.html).
I found that the video went too fast and at one point during the video, I'm sure the guy uses a difference model as it jumps from a low res mesh to high res mesh. This left me stuck with trying to figure out what was added in terms of edge loops and then figuring out how to avoid triangles and ngons (5 sided shapes).

Following day I spoke to Fahran asking him what approach he uses, he said that he used planar modelling technique. So I went ahead with this approach. This has turned out well for me but it was really difficult and when I had thought I had finished, I applied a smooth preview and the head looked rubbish and Fahran said that it still needed more work and it didn't look human.

Here are some screen-shots. Reference photos from Digital Tutors. these screenshots are in running order (from start to finish).



At this point, I had finished modelling half the head. The prospect of having to model a torso and legs from the head did not appeal to me. In the end I re-used the body that I had deemed as failed. I have become quite proficient at figuring out where edge loops can go avoiding triangles and ngons.




An idea that I thought of- parent the Vertices to curves and then use the curves as controllers to pose the mesh. So in the screenshot above I placed circle curves around the torso and extremities. This didn't work out, Maya just displayed an error message "not enough objects selected". One tool that I am going to a lot more often now is the 'paint selection tool' which allows you to select things a lot quicker compared to clicking and dragging over the vertices/faces.

As this didn't work I spent hours selecting the faces of the arms, legs etc and then changing the centre pivots' position in order to pose the base mesh.

I feel that I have done all I can in Maya. Alex (tutor) showed me a tool called 'average vertices', this relaxes the Vertices and this has served to improve on the edge flow that I was working on for the face. I then exported this base mesh in to zbrush to fix the head. I'm kicking myself now as I forgot that I could record my actions with a desktop recorder. However, in conjunction with reference I was able to sculpt and adjust the head to make it look more human and more proportional to the rest of the body.

What do I need to do next?
Do more sculpture designs.
Pose basic mesh according to my final designs.
Sculpt the posed meshes.
Create normal maps for these high res models.