4dpencil.net

I’ve been putting this off for way too long, and so here is the start of my new environment project.

What I intend to achieve with this project is trying out and streamlining a modular approach to creating an environment, starting with generic building blocks like lego to work out the structure of the building then detailing accordingly. The blocks are all instanced so editing them and adjusting UVs are fuss free.

I’ve chosen Piazza Navona in Rome as my reference as the different buildings around the square are suited to it. Not gunning for an exact copy, trying to study the structure of the buildings, how the parts are arranged and such. Day one is over and the main building is mostly completed except for the roof. I’d say a maximum of 1 and half days to finish this off and move on to the next one.

So far things have gone pretty smoothly. It feels really different from just a few months ago working on my first environment. Well.. let’s see how this goes shall we?

Ah, gotta learn how to do things faster. Speed up workflow, be more productive and all that. Right now I’m pouring pretty much all of my effort into the group project.

Working on the hair rig at the moment, then on to animation for two shots to ease the burden of the animators. Once the animation is approved it’ll be time to render everything. Hmm.. feels good to be this busy though, feels like I’m getting quite a lot done.

Now if only I could update here more often.. Once this project is done, I gotta get things moving on my environment model!

Hey everyone.. seems I let myself get sloppy and haven’t been updating my site for awhile. Things have been a little crazy lately with projects and stuff. I’ve been working on the texturing of the creature that I modeled as well as the modeling and texturing of the mining tunnel set piece of my group film.  Been putting together concepts for a new low poly environment as well. The good news is that through lots of back and forth between Zbrush and Maya I’ve learnt a lot to help streamline my workflow.

This quick paintover (click to view full version) was the result of a mesh explosion when I was trying to change the UVs of the mining tunnel environment after lots of sculpting at high subdivision levels. I’ve tried a few different approaches to reimport the low poly and update the UVs, but at higher polygon counts Zbrush did nothing but crash on me.

There was a glimmer of hope last night when it seemed to be processing it, so I let it run for a few hours while I finally got to watch V for Vendetta. Sadly, yet another messed up model was produced. At least it didn’t go to waste altogether, I see some interesting building shapes up there I’d like to revisit sometime in the future.

Well, lesson learnt. Zbrush is pretty flexible but it’s best not to push it to that extent unless it’s absolutely necessary. Proper planning of texture map size and UV placement should be done right at the start.

Thankfully, plentiful save files at all stages let me put it back together with minimum fuss. Anyway, more updates on my stuff coming soon..

I finally got around to figuring out how Zspheres work in Zbrush. Gotta think of ways to work faster since I’ll be doing most of the creature design and modeling for my group film project.

This was a quick muck around with proportions with the Zspheres, changed it to an adaptive mesh and did a really rough sculpt of what appears to be a Rhinobatsloth.

I found that while the upper torso and fore legs were generally not that bad, the hind legs suffered badly from lack of reference. That’s where Elliot Goldfinger’s animal anatomy book comes in to save the day!

Boo.