High Poly Models

 29/11/20 - Week 8

To move on with my project I have finally created some high poly models. I didn't struggle with the creation of these since I basically just turbosmoothed most things by changing the shape of some of the block out models. I have also created a plane for the sand in my scene, and one for the dirt. I think this will make it much easier when it comes to texturing.

I tested putting some of these things into substance designer but I think I misunderstood how much the use of this method could do. I sort of thought it could make a model look more complex and smooth low poly models out. I am not too sure why I thought this, but I understand that its now a way of just adding details. This was a bit disastrous as most of my models don't really need too much detail like this as texturing in substance painter and designer can create the textural look I want. As for high poly I will bake, it is looking like it will only be the tile, bin and table that will have modelled normals on them. Hopefully, this will still be able to demonstrate that I understand the use of the low to high poly workflow, even if only a couple of my assets use it.

I think the quality of these models are fine, since they're very basic it was not too much of an issue. I do think using reference from the beginning could have made this much easier, as I trusted myself at first only to find out what I had created didn't really look too much like what I was trying to create. Now, hopefully the models look much more realistic and detailed.

Project Recap

 26/11/20 - Week 8

Currently, my project isn't very close to be considered "finished". To summarise shortly, these are the things I still need to do:

• Create & bake high poly models for the props, chairs, table, pots, watering can, wood etc.
• Create a few more textures, peeling paint, firewood & cloth
• Try to understand & fix the textile density
• Bake the textures into substance painter
• Create & place foliage

There isn't much narrative to the scene, though I wanted to create a comfortable & calm back garden that is aesthetically pleasing and has an industrial style to it. I think I have somewhat achieved this, and I am pleased with how the piece looks right now, though obviously you have to have some imagination to think about it with the foliage and the sand that I want on the uncovered half of the garden.

I think the main issue with the project that I am having right now is the lighting, I am finding it quite difficult to create good looking lighting as I don't really understand it. I do want the harsh shadow that I have right now, but I think it is making things too dark so I am still sort of trying to find a balance.

Overall, I have a lot to do still and I am quite confused with the process of some things so I will have to find this out to proceed properly.

Victorian Architecture

 25/11/20 - Week 8

This week I produced 4 different sketches of Victorian architecture in London. This was another challenging week, though I am quite happy with some of the outcomes of this week.

I experimented with the use of both pencil and pen, throughout the course of this task I began to find it much easier to use pen rather than pencil as it had the ability to easily create bold, structured marks that was definitely needed when studying gothic revival. It is a very intricate style so I found myself implying a lot of detail to which the pen made this a lot easier and justifiable in the piece since it would create a high amount of contrast very quickly.

This is much different to the pencil in this case. The way I work with pencil involves going over detail a lot to make it much darker with each pass, and obviously this was just not possible with the level of detail that is included in this style.

I first started with the palace of Westminster which is probably my most detailed piece here, though the shadow provides a lot of contrast it is definitely a lot lighter and perhaps more realistic in comparison to the other 3 drawings. I found the more contrast in the piece and the more shadow the more interesting the piece looked, especially with this architectural movement. I did test this style that I was creating with the pen in the lower pencil piece but it just didn't have the stylistic flare that the pen was giving me.

The two pen pieces are not too different in the way I created them, but the lower one being the second one I drew definitely looks a lot better stylistically to the first. This is because I used only one direction of line for the shadows in the lower piece whereas in the first I was using multiple. The piece looked a lot neater this way, and I just felt that it again was matching the architecture itself a lot.

Putting my work into Unreal

 21/11/20 - Week 7

This week, after finishing my blockout, I worked on putting my work into Unreal and lighting the scene in the way I wanted. This was quite difficult as I was learning unreal as I went along, I didn't really use it last year. It is quite a challenging program to me as things seem very over or under complicated.

In the end, I have managed to put my scene into Unreal to a varying degree of success. I think it looks nice with the lighting but I don't really know how to make the lighting look more realistic and compliment my scene so this is definitely something to try to work on & learn. I haven't properly put my materials in yet as I am not sure if I will change them and I am still a put confused on how or if we are integrating substance painter into this project. So, right now, my textures haven't been collapsed into one file, and have just been taken straight out of designer. This issue and the textile density are the two things I need to fix currently.

Final Sketch + Preparing to Photobash

 20/11/20 - Week 7

To get a clearer idea of what I wanted I decided to do some editing to my favourite design I have produced during this project, which is the first presentation pass vehicle. I think this vehicle in particular has a lot of the elements I wanted and has the space for it too, but did need a bit more help to look more like a vehicle used in an apocalypse. I used the ideas from my further blue sky sketching to add onto the design and I think I have improved it well. I like the way the tank-like element on the top adds to the shape of the vehicle and I feel it really pulls it together as it creates a nice focal point for the vehicle.

I then moved on to preparing my base, I started off with removing the background and then removing parts which I knew I wouldn't be including in the design. I also added some tires which was a major part of the design so I felt I needed to add this in. I decided to work in greyscale after thinking about it a bit more, this is because I felt I'd be able to control the values a lot easier and not have to consider colour at the same time as everything else.

Landscape and Citycscape

 17/11/20 - Week 7

Drawing landscapes is probably my weakest skill. I struggle with drawing buildings too, but not as much, I wanted to try to draw a landscape but I decided to pick a place that had some sort of building there to try to compensate for this. I still really struggled with this piece and I am not very happy with it. 

Compositionally, there is definitely some evident issues, the fields are too empty as the snow completely covers them, so I could have helped this by choosing a composition that had a bit more to it. The sky didn't really have any cloud shapes though I might end up adding some to the sky to make that part of the scene look a bit fuller and perhaps add some more contrast. 

Unfortunately I forgot to photograph the development of this piece, but it was mainly a use of resolving different contrast and darkening specific places that I felt needed it. It was also quite a slow process due to the detail of the bricks and the ruin in general. I felt including the detail was important as at the time I did acknowledge the bare nature of the fields, but didn't really realise the extent of it, and felt that the ruin should have quite a lot of detail to make up for this.

Throughout the development of the ruin I used lack of bricks to imply the darkness of the shadow which I really like the look of and I would like to use this in future sketches of buildings.

Something I found challenging throughout this piece was how intricate some of the details in the background were. I think a lot of my marks could have been much more precise and clean cut and this would have complimented the cold and untouched feeling of the original image.

Overall, this was definitely challenging though I am quite happy with the outcome as I do really struggle with landscapes and this is probably my best landscape I have ever been able to produce traditionally. Obviously, I know I need a lot of work still!

Finishing the Blockout

 16/11/20 - Week 7

Before putting my work into unreal I decided to revise my blockout a bit to just make some of the models a bit more in-depth. I think this has really helped as it will make my lighting more accurate and has also helped me visualise a bit better. I think I am still quite happy with the scene as a whole and the objects in it work pretty well, I am hoping once I get the foliage in there it will look more full.

Natural History Museum Pieces

15/11/20 - Week 6

These 3 pieces were quite fun to draw, and I am quite happy with them, especially the first two, being my propriety sketches.

I enjoyed creating the texture on the bird piece, for the twig and the feathers & I feel that that is quite successful, though again I feel like I need to try to maybe get some different pencils as I just cant seem to get the tonal range I need, so this is still an issue this week.

The mammoth skull informed the final piece a lot more as I chose a deer head. I do like the sketch but I think there are some inaccuracies in the tusks, though learning about the texture here was definitely important, I found there was lots of small texture here and have tried to put this into the piece here. The skull itself was interesting to create as I found there was actually quite a lot of hard angles and edges, meaning hard shadows, something I didn't really expect from a natural form. I haven't really drawn bones before so this was an interesting experience.

As for my final piece, It was definitely a bit harder than I thought. Because we were drawing from images and I had enlarged it so much it meant there wasn't much fine detail that I could find, but I tried to use my knowledge from the mammoth skull and what information I had from the photo to find & add as much detail as possible. I still feel it looks too smooth and almost cartoon like, perhaps flat. I'm not sure if I may find something else to draw as a final piece as I am quite unsatisfied with this because of the flat effect it gives. I will do this if I get time.

Substance Designer & Materials

 14/11/20 - Week 6

This week, I have mainly been focusing on creating the tiling materials in substance designer. I find designer quite easy as I learnt the basics of it for the summer project. I think there's still a lot for me to learn in it as my textures do represent the knowledge I have of designer - basic. I think I need to have a better understanding of more nodes and also learn how to warp noises better to improve my work further. However, my materials are still what I consider passable, and I have been having fun just creating these different textures.

Here are some examples of some of the materials I liked the most:

Blue Sky Sketching

 05/11/20 - Week 5

This week, I drew over a photo of a tuk tuk to get a better idea of the details and design of my vehicle. This will be super helpful I think as I managed to come up with lots more ideas of weapon placement than I had before, and also have a better idea of where to put more bars. One thing that these designs lack a bit is the flair that the two draw overs did. I think once I manage to get a final sketch, I will try to make the design much more likeable to that of those two designs from last week and incorporate some ideas I have got here. I think the combination of the two will create a strong design.

When creating these designs I didn't find them as difficult to produce as the original thumbnails, I think this is because I was set with a base. Beforehand I was way too focused on producing completely different silhouettes since I felt the small details weren't enough.

Material & Surface Properties

 Week 5 - 05/11/20

I am much happier with the outcome of this piece from last week, though it was difficult. I am fine with the composition and I think it is simple but has enough detail in it to be interesting, but I think the objects I used were too close in tonal range that it made my life a bit harder than it had to be. The lighting I chose didn't help me much either as I chose to have the shadow to be cast onto the glass, perhaps a different lighting set up would have helped to distinguish each object a little better.

I started off by being much more careful with planning my piece and I was happy with the drawing after I had finished the sketch and laid in some basic shadow.

As my drawing progressed, I started to started to struggle with the glass quite a bit, the shadows didn't look correct and I found that it didn't really read as the colour it actually is. I have struggled with glass in the past and I think its definitely something I need to practice more to get a hang of, though again, I didn't really help myself by choosing a darker glass for this piece.

I think looking at the finished piece now, it still needs some work to tidy things up, such as the background. I am most happy with the metal steamer, I think it is quite accurate and the shadows on it are interesting and create a nice contrast.

Tonal range is still an issue for me, and I'll try to work on this more next time.

Backyard Blockout

31/10/20 - Week 4

Here is my progress in the backyard slice project. I am really liking the layout I have created so far, I tried to make it interesting from most angles. My plan is to have the uncovered part as sand and then have the trench area filled with plants. I think this will look pretty nice and I am excited to get to the next part of the project.

I plan for the covering and lattice to cover the "wood fencing" aspect of the brief, though I am willing to change this if it is not applicable. The watering can will be my metal asset, the floor underneath the covering will be concrete tile and the wall will be plaster. The bin will cover my storage prop and as previously mentioned, there will be foliage lining the outer edge and also in the pots.