Wow...

For the past 12 hours or so iv been in a constant battle with maya trying to make a guitar (we'll get to that later though), However at some point along the line of frustration and near madness, i discovered one of the crucial bits that i had been unable to find the other day in order to complete my screwdriver. So i saved my progress on the guitar and re-opened my screwdriver file, ready to see what surprises maya had for me at the end of this tutorial. I was not dissapointed.

Iv developed a new kind of respect for this annoying program. Frustrating as it is at most times, i cant help but stare in awe at the power it just unleashed before me. The Image Based Lighting function. From what i understand, this function enables the user to input a high resolution photograph into the 3D environment, and then from this image, maya calculates the lighting values given off by the surroundings made by the image. It took me about 7 minutes to render.

It literally takes one click of a button to get from this...

To This...

Just Wow. Well done maya developers. I salute you for this amazingly powerful function you have bestowed upon us.

So anyway i would highly recommend anyone on computer arts to give this tutorial a go:

http://www.creativecrash.com/tutorials/how-to-model-a-screwdriver-and-render-it-with-mental-ray#tabs

At the time i didnt notice that the readership level was "advanced" but i think thats entirely due to the last bit about the image based lighting. It took me something rediculous like 2 or 3 hours to find the right menus and such for that part but now that i know them it would only take minutes, so if anyone needs a bit of help to find them just ask. The making of the screwdriver is simple enough yet very well worth your while for learning a few good techniques

As for my guitar heres a few photos of how its coming along.

The body was made from a cuboid, where i set a quite large number of subdivisions and then scling those i changed the shape.

At this point i tried something that didnt turn out as planned, but the result looked quite cool anyway i thought.

After that i used a cylinder and booleaned it to make the sound hole, and then duplicated the body, scaled it down a fraction, and booleaned that as well to make the guitar hollow.

I then created the neck from a long cuboid merged with a half cylinder, this bit posed the most problems as maya started to act up and do some pretty strange and illogical things. But hopefully ill get back to it in a bit and itll work out.

So thats my work in progress, at this rate i could expect myself to be decent at 3D modelling on maya by the time my glasses arrive and i can draw properly again!

Maya, you old rascal you

Well as i said iv been working on my maya modelling today. Started off with just messing around on the program trying to get a feel of it. That sortof crashed and burned as the programs a bit daunting with its millions (ok not millions, but literally hundreds) of options. And things were just a bit too basic. So i went online to find some maya tutorials, found a few that were far far far too advanced for me (i think creating a gladitorial arena complete with combatants and crowd is a bit out of my depth at this stage), but then i found a good website which had quite a few "simple" tutorials. Chose one on how to make a screwdriver and it turned out really well!

(just look at all those buttons... and thats just for the one menu!)

top view

angled views

Im really chuffed with it in the end!

Things i have learned:

• How to manipulate an object by scaling the vertices etc (and how to change the number of vertices etc on the object)
• Booleans - the way i made the indentations in the handle and the flat screw end, basically its just like cutting shapes out (bit more complex than that though)
• How to smooth out the shapes i create once iv modified the vertices into the rough shape i desire
• That i need to now figure out how the assigning of materials and lighting works, as i couldnt quite figure it out even with the tutorials help

Now i might go back and attempt Wall-E once more with my new found knowledge!

The world through ones eye (or one eye)

well thats the first week back at uni done, yesterday was our first life drawing and maya classes, both of which were quite interesting. In life drawing we were doing head studies, which i think to the people who had never done life drawing before was a bit of a relief, they'll have another week to mentally prepare! But yeah todays class went quite well, and i think i learned a few things, although i found it very difficult as all that remains of my glasses after an accident the other day is one lens... this has also been slowing down my work as observed drawing becomes a pain after a while (monocles may look quite cool but they're definately not very functional over long periods of time) , so hopefully my new pair will be ready soon and i can get back onto the sketchbooks! We're storing our life drawings in the actual studio though so i dont have any images to post on here just now.

Next up was maya... what an incredibly complicated program... so many menus, buttons, options, different ways to do things... im afraid to touch the keyboard as everything seems to have a shortcut and i think ill press something and not know what iv done! but im planning on spending the next few days getting to grips with this program, as i can tell its a very powerful tool and once i get the hang of it, might actually be quite fun! but yeah i managed to make the basic shapes, that part is easy, then the tutor started to show us a lot of different tools we could use. Bit hard to follow with one eye but i did my best and now i can at least change the shapes of things and a few other things. Made an attempt at creating Wall-E (ongoing bit of fun from the second day of first year) . Didnt get too far but i think im definately making progress.

On another note, sleep pattern may be on the move again (hence why im up at 6am on a saturday morning - the suns not even up yet!) but in my search for something to do i did come across some pretty amazing videos on youtube. These are interactive sculptures made from a magnetic fluid called ferrofluid. Just Wow.

Im back!

WARNING: the following post shall be very long and may cause any of the following side effects: tiredness of the eyes, numbing of the lower limbs, an urge to drink coffee, minor brain hemorrhaging. take care.

So this is me finally getting back on track with the blog! This post is going to be a summarisation of the work i did in the week coming up to the deadlines in january, as well as a general summing up of my first semester at uni. Its coming a bit late as iv been distracted by "market research"...

... Playing video games is technically market research ok! Graphics and animation and all that stuff! so anyway yeah i got back in edinburgh on the 3rd of january after an enjoyable christmas holiday, however my lack of productivity across that period gave me much work to do to meet the oncoming deadlines later that week. Nothing to worry about however as i had it planned out in my head. The first deadline was Visual Literacy so logically that was the first thing i did. The last thing i had to do for that was my sketchbook, which i admit was looking shamefully empty as i had been lacking the inspiration to just draw whatever came to mind. But i got cracking and did as much as i could. And heres the extra pages i drew in that time...

There were also quite a few pages dedicated to showing my understanding the principles of animation and the elements in art (composition, colour etc), All my modules were placed in the one sketchbook partly due to lack of funds at the time, partly due to the other sketchbooks being crap and destroyed by rain, and partly due to me thinking "well some of the stuff i draw for dynamic communications and animation could also show my understanding of composition and such..." This did however mean that i was working on 3 modules at once for a deadline the same week, quite stressful.

So yeah i handed that in - victory pint with dan and some of his flatmates - nap - caffiene - work - then the last 2 repeat over and over until im done. Recipe for success!

For animation i realised i hadnt done an animatic yet (i had confused myself thinking the storyboard and the animatic were the same thing) so i got going on a quick one, nothing too fancy as its not required in an animatic, its just to show a rough idea of how your animation will flow, with the timings and such for each keyframe. And then i got cracking on the final animation... Dear god tornados are a hard thing for a first timer on flash to try and animate... this was my fourth idea, the most ambitious but best idea for the attempt at a tornado animation. The other 3 were just totally unconvincing and made me wince in pain to look at them judder across the screen in a mock tornado fashion. But Neil helped me come up with this idea, something i simultaneously thank him and hate him for, to draw a still tornado in one frame, and then draw it moved slightly across in the next frame and so on. This didn't seem as big a challenge as it actually was, for to make the tornado appear as if it was moving i needed to alter the "wind lines" in each frame. one by one...

...So after 6 hours the tornado was done to my liking! I had even used shading to better convey the 3D aspect of the tornado. So i could close the chapter on those 3 seconds of my animation (thats right, 6 hours to do 3 seconds, and not much procrastination in between!) Luckily the rest of my animation was nowhere near as complicated, and i had been starting to get the knack of the motion tweens and such on flash so it didnt prove too difficult. The "Dash" provided a few awkward little problems but i think i fixed them quite well. So lets see if this thing will let me upload my animation... hmm maybe later then

Dynamic communications next, thankfully that was the one thing i had actually managed to focus on during my holidays back in Edinburgh. I had the pictures, it was just a matter of making the video, so i opened windows movie maker and after a few hours i was quite chuffed with my end result, lets see if this will upload... nope maybe later as well

Lastly but by no means last, audio! On my last day in Edinburgh i had gathered some friends over to help me with the recordings for this, so at least those were mostly done and all that was left was to actually mix them together to make the advert. The vocals i was particularly happy with as well as the ending i decided on, however with more time i wish i could have made the beginning a bit better. I wasnt too keen on the "music" i created at the start. but at least it was done. As was everything else, AT LAST!

Such a relieving feeling handing in every bit of work you were given on time. However the aftermath is rather odd. Later that night i sat down at my computer and couldnt think what to do, i had got into a schedule of wake up, work, stay awake, work (eating inbetween of course), eventually sleep a bit. And now i was free to do whatever i wanted to do. But there seemed like nothing else.

Then i discovered Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, and iv become addicted to that! bloody hell its a great game - er i mean yeah thats good market research right there!

And then we reach the here and now, where i sat at my computer typing this blogpost. Had my first day back at uni yesterday to start my second semester, and first semester has definately taught me a few things to bring to the second. I plan to look after my time a bit better, and to sketch a bit everyday (already started!) everything shall be finished and handed in BEFORE the deadline, not the day of it. And i think/hope to stick by these. For my health and sanity

So im off to sketch some stuff in my new sketchbooks and then play some CoD MW2!

(apologies for any of the aforementioned side effects being enacted upon you poor souls)

Back in Action

So thats me back in Dundee to get cracking on a hell of a lot of work, had a brilliant Christmas and new year with the family and friends, but now i need to concentrate on getting these deadlines sorted. Unfortunately did nowhere near the amount of work i wanted to do in my time in edinburgh, so im just gonna have to catch up is all. Did the recordings for my audio advert last night with the help of Dechlan, John, Andy and my family, and just now its sounding alright. Changed the pitch of my voice to be deep and dramatic, got lots of little electronic noises recorded and it wouldnt be complete without a good 'ol Bill and Ted style "EXCELLENCE" at the end (the advert is to advertise abertays centre of *excellence*). So now iv just got to make the music at the start of the advert, the background noises during the talking, and the final little noises at the end, and then finally write the report about it (thank god i took notes!)

Edit: Well, bit of trouble there, forgot my dynamic com pictures at home, managed to get them sent to Art's computer (long story, just my msn is retarded), but now it appears his computers needing a bit of psycological therapy as it doesnt like to do certain things, such as anything you tell it to, so going to have to fight a bit to get my images for that, and no good music mixing software on my computer currently, means that ill have to move my work schedule around a bit and start doing sketches tonight instead! ill get a few up later on.