Sometimes...

Sometimes you just really have to hate maya. It will work perfectly fine most of the time, with the occasional little hiccup throwing you off beat for maybe an hour tops, or inconveniencing you ever so slightly. But every now and then it doesnt just throw a spanner in the works, its burns down the whole production line... Such is the case with this latest mystery: I cant select things. I have no idea why, i can select an object, but beyond that... selecting edges? nope. Selecting vertexes? nuh-uh. Faces? Dont kid yourself. Its brought me to a complete standstill... iv tried restarting the computer, restarting maya, opening previous saves, starting afresh, even giving up on the simple selecting, none of the other buttons work either. As far as i can see, it is literally impossible for me to continue. I lack the simplest yet most crucial thing for just about every program. Damn you maya, damn you.

The time for change is now!

titles a bit over dramatic for me to simply state that i decided to change something in my design but oh well the points across. Was just finishing the wall surrounding the city, but then something about it kept nagging at me. It just made it all look a bit too closed in, so im hoping that i can rectify that by expanding the walls further out. This left the problem of there being a large space between the bridge and the entrance at the wall, so iv decided to create some kind of gatehouse/citadel structure. Still in the conceptual stages as of yet, probably some form of tunnel (with gates for defensive purposes) and large buildings attached to the walls to house guards and whatnot. Would probably also be used for various other purposes such as food storage, temporary housing for travellers, general "governmental" offices (not too sure if this city has a "government" as such yet). But yeah, hopefully ill figure something out by tomorrow. Hoping to finish the entire exterior of my environment (minus the optional texturing, fluids and particle effects for fire, smoke, mist, etc) by the end of next week.

Oh by the way, started writing a blog about gigs and music if your interested, partly a journal of my musical encounters and partly an expression of my opinions about music and other affiliated things. It'll also remove the temptation for me to talk on this about awesome stuff that happens - lets try to keep it about uni shall we. http://gig-aholic.blogspot.com/

Sculpting a world, bit by bit

Another day, another blog update on my 3D environment.

Things are starting to take shape quite well, iv completed the main temple building (exterior) now, and added some torch stands on the bridge (ill need to research how to make fire in maya as well as water)




So tasks for the end of today: complete walls + finishing touches on the stairs (cant have folk falling off the edge now can we) then tomorrow i think ill take a little break to do some more research on my 2 architects for my essay ...or i might just do some more maya...

Updates updates

Well its that time again, been maya-ing all day now after a well deserved sleep (we'll get to that bit later) and have a few more images to show the progress of my 3D environment

The first thing iv been workng on is the main building on the plataeu, got the shape of the main section just as i want it and just have the entrance and towers to make. Towers should be a simple matter, entrance on the other hand will be a bit more challenging but ill think of a way


The other thing iv been working on is the stairs to the rest of the city, think theyve ended up looking good!



Iv been thinking a bit more about what im going to include in my design, and its basically just more logical thinking about how the place would function. And it came to me that the central building, having a gaping hole in the top, would inevitably be a good source of water collection, so there would be a resevoir underneath, and theoretically "plumbing" leading to every house. But what got me thinking was the fact that you would be able to see he rain when inside the main building, and this led me to realise the various ways in which the interior could be seen, depending on the weather and time of day, thus changing the mood all the time. So if i have time i reckon i would render images with different lighting environments and effects to simulate these. I just keep on giving myself more work dont I...

So im gonna keep doing a bit more tonight, but before i do that, ill just say the Mastodon gig in Glasgow was AWESOME last night, they played brilliantly, but even better was the fact i ran into them in a pub round the corner when i took a wrong turn! best mistake of my life! ended up walking the guitarist - Brent, to the gig because he'd had a few to drink, like always, good old brent. Had a nice wee conversation with him and got his autograph, and the entire time i couldnt believe it! Also have suspicions that the support act - totimoshi (or something similar)- were sitting behind me on my bus. There was 3 americans, one girl and 2 guys, on their way to the mastodon gig, and they were talking about how they would need to quickly do stuff before the gig. And the support act consisted of one girl and 2 guys, american, and they were quite late to the gig. Still, quite possibly a coincidence, but just imagine if it is true! thats one hell of a fateful journey!

Audio sounds AWESOME!

So a quick wee post here, got our audio coursework told to us today, need to make a ringtone for myself (not sure what ill do for that yet, but it has to be as imaginative/abstract as i can think of), and then the other task is to create a bit of audio which goes with our 3D environment, which sounds like a lot of fun! Already got the ideas in my head, planning on having a little walkthrough of the city - horses hooves going up mountain slope, wind, falling rocks etc - dismounts horse - walking on stone bridge, noises of bustling city below - eery silence entering temple - soft music begins to sound, as well as ambient cave sounds etc. Should be fun to do and itll help motivate me to actually finish it! On that note heres how far iv got so far before i go off to have some fun tonight! happy pancake day everyone!

Catching up

So here we are again, its been a little while what with working for pitch week, gigs and visits back home. So heres a little catch up on each of my modules and how im getting along. (basically everything i said at my pitch plus a bit more iv done since). First off, still dont have coursework for audio yet, but that might change in 5 hours when we go into uni for our lecture/tutorial, so news on that later. Then theres our life drawing module, which im really enjoying, as well as finding it challenging to try a different way of drawing from how i would normally. The images that are done differently from my normal style are tucked away at uni unfortunately so no pictures here, but i do have my anatomy sketches handy

Find it quite peaceful to draw anatomy, gonna try to do as much of it as i can (working my way along the human body), as well as doing some of my own life drawings, maybe a hand study or something too.

Then theres Visual Literacy, got an essay needing done which i plan on finishing before the end of february (about a month in advance i think). Decided who my first architect im going to write about will be: Norman Foster - Always liked his work

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Going to sketch a few more of his works and then decide on who i think my other architect should be. Ill focus on that this weekend coming up i think.

The main bulk of semester 2's coursework has to be our 3D maya environment, so i quickly decided on what i would (attempt to) create. Its a slightly older sketch of mine that iv always wanted to revisit, and it definately looks challenging enough to keep me occupied the next couple months.
Already been altering the design slightly in my head, the majority of it will stay as it is, however i want something a bit more spectacular than a "normal" fantasy city plopped in some countryside. So im planning on making the city appear to be carved into the side of a mountain, my basic plan to do this would be to raise the city up from the ground, with a mountain path leading up to the entrance, and to have the mountain continue from the back of the main building, which i plan to make into some form of sacred place of worship (got an image in my head of a very natural interior "design" - stalagtites, stalagmites etc, as little in the way of human interferance as possible, with a giant crystal or something to do the same degree in the centre, with light shining upon it from the hole in the roof). Ill get some sketches done for that too.

Since i feel this is going to take me A VERY LONG TIME, iv already started working on it. And as always with maya (from my very limited experience as seen in previous posts) its a painstakingly slow process of trial and error until i get it working the way i want. And any mistakes that go unnoticed are a disastrous loss of time and energy. The Bridge for example, i discovered that while reducing the poly count i accidentally removed a few of the smaller faces, and so that needed to be redone from an earlier file.
And my last module is dynamic communications, where i have teamed up with george to form a group, and we recently brainstormed (or "mind-showered" - political correctness has gone mad) what we would like to do for our project. The plan is to combine our seeds/fields of nature/evolution and medieval architecture/cathedrals, into a hand drawn animation. A storyboard is yet to be drawn out, but we plan on having a sort of "battle" between forces of nature (rock and plant) which try to take control of a mountain valley. Rocks will fall from avalanches and fuse together, while plants will grow around them and try to push them away. But in the end both forces will lead to the creation of a "natural cathedral" (cathedral/temple/place of worship/spectacular "architecture", whatever). Its ambitious and going to be difficult but were planning on starting as soon as we sort of the logistics involved (where to do it, how to keep the camera in the same place, etc) So thats it for now, ill get back to you when mores been done