Sum-up

Well its been a while since my last proper entry here (not including that single image post for dynamic communications - i was just feeling lazy that time) So ill run through a quick summary of how my works been going the past few weeks.
The life drawing deadline came and went, my desire to do as many drawings as possible to add onto the minimum of 4, led me to a fairly sleep deprived, stressful, but overall satisfying result of 12 final drawings (with another 4 planned but lacking motivation on the last leg... ah well, life goes on)
Next up was some audio, i took an audio recorder out from the library and did what recordings i could at that time, and finished the rest at a later date. So i am now in possession of what i believe is everything i need to complete my audio coursework, and i've set myself a deadline of friday to do it (todays wednesday right? hmmm... i better not take too much longer on this thing in maya - ill get to that soon)
After the first batch of audio recordings and before the last, was dynamic communications. Me and George got together over the holidays and got to work on designing our "natural cathedral" (see previous post). It took us about 16 hours or so to finish, and we took pictures of the progress at intervals and plan on creating a small animation to show the evolution of our idea. That can be done quite quickly and easily so it can wait for now.
Finally, we get to maya. Oh maya, iv already had the rant about maya on here sometime earlier in the year so i wont bother again. I'll just say things havent changed. Iv been (and still am as i write this) stumped as to how to get further in the creation of one particular shape i designed for my environment: the top of the lookout/entrance tower. I seem to be full of ideas on how to most easily go about it, however each in turn decides to crash and burn and slowly douse the small flame of hope left in me. I stumbled upon a way to create a very similar shape to the one i desire, however i feel that if maya is going to be a major part of my life for the next few years (possibly much longer too) then "very similar" just isnt quite going to cut it. I want my shape. And i wont stop till i get it.
...Or until the deadline begins to encroach and i start thinking it best to have something rather than nothing, but lets not think of that shall we. Ill leave on a positive note - brought home all my in-class life drawing, yay!

Dynamic Communications

Some life drawing

Not been on here in a little while, iv been working away on everything mostly, and the past week or so iv dedicated to doing some more anatomy drawings for my life drawing module. So heres the extra that iv done so far (already did the minimum of 4 and uploaded them on here)Muscles of the Back

Muscles of the abdomen


Muscles of the Neck

Skull (my personal favourite)

Iv still got 4 drawings of the ribcage and spine at different angles i want to finish in my sketchbook before handing it in tomorrow. If i manage i should have a total of 10 pages with 16 detailed drawings, should be fine i reckon!

sleep sounds good

well its been a good wee while since i posted on here, my apologies as i was ill, and couldnt seem to muster the motivation to work. That is until yesterday when i remembered its crit week and essay deadline on friday! So i got cracking on some sketches, made a couple coffees and had a very productive all nighter. Managed 9 pages in my sketchbook. Most of it is 3D environment development, stuff that i had in my head, and transferred into maya, and kindof bypassed the sketching, but folk dont seem to like it if i dont show all my ideas nice and drawn out so i got to it.

These ones are for my audio coursework, theyre quick little maps of what my environment is going to sound like, and where each sound will come from, to give an idea of the distance i need to create

Then i went on to further details of my environment, the way that the sun effects the interior of the temple etc

And hes where iv left off in my actual maya work, doing the towers currently, then ill do the guardhouse, then its pretty much a choice between the mountains or the lower city buildings (copy and paste towers)



So iv got my pitch in just over 2 and a half hours, that should hopefully go fine with all the work iv done, then ill head over to the library to try and borrow a hand held recording device, as i plan to record most if not all my sounds by the end of the weekend. After library is a quick trip to the bank to sort some stuff out, then once i get home either sleep or essay... im probably going to bet on sleep

Mountains

Title basically sums it up, iv been playing around on mayas hypershader (looks really complicated but i think im starting to get a basic understanding of some parts, the rest still eludes me completely however) and managed to come up with quite a good way of creating a rocky texture using displacement shaders, bump mapping and fractals. Takes an AGE to render, but i think it looks pretty good on my very quickly sculpted simple "mountain shape". The real one will be alot more... er... mountainy. Yeah... so anyway breakfast time! mmmm porridge.

Fire, Water, Earth, Wind... Or maybe just the first 2 for now

And so Stuart looked down upon this world, and it was good. But things were a little dark. Let there be fire! He declared. And there was fire.

He then looked upon his illuminated world, and it was good. But soon the fire spread and was too much. Let there be water! Stuart declared. And there was water.

(And it was bloody hard to make water)

It even changes colour depending on the lighting i use and it refracts objects so they reflect to a degree. That should make for an interesting little resevoir inside my environment!

Back on track

Well, i finally fixed maya and things are back on the move! Which is all for the better as i was informed by sources that the deadline for the 3D environment and sketchbook is a actually about a MONTH earlier than i thought... so thats going to make life a little bit harder, but i reckon i can do it. Im still left with a little over a month to do it, so as long as i can finish my environment to a degree i deem acceptable within the next 2 weeks, i can spend 3 more just drawing like mad! Im unsure right now but my life drawing deadline might be the same date, so thats going to be interesting to see if i manage. But then the good news is if those dates are correct and i succeed in getting alot done, then all ill have left is... not much! just my audio and dynamic communications coursework. Dyna could be finished within a week of dedicated work with george, so long as we plan out our animation (should get some storyboards up). And audio, still need to get an idea for the ringtone, but the 3D environment sound should be a simple matter of field recording and mixing the sounds.

Sounds i want to record:
Horse hooves (coconuts)
rocks tumbling (simple enough)
wind (same as rocks)
medieval market (farmers market? with lots of other random sounds in there too)
clanking armour (pots and pans?)
dripping water in a cave (dripping tap with reverb?)
maybe a wee bit of faint acoustic music in the background (record friends)
whatever else i can think of that might be in my environment

As for the environment itself iv been working on the gatehouse today


Yet to decide on the final look of it, just playing around to see what looks good really, but i think the initial shape iv made there seems to fit quite nicely, just need to do add more curves and do the top