Mini post 13 – continued on pickup truck

I have continued work on the pickup truck. I have worked into the body, adding more details to the body, adding side mirrors, and bull bars. I have also added some cylinders to show where the wheels will be. This model is almost complete.

Weekly overview – week 3

As I mentioned previously, this week was mostly spent getting my portfolio together for my meeting with Tim Browne, so I haven’t got too much done for dead farm this week. I expected this to happen and so I had already spoken to Adam about it, and he was fine. I am looking forward to getting my pickup truck finished because it will be the second car I have made, and it was fun last time. I also hope to improve my texturing skills for the truck.

Mini post 12 – not an april fools

Today I went to codemasters studios near lemmington spa and had a chat with a man called Tim Browne. He is senior game designer of operation flashpoint, and he talked to me about how to break into the industry. It was a very useful talk and I had great fun, but unfortunately he didn’t need to see my portfolio so I didn’t need to spend this week working on it. Oh well, it was a fantastic experience and I can’t wait to start in the industry!

Thank you to Ian Bailey and Simon Miles for setting this meeting up for me.

Mini post 11 – oops

Adam kindly e-mailed me last night to remind me that I hadn’t made collisions for my cow or my cellar doors, so I have done that now and it has been sent to him.

Mini post 10 – pickup truck and codemasters

I have started work on my pickup truck.

This week I will be focusing on getting my portfolio ready for a meeting I have with codemasters. It’s not a job interview or anything, simply a guiding meeting to help me in the directions of what to do to get into the industry and what I need to focus on.

I’ll update on how it went.

Weekly overview – week 2

This week I finished my cow model and started to look into making my pickup truck.

I had a chat to Adam, and he thinks that I won’t need to model the horses, chickens or pigs. He thinks that cows will be fine for the space that we have to work with and I agree. I think I have worked well this week. Although it may not look like it, I worked very hard on the cow texture, but I have difficulty using Photoshop when it comes to making nice textures. This is something that I plan on working on in my spare time.

Mini post 9 – Started research for pickup

I started to look for reference images of the pickup truck that I want to model for the farm. Here are some of the images that I gathered.

Mini post 8 – double sided cow

After chatting to Adam and showing him my cow, he requested that I also create a cow that was upright and slumped, rather then being decomposed into the floor like the one I had already made. This wasn’t too much of a problem as I could simply use symmetry on the side I had and figure out a way to create the middle pieces. This caused problems with my texture, so I re-did it so that the middle part wasn’t too stretched.

Mini post 7 – continuing the cow

I continued work on the dead cow today. I created the back end and started my texture.

Here is how it looked after I had textured it.

Here is the texture that I created.

We discovered today that Kev has also gone to TT fusion with the other so we now have Adam as the team leader. Good luck to both with the new positions.

Weekly overview – week 1

This week was spent starting the actual design and development of dead far 2010. I think we have a fairly strong team working on this project. The team includes myself, Kev (leader), Adam (unreal implementer), Ste, Bob, Ash, Lottie (character artist) and Mike (environment concept artist).

Mike Boden, Jake Gainey and Jake ashby have all gone on placement at TT Fusion, so I wish them luck.

We came up with a rough asset list of everything that needs to be modelled for the level and decided who will be modelling what. We first discussed the idea of assigning certain areas of the map to certain people to concentrate on, but we decided against that, as we wanted people to make a different range of assets each.

I was assigned to create a group of dead animals, consisting of cows, pigs, horses and chickens. I was also asked to create the entrance to the underground lair and a Toyota pickup truck.

By the end of the week I had modelled the cellar doors and started the model on the dead cow. Once I had modelled the cellar door for the underground entrance I realised that using stairs wouldn’t work because the head space to walk down them wasn’t enough for the unreal character sizes, so I decided to use a ladder instead.

I think I have had a nice productive week this week, and plan on doing the same next week. I am planning on unwrapping and texturing my cellar doors, and my cow.

Mini post 6 – Started modelling cow

Now that I have my research together I have started modelling my dead cow. This will be the first of a series of animals scattered around the farm.

Here is what I have so far.

Mini post 5 – Started cow research

I started my research on dead animals today. I have saved a lot of images of dead cows, pigs and horses. I wont post the images on here in case they offend.

Mini post 4 – Texturing the lair door

I have now textured the door to the underground lair.

Mini post 3 – modelled cellar door

I have now modelled the cellar doors. It didn’t take too long to do as they are made of basic geometric shapes.

I originally modelled the doors with stairs, as in my reference, but I realised that the head space required by unreal is too much for the slope of the stairs. I replaced them with ladders as this would work better with the idea of an underground base being quite far down. A ladder works better for this because the stairs would have to go very far forwards, rather then simply going straight down with a ladder.

Mini post 2 – Started research

Today I started to research images to use as reference for the assets that I need to create. I have been asked to create the cellar door asset first, so I researched into celler doors images and layouts.

Here are some examples.

Mini post 1 - Worked together on asset list

Today was the start of the dead farm project. We all got together and decided on the layout of the level, and what assets need to be modelled. I was assigned to modelling dead animals, cellar doors, and a Toyota pickup truck.

Dead farm.

Now that the Character design project is done, it's time to start work based learning.
To do this we were given a brief called dead farm.
This is about a time travelling naughty man who is creating a clone army in a secret underground base under an old farm.
There is a lot of work to go into this, but I think we have the man power to finish it.
So Far I have been modelling dead cows and cellar doors. I realise this is an odd mix but these are the assets that I have been asked to make, so make them I shall.
I'm going to make a toyota pickup truck as well.

On another note, I have started to try and learn Maya again and luckily I have remembered a lot from way back when, when I used Maya. I still have to go through a tonne of video tutorials to try and get as good as I can before the course finishes.
cx

Textured!

Once again I have neglected my blog.Im sorry about this, I'll do my best to keep it updated from now on.
Ok So now I have textured and animated my character.
Skinning my character was a huge chaleng for me but I think it was fun, (not that I'd want to do it again anytime soon).
Here are some pictures of my fully textured character.


Now that the Character is done I need to focus on my portfolio for a review I have on the 1st.
I have taken my shifts right down in work, so I should be okfor time.
Wish me luck.

cx

grand finale

ok, so I've added the sword I designed originally now.
This sword has swivelling cylinders in the handle that control date in the format of dd/mm/yyyy.
You set the date with this and then snap the sides down to go there. Pretty nifty ey?



and my friends, that is it!

I have finally finished.
My CD Is in my hand with a pretty label on it waiting to be given to the lovely Jonathan tomorrow in uni.

Thank you for paying attention to anything that I may have posted on here and I look forward to starting the next project.
cx

weapon time

Here is the weapon that I made today.
It's a medieval katar, with a chemical vial in the handle that sends a stunning poison down the needle between the blades and out of the end.
This is designed to cause enough damage to stop the enemy in their tracks, but not kill them, only stun them with the poison that gets into the wound.
The Vial can be changed to more potent chemicals/poisons for bigger enemies, or to use lethal force.

Hope you like it.

Final renders

Ok guys, I think this is it.
Here are the renders.

Let me know what you think, and if any changes should be made. (preferably before I hand them in tomorrow lol)
cx

Finished concept

Hello all, how are you today?

I have just finished my concept drawing for my character and now I'm going to finish up my renders and scan some drawings in for the hand in tomorrow.
And here he is with stats:
Let me know what you think guys.
Thank you cx

renders and concept work

Hello all.
I have been working on a couple of renders for the hand in on Monday and here they are.

I have also re-done my concept drawing (again) and here is what I have so far.
Please let me know what you think so far, as your feedback is extremely important to me at this point in the project.
cx

Almost there

Hey all.
I managed to get all of model together now, with the head included and I have added some planes where the hair will be alpha'd on afterwards.
Here are a few pictures.At this very moment in time, I am trying to do some nice lay like renders, and they are taking forever.
Keep an eye out in the near future to see these.
cx

arm 2.0

OK, so after a minor meltdown, and a few kind and constructive words from Dean I decided to completely re-do the arm that was driving me crazy.
I sacrificed the gaps between the fingers to a shape I saw one of the other guys use, and it doesn't look too bad.


I also got rid of some unnecessary poly's in my legs, and chest.

I know that there is still a lot of work to do on this model, but I think I'm finally happy with the progress at the moment.
Let's see how long that lasts.
Cx

Minor freak out.

Hey all.
I'm sitting here doing work for hours, and it feels like im working backwards.
It's rather frustrating. I spend time doing something, and it doesnt work, and now I feel stuck.
Here's a couple of screenshots of areas I'm having problems with.

There's way too many verts in this arm, but it can't be helped because the extra lines are caused by the fact that you need a gap inbetween your fingers.


And this..... don't even get me started on this. I look at everyone elses heads and they look like them. I'm looking at mine and I'm not even seeing human lol. I'm having alot of issues with the nose and eyes especially.


If you have any advice to help me, please give it.
I can't wait to be back in tomorrow and get a bit of help off Dean.

Post Christmas blues.

Happy holidays everyone!
I hope that all of your Christmas's and New year's went well.

Christmas came and went surprisingly quickly and it feels like I've lost loads of time out of knowhere, but I have been working (granted not as much as I probably should have been).

Heres a little update on the head, with the front photo quickly pasted on there for demonstration purposes.I'm not too happy with this at the moment, so I am working on the topology of it in photoshop.

And here's a couple of pictures of the Body...


Thats it for now guys,
I'll keep updating.
cx