Joshua Gardener's Art Blog

For the second post i will be covering some of the progress i made in modelling my level; Initially based on the first rough sketch i made depicting several blocks of houses and warehouses (fitting in with it being a blend between a new york industrial district and the proximity to a more residential district) so i decided to rough out the design in maya, i could have done it in unity but i like the degree of control i have in maya more even in a rough stage. All i wanted at this stage was to give a rough idea of how the level would look and things like how that design looked in practice, it also helped me plan out how i intended to make the player progress through the level. Next i began focusing on the main elements of my model that needed to have more detail as more of the sequence would take place there, this being a house that the player will walk into, be able to look about and gain some information then leave through another exit, out to a side alley and out...

So now for the endgame, this being where i texture the model and if i have time add some of the small components i left out due to time constraints. the method for assigning the textures to planes if done thus; first i need to assign a material to the object in question (in this case we're going with blinn), then we're going to assign its colour as a file, in this case the file being our texture. now we can work on the mapping, using the planar mapping tool, and then using the "best plane" tool, we can play around with how the texture is layered, scale positioning and rotation can all be adjusted.  now its just a matter of applying this to all the surfaces shown in my reference image. Additionally for some planes that utilise the same directions, i can select both and use mapping to conduct them both at the same time. this does obviously point out that i have to map out the faces to avoid distortion where their facing direction causes. ...

We one again continue with our replication of a picture as a model in maya, hopefully this time i can finish the model off and start attaching the textures to the walls and roofs. To start the session off i thought i would get those pillars towards the front of the image modeled; Here is the finished pillar, which i used a cube and the extrude tool to make all the indents in the pillar, i also made the main column skinnier so that i could attach another cube as a panel for when i add textures so that it mimics the indent from the main image. A little bit of duplication never hurt anyone so i applied the pillar to all the locations where it shows up in my reference image. making use of some of the shapes i made already i set up more of the roof structure and the pillars to support it, then set up the strangely shaped veranda; by using a poly cube then scaling out the bottom face, and deleting the top face and extruding the edge left out to make this indented b...

And so it continues; my work for the maya modeling challenge received a while ago; I decided to refine some of my geometry by using the mirror cut tool to cut the skirting board I made last time to achieve a more even cut, it took a while though to realize I needed to set the option to "discrete rotate" so that it would angle round without leaving gaps. Additionally i also started blocking out the main structure of the model using simple geometry just so i could better visualise the rest of the elements on the model. Added the roof of part of the building i was modelling, tapering the vertices at the top using scaling and then using the vertices loop tool to create the more accurate to image shape. Also angled these triangles inwards to capture the slant on all sides of the image. Also got a chance to do more mirror cuts by cutting that shape and creating the back laying building. More mirror cuts, wow this tool is really handy for making use of geo...

This weeks task was to refine our knowledge of proportions and the human body by producing drawings covering key structures of the human body as well as skeleton studies to show the bones and joints of the body. As usual some moodboards and sketches are our go to starter, with the final piece being a 3 view skeleton diagram covering the front back and side of a skeleton, with notes to the bones and joints of the body detailed on it. That being said the first bone i drew for myself was the pelvic bone, I've always though it an interesting one because of its placement defining the anatomical center of the body, also when drawing characters its interesting to see how lines in the body curve around the pelvic bone for drawing the hips, as they define a lot of the attitude for a character due to their stance. Right out the gate i can say this task is one of the longest I've had to do because of how long it takes to properly draw a skeleton, but the experience of dr...

To make sure the progress i have achieved for my winter submission goes up on my blog, and shows (or will show) the progress i make right up until the deadline of 12/12/14 this will be the first post of a few covering where i am at various stages of the project. These posts will cover Maya work (like this post) , unity progress, storyboards, one sheets, and various ideas leading up to the submitted piece. Since this is the first one (of many) i should probably start by posting content from the concept of my game, since i have made many notes to cover the ideas for both my game and level design and rehashed the idea a few times to refine what i wanted from it. I also have the initial version of my storyboard that i can show through here (though ill likely refine it as it was made with my starting ideas in mind); The next post will likely have my text version of my one sheet; the tool which is meant to summarise the key selling point of your game as well as be able to...

Last weeks lesson had us doing work on proportions when drawing characters and how variation in that proportion helps show things like babies from adults as well as when there intends to be a variety of human like race. To further this point we had to then draw our own elf and dwarf, following through with making there proportions relatively in line with their stereotype; elves are tall and willowy, dwarves being stout and hefty. As such we were shown roughly how many heads their height would be and where key points in their anatomy would be. Elves would be around 8-9 heads tall, Dwarves 4-5 heads. The dwarf i had a lot of fun with as it gave me a chance to try really emphasising the hard edges of the body to give it a sturdy look despite the smaller proportions. The elf on the other hand was more challenging as i usually only go up to 6 - 7 heads in my other work so it was harder to balance out features and body parts over that longer distance. On the whole it gave me s...

This homework covers a continuation of our lesson work using the animation tools within maya, this time to rig and animate a mesh created in there. Note to self; make sure the menu's are using the animation set up as this makes this really hard to do without >.> firstly we are starting with the teaching material given fish (similar to the one i had to do weeks ago) the tutorials cover that there are basic shapes used to influence the motion of the fish when moved by binding them to the more detailed mesh that is visible. Here we are introduced to another tool; the joint tool, another drawing tool which allows you to draw a series of hierarchy or objects called joints. the can then be rotated or moved both individually or as groups. Which of course we are then going to apply to the cylinder we have created. by selecting the originator of the chain and then the object and binding them using the smooth chain tool, we can now use these joints to hav...