Maya - Jurassic Park Returns

The dinosaurs are loose again, kinda a weird coincidence that we're covering them again huh?. regardless this isn't in my control and two i really like dinosaurs so this is great (again post commentary since busy lessons don't allow for swapping back and forth to write stuff, only the screenshots were current)

the lesson plan was to make a model using an organic reference, ergo; a dinosaur based on a given project with a reference image we were meant to structure according to, the interesting part here is we were told only to use our extrude tool and the insert edge loop tool, as this is to be a simplistic model but still clear in what it represents.

(all our steps were covered in instructions, but this challenge came from how well we could replicate and make it look alike with our own skills) so we started with a cube...



scaled and positioned it, then extruded the faces and made a crude head shape


this lead to the longer jaws and slight head shape adjustment


then a whole bunch of tweaking and pulling at the vertices (another key requisite of this lesson) to try and match the reference image both as a profile and as a 3D model (so it has depth basically) the head is PAIN IN THE ARSE it requires so much tweaking to look like our instructions and to look like an actual dinosaur head.


more tweaking and pulling as well inserting some edge loops to give me more vertices to pull about, then inserting edges to construct an eye for the dinosaur, it's not a copy of the instructions but it looks like an eye and should do the job.


IT's ALIIIIVVEEE, by which i mean the head is done and man sorting out how i was pulling out the neck alongside doing even more tweaking was difficult, its hard to make things follow the reference while watching out for vertices going inside the model.


wow the body is laughably easy in comparison, the geometry is so simply that its a nice quick job to just extrude to construct the body and tail of the dinosaur.


To wrap up i worked on adding more 3 dimensional bulk for the dinosaur so that it doesn't look like a dinosaur shaped pancake. seems this going to be an ongoing model, which should be lots of fun. a nice tip robin told us was that you want the lines of the mesh to follow the shaping of the model to give a better impression of where content is on the body (I've probably butchered what he said) but it's interesting to keep in mind and a little bit of adjustment at the end did hold testament to that.

Definetly a fun lesson, lots of work which is just learning to better use tools we were already acquainted with, so it was nicely challenging, and interesting to work with organic shapes. looking forward to working further on this.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 5 - Perspective introduction

Image
Just a quick update to the blog, and on time i might add; this week we covered an introduction to perspective drawing, with us being tasked to do some tutorials to produce 1 point perspective drawings, which means the origin point of all of the parallel lines all converge on a single point to show a "depth" in an image, with the examples showing a room in a house and a underpass of a abandoned highway. It was really interesting to cover these, and a change of pace for my usual style of drawing due to how technical they were to set up the objects in the image, though that meant it was overall more well put together (though a little rigid) the second piece i coloured a little giving subtle colours to help capture the bleakness of this apocalyptic style setting.
Read more

2D Project - Promo Poster Design - Thumbnails (getting that characterisation in)

Image
When thinking about a promo image (like a wallpaper) I figured the best thing to do was to test the waters with some thumbnails for the composition and posing of the piece, and thus i came up with these. The idea was that i was trying to get in a bunch of different idea's quickly and without worrying too much about anatomy for the moment so that i could focus best on what design captured my characters...character. so to start that off i listed some of the keywords to associate my character with to help me figure out while i was drawing these, and to on reflection look at these designs and pick one out as a winner. Since the character is a paladin of sorts, the stoic attribute means i want something strong and impressive as far as posing goes in order to capture her strength, while wrathful is meant to indicate her somewhat violent nature when angered, so in this case i also wanted her to appear imposing or like she would end you if you crossed her. Lastly she is both holy ...
Read more

Maya Modelling Challenge - Part 2

Image
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...
Read more