Shit happens when you start to care about others

I am planning to do night lab (overnight work in college) from next week so that I believe I can put some real time to my project. The problem is that the college authorities won't give up a class for night lab for just one guy. So I posted in out batch's facebook page whether anyone wish to joining. The replies weren't that encouraging. By 'replies' I mean several replies from one guy who think he'll start night lab when he thinks its time for texturing. I said I'm ready to start texturing as I have my one character unwrapped. In reply he kind of mocked me, well I know he was joking. So now the situation is that I cannot do my night lab without any of my other batch mates. But at the same time I asked myself 'Why the fuck should I  care about others?' So what I'm going to do on Monday is that I'll ask the faculties if they will give me a lab. If they ask me to bring on more members I'll say I'll sit with any other batch. After all my batch isn't the only one in college!!!

Unwrapping- Baby Vulture

I have been working on unwrapping my first project character in Maya. I thought I would use any 3rd party plugin for it since its a lot easier than UV texture editor in Maya, but I didn't. The unwrapping took some time because I was also modelling my second character and watching lot of movies (playing Trine 2 also).  Now the unwrapping of the character body is done and the leg is remaining, which I could finish soon.
I did the unwrapping on one side of the character since it's going to be mirrored later. I used Planar projection for the wings and Cylindrical for body and leg. The beak I used Planar again and the rest of the face upto neck I used Automatic projection.

The UV's are in weird shapes since the symmetry is not yet applied

There are some stretches here and there which needs to be rectified. On the other hand I am modeling my second character ( Mother Vulture) and its not coming out that great. Anyway I'm still working on that and I intend to start the rigging in this week.

Playing Trine 2

Last day I was surfing through IGN to check out the game of year award winners. I was hoping Assassins Creed: Revelations would get something but it didn't. I was pretty sure that Skyrim would own but in overall Portal 2 scalped most awards. Then I looked for top rated games and the name Trine 2 struck me which is having a rate of 9 (http://pc.ign.com/objects/076/076949.html). I read the review and I realized that it's kind of a small puzzle game, something like Limbo and decided to give a try.
Even though its a sidescrolling game the levels are awesome with variety of colors and puzzles. I really liked the idea of switching between the characters( The Wizard, Thief, Knight) in order to get across each level. As the abilities and powers of each characters are different, there are many ways to reach each checkpoints. I look forward to finish it soon, because I'm buried deep under my project and it smells real bad.

The Knight in Trine 2

One down, 2 to go...!!!

Yesterday I completed the digital model of my project character that I've been working on for the last few days. Today I had some more detailing to be done such as modeling the inside of the mouth. My plan was to Unwrap the character so that I will be able to start rigging from next week. So I combined the head and the body both of which I did separately and the model looked just like the character I was looking for. Still I guess there's something to be done with the tail of the baby vulture. The tail isn't that appealing so I guess I have to spend some time to that. Anyway I'll have to finish the unwrapped model by tomorrow evening. Besides today I did the blueprint of my another character's head and I hope to start modeling by tomorrow evening after I complete my first character's unwrapping. So it's all busy time ahead and I have my own deadlines to follow, which I think is great idea. So today's target is to finish detailing my first model and start unwrapping.
P.S. I'm having a terrible headache right now :(

Texturing and Rendering - Warrior Helmet

I have been doing texturing on the finished warrior helmet model since evening. I kind of wanted like a ruined effect with lots of scratches and tear and wears.So I took some metal scratch textures from Internet and tweaked in Photoshop. It was fun doing though right now I'm stuck with presentation. I have a theme in mind according to which I plan to do the render. But I have some more modeling to be done for that. I have been try to do the lighting for some time and the mood is not turning up in the render. It sucks. So I thought before I go to bed I would blog on it. Here is the screenshot. Its not a render but a high quality view in Maya.

A Warrior Helmet - Inspired by Spartacus

I was watching Spartacus - Blood and Sand last weekend and I really liked its concept. This is the most explicit picturisation that we can expect from a television series. I was really inspired by all those Roman picturisation and gladiator stuff and the stylized blood effects kind of give a graphic art style. The blood effects reminded me of the movie 300 by Zach Snyder.
I liked this series and so I did a digital model of a Gladiator Helmet. It was fun modeling even if I was buried deep under my project. Here is the screen shot.

Body Modeling - Vulture

Last day I started modelling the character body. I did the basic blocking and here again the mesh flow is my villain. I want it to be prefect and so before doing further detail I have to make sure it’s coming in the right way. So I’m heading to college to get some directions from tutors. I still have some confusion regarding the type of wings for the character (Baby Vulture). But for Mother Vulture I have made the decision on the style of wings. I can use the same type but logically it won’t be correct (there are differences between the wings of two).  The advantage of using the same kind of wings is that I can simply copy the rig of one model to another when it comes to rigging thereby, saving me some time. Else if I use different type I’ll have to do two different rigs and that’s the boring part. Well, I’ll have to make a decision today.

Here is the screen shot of the model I've been working on. I'm doing head separately.

Project Character - Baby Vulture

As I said earlier in my earlier posts, I started to model my character for the project which is baby vulture. Basic blocking was done like in 4 hours. I was really afraid to get into detail because I wasn't really sure about the mesh flow. So I consulted the model with my modeling tutor and he showed some stuff that was really useful. Based on that I build upon the blocking and I think its coming out good. It's the mesh flow that scares me as it's the most important thing when it comes modeling and the results reflects  in Texturing and Rigging (When you Paint Weight the character). So here I'm attaching the screen shot of the basic blocking that I have done.

 

 

Project Set.....Starting to Model...!!! Wish me Luck

In the morning in half sleep logged in to Facebook to see a notification-a threat, I would call. In our batch group on FB there was a post saying by Monday it is compulsory to complete the digital model to get further help on Rigging. For some reason I didn't felt like usual deadline threats and giving a WTF to that wasn't  goin to help me at all. So I decided to go with the tide, let's do some shit. Then I started to draw blueprint for one of my character. Right now I have completed it and set the project in Maya.  But for now I'm modeling only the head and the body will be done later after finalizing the type of rig I'm going to use.
Modeling is the phase I like most in the Digital phase. I always found it really interesting to model stuffs so I'm expecting that this character would come out nicely. This is the first time I'm going to model a bird and I'm really worried about the mesh flow, after all that's the only thing matters when it comes to rigging. If the rig is perfect Animation wouldn't be a pain in the ass. It was a pain, during last years project. I hope it wouldn't happen again.

Working my way up...!!!

Yesterday I decided to pull up my sleeves for my project. I haven't been doing good all this time and I knew it. But somehow I guess this was the right time to take some decisions. My first step was uninstalling all my games ( had 5) which I did yesterday. Games was my weakness and distraction all this time. I was like an addict who needed a dose of COD everyday. And I ended it by playing COD:MW3 Spec Ops up to level 42. I played the map Resistance and stood up to wave 26 until in the 27th wave an army (there was like 10 of them) of Juggernauts raped the shit out of me. That was my best score and wave in all of Spec Ops. Well, that was yesterday.
Today I woke up in the morning at 9 am. I was told to my mom to wake me up on 7:30 am which she didn't do. I had my stick notes ready yesterday and according to that my work today was doing the Facial Expressions for my project character. I sketched some expressions and my next task today is to do some Action Posses. I also have to come up with the Set Design about which I have no idea what to do. It's great to work listening to Coldplay...!!!

Reading something after a long time....!!

I have been a fan of novelist Dan Brown since I read his epic novel of The Da Vinci Code. I bought the book soon as it released (though it was in regional language-Malayalam). From the time I finished reading it till now I have read all of his other books such as Angels & Demons, The Digital Fortress and The Deception Point. Right now I'm holding his latest publishment The Lost Symbol.

Da Vinci Code gave me the impact I never experienced. When I read all the places and the things told in the novel are actual facts, I got very much excited for more of his books. It was then I got Angels & Demons from my cousin and it carried more impact than the Da Vinci Code. There was even time while I was reading the books I doubted the existence of god. Angels & Demons talked about the relation between Science and Religion and their ultimate goal, God. The book points out several facts such as the facts about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider )
It also talks about the scientific facts about things like Matter, Anti-Matter, Gravitron, The god particle, Higgs- Bosons so and so, and new facts pop up in every turn. So is the case in his other novels too. I am about to finish 'The Lost Symbol' but till now I don't feel it that much interesting like Angels & Demons or Da Vinci Code.

Back to College,Back to Project...!!!

Well I'm back in Chennai and I don't see any sign of the cyclone which struck here during New Year time. Happy it wasn't that bad. Went to college the day I came here and resumed my work on the clay modeling of my project character. I am looking forward to start the digital modeling of my character by this week and I got some advices from our modeling tutor. The character is a vulture. So my tutor asked me to consult with the Rigging professor to come to conclusion about the rigging first and depending on the type of rig the modeling can be started.
Talking about modeling I haven't touched Maya may be for the last 3 weeks. But yesterday I found a new (I guess it's new) software called 'Autodesk123D'. I downloaded and installed the 550MB software even though its in a beta stage. Initial looks reminded me of Blender. Simply speaking we can call it modeling software for beginners/kids. But I like the simplicity of the software while they still have options like Extrude. I think Autodesk is trying to reach into a new level giving the knowledge about 3D space and entertainment to young minds.

A New Year with no Resolution

Another year passed by and its a New Year ahead of us. We all hope it to be the best year we had forgetting sadness and cherishing those happy moments we had in past. I never believed in the New Year Resolution thingy. What is it? Isn't it just kind of promise with the difference that we do it on New Year. Why should I have a resolution if I'm not sure if I would keep it? So that's it no resolution and I never had one though. It's just another year coming up and I hope for the best. This is my year with lot of expectations and it's because I'm graduating this year and this is the year that I may be stepping out into my career and new life. All we could do is Hope and Try for the best to Happen. Happy New Year World...!!!!