More...

Well we have been informed (a tad late in my opinion if were meant to have the class finishing concept work months ago) that we have to do a lot more concept work as of this moment "No one is the class will get more than a pass as there is next to no concept work" (quote - and odd considering more than 3 pieces of mine have already been sent to on teacher). So more drawing, but 1st things 1st, need to finish off these models, add some lighting and move onto sorting all these little things.

3-D work and update

The diary of my 3-D work is all being kept in a word document so on here I will post anything finished or non-3-D work that I can get done. I've managed to get an ok looking model for my university - it still needs some finishing touches but its basically there. Chris said that to get more than a pass I will need to create more of an environment. I look around and see the great work my classmates are doing and simply feel as though my word is of a much lower standard when it comes to this 3-D work; and now I have to try and build much more of an environment? well I suppose I can come up with a plane some chairs and tables to it will all be quite simple - and none of the groups work actually looks like it should go together much to my annoyance. They all had the backstory - my texture and the style - yet only one of 2 of my group members have taken up on that - 2 of them copying whats outside - another doing something completely irrelevant etc. But we are being marked on our own work - not the finished trailer - despite the fact is it that trailer we are showing off (the group also made a dubstep beat for the trailer when I was ill... a dubstep beat for a serious horror story game trailer? you know I dont know why i bother). Ive only 2 weeks or so - by the end of this week I will have the main model done and I may have some concepts of the other buildings done.

Confusion, Clarification and a shed loada worries

Let me start right of the bat by saying this blog hasnt been kept up to a pace of my tutors liking - even though most of my work goes into word documents, they rarely get seen until the end of the course and other marking periods which seem few and far between. Now ive been very ill the past few weeks - only making it in on mondays, and my computer refusing to believe that 3Ds Max isnt working at home, leaving me with very little time to do my work - Now there is a lot I have yet to do that doesnt require 3-D however these are changing and I was emailed by my tutor about the various tasks ive been given to do for my team.

2 of these tasks I had aleady done (Poster - some concept work), 2 more I thought were being done by another member of the team, so forgive me for being a tad confused but I have no clue as what I should be doing other than the 3-D university, the story/soundwork I have been working through (no its not on this blog because I think just throwing ideas up on here is a waste of time when there is no evidence to support my words) I've been told I am now doing the splash screen and another 3-D character model (stone character) when I know that task was given to another team member because I had a long disscussion with that individual to help him realise what he could make in max and what he could create.

My skills in 3-D are far from even being called skills, especially compared with the rest of this class, my skills lie more in organising people, envision ideas and story - but when it comes to getting things on paper or machine - its far from skillful - apart from my words. It is difficult enough trying to make a 3-D university, albeit a very simple one - to then expect me to make a humanoid like character... I will discuss this with my team on monday and see where this misunderstanding has occured - but the senario may well be I have these extra pieces of work on my plate, and I have very little time to do them - especially with all my current aliments.

All said and done, i need to start working alot more and alot harder - i'm letting myself and my team down thats all there is too it

Hopefully there will be plenty more on this blog by next week.

To modelling!

well now all the planning is done I have begun to model. Most of my work is in the same word document where I am keep a log of the work and screen-shots of progress (currently contains some initial models and attempts to get the look I am after) - so more finished work will be put on this blog in due course.

Today we also spent the morning looking at finance and discussing various elements. whilst I would have continued to work - it was somewhat informative. We also found out our Tutor isn't here today or Tuesday - so I will simply be carrying on with my work. (more 3-D work or work in Photoshop getting textures and other arty work done).

Marketing

Most of today, I have been working on my marketing work - got a planning document, some examples, evidence etc - from there I started to make my advertisment task: a poster. After spending a while examining proffesional examples I knew what I was going to create. So in the afternoon I started: Added a few pictures and did some basic editing - but then for one of the "stone zombies" from my backstory, I didn't knopw exactly how to get this look, so a friend in my group showed me how I could overly a texture, and then copy it to repeat the effect. The finished result is below:

Each of the image were edited around with the smudge and blur. Then to each I addedd various filters (such as cutout). The stone zombie was made using various filters and a rock texture, I then made various adjustments such as: Hue, saturation, brightness - etc.

We also spent the morning working on T-shirt designs and whilst learning to use the website we came up with various ideas and saw clear issues when using the site, such as the need to vector our images.


More work (3-D planning and concept work - another T-shirt design) to be put on the blog later in the week.

The final push

The vast majority of planning work has been completed (the odd document needs updating) as has most of the concept work, so know it will be time to get into the nitty gritty of texture work, 3-D models - as well as any voice work and marketing projects; My team decided I will be working on the University Building, a poster, some textures, sounds and some of my own voice acting - updating the backstory; and then helping out where I can, in the next 8 - 10 weeks. Concept work (etc) will be posted to the blog in the coming weeks depending on workload and when I can finally get 3DS MaX working at home through the schooling system

Welcome back to 3D max! starting with - creating an environment

Today we got back onto 3-D max for the first time in ages - so we started having a recap on some box modelling and making textures (512*512 - 72 on Photoshop) (see one below):

after playing around in Photoshop with various renderings (clouds) and diffuse (among others). We then put this texture onto a 200*200 plane (with 100 faces); put our texture onto it and then we could use that texture to effect the environment - strengthening it brought up the environment and lowering it did the opposite. Creating a really sweet mountain-like scene

As you can see form my image there is lighting and a skydome - I added a camera and skylight to make it more dramatic and to add shadows - there was then 2 ways to "make a sky" use a sphere, cut it in half and flip the polygons over, then add the texture. Or you fake it by making a box around the enviroment and slapping the texture on there. Its good to be back on 3-D max and I look forward to learning more.