Week 02 Modular Environmental Creation Part 2

Week 2 of the modular environment. I really enjoyed this stage, slowly seeing the area come to life and form even with basic shape structure. This assignment makes me think back to a modular cathedral environment I was working on as a tech art demo and how I could apply these lessons to that.

Beauty Shots

Adding Booleans Cuts To Our Shapes

Creating An Emissive Material

Simple Rotation Blueprint

Level Blueprints

Setting Character Movement

Setting Up Lighting And Atmosphere

How To Take True Fullscreen Screen Shots

Week 02 - Basic Lighting & Materials

The assignment this week was to take a base, unlit scene and combine it with a reference to design the lighting and allocate a mood for the scene. I decided to take a dark sea angle, designing the floating houses as if they are standing sentry in a never ending, overcast night. 

This was a unique challenge that allowed me to play a lot more with the environmental lighting tools, which I didnt realize how may existed. It was interesting to play with small environmental factors to really sell the time of day I was looking for; such as removing the block floor underneath the water for darker water, or slightly tinting the lanterns warmly to contrast against the cold of the moon.

BEAUTY SHOTS: 

DETAILED LIGHTING:

REFERENCE: 

Week 02 - Use of Basic Shapes

 For my team assignment, I expanded upon last weeks designs of Glinda from 'The Wizard of Oz' from author L. Frank Baum's 1900 children novel in the style of Airship Syndicates 2024 'Wayfinder'. This challenge was difficult as both of the submissions chosen were AI generated, severely negating the amount of storytelling and interest I had in the designs.

In my own opinion, I thought these designs felt too illustrative for video game character, even more so as a player character. However this was just another challenge to add onto the list. This blockout was difficult as the silhouette relies very heavily on sharp language and triangles, both of which were not in the nature of Glinda's character.

Basic Shape

Concept Silhouettes

Perforce Submission

Week 02 Modular Environmental Creation Part 1

For this assignment we followed a tutorial on creating modular environments using Unreal and Maya, although a lot of the information in this assignment was repetative there were some small tips that helped me significantly; such as how to properly set up proxys and the proper method to replace references in Unreal.

One of the biggest benefits to this assignment was the, very quickly mentioned of how to include bounce lighting in Unreal. This is something I've needed for a while but never thought to include.

Establishing Scale: 

Creating Proxys: 

Creating Materials: 

Creating Prefabs with Unreal Blueprints: 

Beveling Edges: 

Beauty Shots:

Week 01 - Use of Silhouettes

 

For my team assignment, I made four designs of Glinda from 'The Wizard of Oz' from author L. Frank Baum's 1900 children novel in the style of Airship Syndicates 2024 'Wayfinder'. I drew the top four silhouettes by hand and used Gemini and Chat GPT to create the four bottom designs.

Glinda is not a super well-defined character in the novels; her main character traits being her beauty, in particular her beautiful hair;

the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies. She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was pure white but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the little girl. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

As a result I tried to keep her hair as a very prominent feature, playing with different textures, sizes, and styles. Another big feature of Wayfinder is their 'class system' in regards to their player characters; each player 'hero' has a unique class they're associated with and as a result I experimented with making Glinda different fantasy classes; such as a sorcerer, cleric, paladin, and warlock.

Concept Silhouettes

Reference Board

Perforce Submission

My name has been moved closer to the top for brevity sake

Here is my files uploaded to Perforce as proof of submission of the assignment.

Hammer Project Completed

As it goes with most projects, sometimes a good bit of rest can make wonders for your ability to work. After the last update, where I got majority of the primary details established as well as the larger secondary details, I took the weekend to reset before finalizing everything.

A big difference from my recent 2D art workshops/education back into 3D has been the focus of detail, one of the biggest pieces of critique I recieve regarding 3D renders is the lack of detail in certain areas. This critique contrasts the technique I've found in 2D art which highlights higher detail at stronger interest points. I agree that all parts of a model should be touched at some point, however finding that balance has been difficult.

Final BPR Renders

Reference Images

From left to right, a visual progression of the hammer taking shape

This project was a bit odd to start, although the hammer is symmetrical, I struggled with some of the smaller details and ensuring the model didnt feel repetative, such as including the small grip directly under the hammer head, and the size of the straps on the base of the hammer.

Losely the progression follows:

1. Primary shapes
2. Secondary shapes
3. Adding wear and tear to the stones
4. increating wear and tertiary details.

Hammer Project - Check In

 Zbrush is one of my weakest skills, as a result diving in headfirst has been very daunting.

In my typical workflow I dont utilize Zbrush as I tend to default extra details to handpainting - however with FIEA one of my primary goals is to integrate Zbrush alongside my handpainting knowledge. My hesitation typically comes with baking and general Zbrush literacy, however the video for this assignment has been extremely helpful in ensuring I know the setup.

I wanted to get this done by the end of the week to continue my goal of being one week-ahead, however I found myself getting burned out by the difference in reference and product as well as stress from the first week.

Primary feedback recieved:

• A couple small things I'm seeing right off the bat is that the spikes feel a little too perfect. You have cracks and fractures along the center of the head and in the core area, which kinda makes sense, but I also feel like those spikes should be more trashed, or at least eaten away at a bit more.
  
  
• The little leather straps along the handle also look a bit too thick. And could probably do with some texturing themselves, too, since leather straps kinda have a bit of fray-ness / some kind of little strip along the edges of it? I'm not explaining it the best.
  
  
• The area just below the head also feels a little too flat compared to the rest of it. The project you linked looks like it has a little bit of riveting in that same area, so that might help break up some of that monotonous shaft-ness it seems to have.