Unity: Coding a Door to Automatically Open

Photoshop: Speed Painting

This is an unfinished speed painting we were set to complete within two hours. The painting is of two girls in an apple orchard at night stealing apples. To start off with we filled in the sky as our back ground. Then on top of that I placed the mountains and the snow on the mountains. Then in front of that I placed the trees in the background followed by the trees in the foreground. The shading was then added on top of that. The fence was added above the trees but behind the girls. Then the tree on the left was added along with the apples and the branches, then finally I began to flesh out the two girls.   

While I was fleshing out the two girls and adding in the moon I ran out of time. Two hours was up.

I was pleased with my progress on this painting, especially since I am not experienced with digital painting. It helped improve my confidence even though I was copying someone else's work. 

If I had more time I would of tried to work quicker and not worry about how precise my final painting was. I would of focused on getting all aspects of the images down and then refining and improving upon my work later on. Lighting is one of the things I would of made sure I added within the allocated time, the moon was the source of light within the frame and without it the image loses its impact.

Maya: Gas Pump

This is the Lynda Tutorial set by Robin to model a Gas Pump in Maya and texture it.

Start out by creating a bounding box.

Then add in a square polygon at the centre of the bounding box.

Shape the polygon by adding subdivisions and bevel the edges. Then delete the top faces.

Fill the hole at the top face. Extrude the face and scale inwards slightly. Repeating this process creates a smooth edge.

Add in edge loops to create a square face in the centre of the pump. extrude this face inwards and smooth out the new edge by shifting the vertices.

Smoothed model.

Unwrapping the UV's ready for texturing.

This is the point I have got up too. It is at this point I have got stuck. The tutorial does not explain how to unwrap the entire object or how to 'stack' UV's. The commentator mentions it but doesn't explain how to do it and assumes you have already done this in the next stage. Below is what he says before skipping this stage and moving on to the next tutorial.

 "I'm going to keep unwrapping, and I'll look at unwrapping the sides and the top in the same way, and stacking those shells. Once I've got it unwrapped and flattened and distortion-free, I can lay out those textures to optimize that texture space and start painting in rust."

I watched the next video but this wasn't mentioned. I have tried to unwrap and stack the shells myself but I haven't been able to work this out. Even after looking online for a solution I am still unsure about this.

How do you save the UV's? Do the shells stack automatically? How do you flatten them? How do you lay out those textures?

Halloween Project: Monster Assignment

Halloween Monster Moodboard

Its Halloween! This week we have been set the task of designing a scary/ creepy monster.

I started off by researching different aspects of scary creatures. Classic monsters from movies and video games were heavily influential on me and my decision making with this project. I also took into account any creatures I found scary and were the stuff of nightmares to me as a kid.

To me creepy is more scary than your typical scary monster. I want my creature to retain elements of typical scary monsters but be more creepy than scary.

V Sauce - Why are things Creepy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEikGKDVsCc&list=UU6nSFpj9HTCZ5t-N3Rm3-HA

Above is probably one of the most influential pieces of research I have conducted. Things being 'Creepy' are simply aspects we aren't used to. For example, a human face with normal features isnt scary, however enlarge the eyes and the person starts to become creepy. Proportion and posture is easily the best way to make something creepy. Out of proportion features are freaky because we aren't used to them. Out of place characters or objects can also be seen as creepy. An innocent child confidently walking about a dark place can be creepy because it isn't normal behavior for a child. That change in behavior does put people on edge because something is wrong. But you cant quite put your finger on what is wrong. That feeling of unrest plants a seed of doubt that quickly grows into fear the longer the character is in the audiences concious thoughts. That is how people/ places create a creepy environment and come to be labelled 'creepy'.

Personally skinny tall monsters are creepy to me. I believe this is due to my fear as a kid of Lupin from Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban. Towards the end of this movie Lupin transforms from a man into a werewolf. His werewolf form was tall, skinny with yellow eyes and sharp extruding teeth.

Professor Lupin from Harry Potter. Still gives me the creeps today.

I would like to create a monster that follows this pattern. Tall, skinny, with huge arms and legs; maybe even claws? I will start a sketch in my book then take it over into Photoshop. Where I will paint it.

My Final Monster

Here is my final drawing. I am very happy with the way this turned out, I managed to create something that is original and that has been inspired by other monsters. Unnatural proportions, long finger nails and bleeding scratch marks all roll together to create an image of terror. The only thing I am unhappy with would be the feet. I have always struggled to draw hands and feet so I ignore them if I can. The feet should of been bigger to match the hands. They don't look big enough to hold up a creature of that size. Apart from that I am happy. The color/shading in my opinion worked well. it is the first time I have painted something using a tablet and been happy with the result. 

The shadow was created by duplicating the monster, I then blacked out this layer by reducing the lightness of the monster by 100% this gave me a crisp black silhouette. I then reduced the opacity and used the skew tool to flatten the image behind my monster. I positioned the shadow to line up with the feet and made any final touches to the image.

If I was to repeat this project I would definitely adjust the feet, they would be bigger and have a different shape, I would also add more detail to the figure feet and legs. Giving my creature a background to create perspective and a sense of place.

Silhouette Drawing Technique

My silhouette drawings (based off of Crustaceans)

In this class I tried using a new fresh drawing technique that I haven't used before. It is easy to over think a drawing before you even put pen to paper. So in Photoshop using a black thick brush I started to draw silhouettes. I didn't have a concept or idea of what I was attempting to draw all I knew is that I wanted to draw creatures inspired by Crustaceans.

After drawing the silhouettes we had to shade them using a light grey. This allows me to burn color onto the layer by changing the layer type. However this requires me to shade the creatures with a light grey brush first. I have been struggling to get to grips with digital painting and I really struggled to even shade the grey onto the silhouettes within the allocated time. I felt that every time I put pen to paper I became inept and couldn't shade. This is a problem I get only while using a tablet. I think over time I will become more confident with a tablet, practice and patience i'm hoping will solve this.   

However I am happy with the result. Its a technique I feel I will be able to take forward and use in future projects.

2D Perspective Work

1 point perspective

2 point perspective

2 point perspective

2 point perspective

Photoshop/ Maya: Texturing a Zombie

Female texture wrap

Female model with texture wrap applied

Female texture wrap edited by me on Photoshop to appear like a zombie

Female model with zombie texture wrap applied