Finished Assignments

As I've completed the assignments for this year, I might as well the turnarounds for them here. The images will be in order of when the assignment was set.

This was the first assignment, after learning the basics of 3DS MAX we were tasked with modelling a simple object. Some examples were a treasure chest, a old western wagon and a throne. I picked the throne as I felt it gave the best options for creativity. A chest usually keeps flat or rounded, nothing special and a wagon must look like it will function. the above throne looks like it would be very heavy and somehow strikes fear as it looks like a bird spreading it's wings, as to make it look huge and dangerous.

the first attempt at this model was a little broken, so I remodelled it. Many areas had multiple vertices in the same place. The UV Map was messy too. Now the model is much cleaner and so is the UV Map.

This was the part of the second assignment. I didn't model this demon, I'm not really good enough to yet. Hopefully soon I will be. Anyway, I created the texture for the model. I'll admit, It's not too great. That's likely due to my paining skills being quite bad. Overall though it looks okay, could be better though. I tried to highlight muscles to add a little bit of shading.

This is the last assignment for this year. Everyone had to model a current generation FPS weapon. Many people picked assault rifles or old style pistols. There were a lot of interesting designs. I picked to create what can be simply described as a ShotgunHammerSaw. It literately is a combination of a Shotgun, Hammer and Saw. The gun is a shotgun, the central black area is shaped like a hammer and the magazine doubles as a crude saw. I'm not really sure what inspired this design. Maybe it was the opportunity to create a modern FPS weapon with no real limits. 

I also created the UV map and texture for the model and I went for a metal for most of the gun, but also wood for the stock, handle and pump. The normal maps and specular maps took a long time to create. I kept getting a text based error when trying to create a projection. Eventually it worked and then I had both. Look at the last post under Introduction to 3D modelling to see both maps.

I used Xoulil Shader 2 as a realtime shader for the weapon. The lighting is a little funny, but I hope to work on lighting and stuff. I had a problem where one side of the weapon would be completely white. After messing around alot this problem was reduced. 

Overall, I'm pleased with progress made this year, but I know that I can improve and will try to improve my skills with my free time.

Normal and Specular Mapping a Current Gen FPS Weapon

After a lot of trouble with cages and text based errors when trying to create projections of my high poly model to create a normal map for my low poly gun, I've finally got one which works.

A normal model is necessary to add extra detail to a 3D model without adding extra polys, which would require more resources to render. Normal maps are good when creating objects in 3D which need to have a lot of detail, but because of the limitations of current generation consoles and PC games can not have as many high detailed objects in view at one time. Normal maps allow this extra detail without losing resources.

Here is my normal map:

A specular map defines where a model is shiny or glossy. For example, metal will be shinier than wood. The closer to white an area of a specular map is the shinier that particular area will be. 

Here is my specular map:

UV Mapping a Low Poly FPS Gun

This week I've created a low poly model of the high poly gun which is under 6,000 triangles. I've started to UV map it so that it can be textured. So far every piece has been UV mapped, but just needs configuriing so that all of the checker pattern is the right size and the same everywhere.

Here is an image of what the lowpoly UV wrapped gun in progress looks like:

I'll post the finished UV next week and possibly some textures.

Modelling a modern FPS gun: High Poly

So far I've modelled the high poly model of the gun assigned for this task.
It is made of roughly 50,000 polys and will be used to make a low poly gun that is less than 6,000 tris (about 3,000 polys) by deleting unnecesary edge loops.
Here is an image of the high poly model:

Designing FPS Weapons part 2

In terms of progress with creating a new FPS weapon that could be used in a game (and will be shown in UDK later), It's going reasonably well. The design is finished and I've already started modelling it.

So far I've created a basic model for all of the main parts of the Shotgun, except for the stock. I'll likely do this today. Then I'll work on it a bit then save it as a low poly model. This will then allow me to create a separate high poly model which I can use for Texturing, normal maps and specular maps.

Today will generally be used to add more detail, to have as much as possible in the low poly model under the 6000 triangle limit it has. This way, reliance on a normal map for details will be smaller and will make the overall finished weapon look better.

Designing FPS Weapons

For the final tak of the year I need to design, model, texture (and show in a working game engine) a gun which would be suitable for use in current generation FPS (First Person Shooter) games.

I've decided to model a shotgun. It was an easy choice considereing I've already designed an assault rifle, pistol and bazooka for another course, creative thinking. Designing a shotgun allows me to come up with some new ideas.

For the general concept of how guns function I looked at the Principles of Firearms. This webpage names the components of a gun and describes their function. This is useful as this gives a list of what I need to include in the design.
http://rkba.org/guns/principles/definitions/gun-components.html

I also looked at an article on specifically how shotguns work and what defines them from other types of guns. This is essential to understand if I want to design a shotgun that looks like it could work.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/shotgun1.htm

Some interesting things I'm noting are:

1.The size of the barrel indicates the gauge number and therefore, the amount of recoil firing will have. The lower the gauge, the wider the barrel, the higher the recoil.

Here are two examples:

This is a 4 Gauge shotgun with a relatively wide barrel and will have lots of recoil.

 This is a 20 Gauge shotgun. As can be seen, it has a thinner and longer barrel than the 4 gauge one above. This will have less recoil, which is safer for the user, but doesn;t look as cool.

A 4 gauge shotgun may seem to have too much recoil but having a fair amount makes the gun look much more powerful when fired.

2. How will the shotgun be reloaded?
There are 4 main types of reloading a shotgun:
Break action - Where the shotgun 'breaks' open and allows the cartridges to be reloaded into the barrel manually.
Bolt action - a bolt on the shotgun is pulled to release the remains of the last cartridge and allow a new one to be loaded.
Pump action - probably the most famous form of reloading, this is where a fore-end (pump) is placed under the barrel, pumping back and forth once reloads the gun. It also has a recognisable sound.
Autoloaders - These function similarily to machine guns and will automatically reload with no input from the user.

To keep with my current theme of designing things to fit in with the world created by the Heroes and Villains assignment for creative thinking, similar colour schemes and designs will be used.






References:
Image of 4 Gauge shotgun
http://media.beta.photobucket.com/user/Sn1P3rM98/media/ks23.jpg.html?filters[term]=4%20gauge%20shotgun&filters[primary]=images#/user/Muskyhunter1/media/Hunting2008151.jpg.html?filters%5Bterm%5D=4%20gauge%20shotgun&filters%5Bprimary%5D=images&_suid=136059626497905193423193835687

Image of 20 gauge Shotgun

Bump mapped Barrel

This week we looked at bump maps (normal maps). We looked at using nDo for photoshop to create normal maps from images. Here are the normal maps of my barrel:

 

This is the normal map made of the barrel, the long way.

 

Here is a scratched metal normal map created with nDo in photoshop.

 

The grey barrel is the low polly model using the above normal maps, I'm going to practice creating normal maps from high poly models a bit more.

Finished Demon Texture

I've finished the rough version of the texture for the Demon model, provided by jharrison. As I said in the earlier post, It's very blue. Shading is limited and is used to make the lighting on the demon look odd, as if from a strange place. This strange shading also gives what I feel to be a kind of cartoony look to the model. I'm not sure why I prefer this style, maybe realistic models detract from creativity where the artist has the freedom to shade the character in strange ways, as if they are making up their own universe with it's own physics. I'm not really making much sense anymore am I?

Here is the A3 sheet I'll print out and hand in tomorrow, followed by the texture:

Here is the link to the olycount Texturing SDK Masterthread: 

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70908

Here is the link to the Demon model and wire texture by jharrison:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1389600&postcount=54

Demon Texture

I tried to add a skeleton to the demon model made by jharrison which I am using for the texture practice assignment. It didn't work too well. I'll get more practice on that later. Anyway, for the texture I decided on making the demon dark blue, opposing to the usual red perceived as the evil colour. The claws and nails are a yellowish colour to show that they aren't very looked after. There is a lot of blood on the demon, around his mouth and on the soles of his feet. It's best not to say how it got there. 

One thing I don't like is shading the model. It's strange to think that shading would be required seeing as the lighting in a game environment should produce shadows on the model. However, the shading adds depth to the texture. The model should be textured by Monday  I'll post the finished work then.

3DS Max First Assignment

Here are the texture and model I've been working on as my first assignment in 3DS Max. Texturing was the most difficult and time consuming part. Here is a link to the images, models and textures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2gnkr4gh3idxcmb/N7hYZA9wxp

First Post

Just creating this to create tags for the different lessons.