tissuetown Posted November 2, 2009 Share Posted November 2, 2009 That's really nice, man! Do you have a poly/texture size limit? I'm looking forward to seeing the finished result. Plus seeing the courtyard. I've got a similar assignment for one of my 3D modules - recreate a scene from a book. I picked out the opening scene in Keeping the Aspidistra Flying. No limits at all. 11 textures in total all 1k. Model is over 300,000 (tires and chain). Next projects will have limits though. Do you both just do static modelling on 3ds max? Or do you animate anything? I don't think I've seen anything moving from you both, love to see it! No animation from me yet. I am concentrating on one thing atm. Also, the animation tutor at Escape worked at Pixar, and he said that unless you're talented, it could take up to 7 years to be good at animation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightwolf Posted November 2, 2009 Share Posted November 2, 2009 I know - it takes time, which is why I'm worried, I have a good ish tutor when he actually teaches us, but were diving right into the hard stuff, like making this biped jump and whatnot, instead of actually using 3ds max for modelling and whatnot. I just don't get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tissuetown Posted November 2, 2009 Share Posted November 2, 2009 I know - it takes time, which is why I'm worried, I have a good ish tutor when he actually teaches us, but were diving right into the hard stuff, like making this biped jump and whatnot, instead of actually using 3ds max for modelling and whatnot. I just don't get it. Animators don't model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashley Posted November 2, 2009 Share Posted November 2, 2009 Speaking of courses. Went to look at Futureworks the other day. The course seems good and the college was quite impressive (lots of new stuff, strong industry links (although they seemed to be mostly Manc-based) and all that) but I'm still not sold on Manchester. I dunno what it is. Thinking maybe the PG Dip. in Character Animation. I don't really like doing the pros/cons lists (as I always end up making them the same length) but basically; London is cheaper (not often you here that), by about £2,300 but is full on so wouldn't be able to work during it, unlike Manc which is evenings. London is 'skillset approved'. Manc is for beginners so I have a better chance of getting on (London you don't need to have done animation, but need examples of life drawings etc which I can do). London is a bit more specialised (character animation compared to modelling and animation at Manc). Anyway I have emailed asking about open days. I'm sure before I've seen it say any Tuesday during term time but couldn't seem to find it earlier so just asked when they take place. I'll try and see if I can do a Weds instead, as I'm free on Wendesdays. Anyone know anything about either? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tissuetown Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 All done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightwolf Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Ah thats awesome! I Love the shadows on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tissuetown Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Ah thats awesome! I Love the shadows on that. I actually decided to change it due to the complete inconsistencies in the shadows. So here's a much simpler version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightwolf Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 I much prefer the textures in the second image rather than the first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 The shadows and the background aren't great; but this is really about the bike isn't it? Which is really fantastic. Really, really nice. The rust on the metal is great and the seat, especially where it's all been torn away, is brilliant. Any chance we can see a wireframe and texture sheet? Keep up the good work man! EDIT: Actually, looking at them both, the second image doesn't distract the viewer from the bike, so they're a lot better. The "busy" colours of the brick work on the first kind of dirty up the way you look at the colours on the bike. ALSO! Ashley, I don't have a clue about those different courses, do you want me to ask someone at my uni who might know about them? I can think of a couple of lecturers that might know about these sorts of courses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashley Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 If you could that would be great At present its Futureworks (Manc) and Central Saint Martins (London) but you may want to wait incase I add more to my list of potentials :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tissuetown Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 The shadows and the background aren't great; but this is really about the bike isn't it? What's wrong with the shadows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 I thought the shadows seemed a little too harsh and in one direction. They look good though. I didn't think the surrounding scene was at the same high level as the bike itself; but didn't think it mattered. I assumed this was a show piece for the bike itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tissuetown Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 (edited) I thought the shadows seemed a little too harsh and in one direction. They look good though. I didn't think the surrounding scene was at the same high level as the bike itself; but didn't think it mattered. I assumed this was a show piece for the bike itself. I think the shadow is somewhat proportional to the strength of the light that is being produced. I darkened the image in post for a more moody look rather than a photo-real look ( I abandoned photo real a week back). The scene is basic because it's 2 planes and a texture. That's it. It was a last minute thing lol. Oh also, shadows are in one direction because I used a directional light ;p Edited November 7, 2009 by tissuetown Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 Yeah, like I said the scene seems basic but it's clear that the thing that's being shown here is the bike - which is really awesome and mad props (I'm down with the kids) to you for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tissuetown Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 Yeah, like I said the scene seems basic but it's clear that the thing that's being shown here is the bike - which is really awesome and mad props (I'm down with the kids) to you for that. Cheers yo. Well next up in around two weeks time, is a building in low poly using a bunch of 256x256 textures. Fun times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 Ah cool! I had (it's a couple of pages back, or, on my blog if you dare to click it on my signature) a two week assignment similar to that. It was based on a real tower, 3000 poly limit and a 1024x1024 texture sheet for each shader. It was pretty fun. I just forgot we had to do a landscape until the last minute which ruined the whole thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashley Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 Indeed. Mad props tissuetown, its really impressive stuff I love the worn effect on the seat. Finally got Maya back thanks to Nightwolf pointing out students get a six month trial (which hopefully starts now...rather than when I installed the demo a while back). Working through some of the help things on the student portal of Autodesk and its only a step-by-step tutorial thing but created this; (top reminds me of a hamburger) Helped me learn some stuff that I never knew before (such as the little square box next to menu items is an item in itself and not just a random box ^_^). That's the first 70 pages of this tutorial document done, only 978 to go. Oh one thing and I had this problem when trying the demo. When scaling things it often doesn't let me. It jumps from the original to flat. For instance the very top was originally a semi-sphere and squashed a bit and while its possible to do it using the channel box it just doesn't seem to work using the manual scale tool. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 Nice one Ashley! Good to see some more activity in the thread. You might wanna try adding a few more blocks on the bottom part to make it look like loads of small steps. Apart from that it's looking good. Although, saying that, you be thinking, "Go away!". It really is frustrating when you're starting out and getting used to the tools. As for the scaling thing... I'm not a Maya user so I'm not too sure. But... does Maya have some sort of snapping set on for the scale tool? Try seeing if it has snapping turned on, or right click the scaling tool and see if an option mention pops up (it does in Max). Hopefully later on I can post my first proper attempt at a head/rig. Although later on I'm going to try and re-create the same head rig entirely from bones (like they do for games). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashley Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 I was just following a tutorial really, just to get to grips with some stuff ^_^ Figured out the scaling thing. As I was doing another tutorial it told me how to edit settings for a tool so edited the scaling settings. Now works. Worked on some more tutorials. Learnt more about modelling, animation, rendering and I think something else but it escapes me. Currently working on something which is coming on nicely. Trying to do it largely independently from what I've already learnt. Nearly came on here to ask a question but managed to figure it out myself. Such a great feeling when you overcome a challenge like that. Done it a few times today. Went to bed last night with it all a mess and solved it this morning. Although, it also helped that I looked at the real world object. This post was rather Wesleyian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightwolf Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 What tutorial are you working from Ash? That looks pretty damn good for your first(ish) attempt at maya! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Helloooo, I thought I'd post a little update on one of the modules I've spent a little time with this week - because it's nice to keep some activity in the most awesome thread on NE. In short: right now I'm using a head I modelled a couple of weeks ago and rigging it for an animation. So this is the first "real" (I did two last year without any guidance) head I've modelled and the first time I've done any kind of face rig. So there's the head with a whole bunch of morph targets. And here's the controllers I quickly set-up for it, instead of having to use crappy menus for the morph targets - although they're set out in a rather useless way to be honest. Here's an example of them in action. And another. Now although that's okay, it's not a system that's actually used in gaming... So I thought I'd try and use a bone system, here's the bones set out; I'm going to work on it tonight. Sorry none of the images are actual renders and a little fuzzy, but... Oooh, also, obviously the character is meant to be cartoony - I don't have some warped perception of faces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashley Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 (edited) Thanks ^_^ Found it on the Autodesk student section. Need to be signed in but you can find it here; http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=13587789 Its the thing called 'Getting Started with Maya 2010'. Much better than trying to find random tutorials on the net that presume you know bits and you end up just getting in a muddle/mood. Wesley...I presumed it was a self portrait. Looking good though Most excellent indeed. How long did it take you to learn how to make faces (on Max obviously, not in real life)? Edited November 11, 2009 by Ashley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 I started with a great tutorial called Joan of Arc - http://3dtotal.com/pages/tutorials/max/joanofarc/joanmenu.php Although it's done in Max it can easily be applied to any other app, you might just need to search how to do a few things he references. Really, really great tutorial to start out with - it creates a few messy NGons and triangles, but once you get better you learn how to avoid those. So yeah, I started with that last year and made two bad characters, and now this year just tried harder using the same method really. Just more reference images and just spending more time on it basically. And in other news Max just crashed while not using it... annoying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightwolf Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Rigging and stuff I get to learn in the next few weeks - yippeee something useful. Anyway I started modelling a table, using turbosmooth etc, but when I try and do edges with ring and connect the end part of the leg for some reason won't ring (which makes it ultra smooth when I apply turbosmooth to it), anybody idea why? I'm not incredibly good with ringing or connecting, so I'm sure I've done something completely wrong, but I did follow the video to the letter and his works fineee! (the ring ^) (turbosmooth ^) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 I'm not sure why it didn't connect that to the edge on the end; but the reason why it looks all scruffy at the end is because it's smoothing an NGon (a poly with more than 4 verts). But to fix that just use the cut tool (alt+C) while in poly mode in the edit poly. Then just click on poly where the edge "ends" and then on the last edge of the table. It'll create the vert and connect it with an edge. Do that for the second one and it'll be all nice and nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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