Week 5

For week 5 my aim was to get all the models I had done so far UV'd and ready for texturing. The way I have worked through out the project so far isn't really the best way of working because I have been Uving all my models at the same time which I have worked out isn't the best way of doing things.

I started Uving all the buildings on the Monday of week 5 and I finished them all on friday. I did take 5 days but now that the UVs are done I feel im ahead of work, there is still loads of buildings and props that i need to model but i will be UVing them as I go along from now.

Below is A shot of the scene UVd

While I have be doing the UV's all week Danny has been working on the other half of the scene by doing some of the buildings. He has done the 2 biggest building in the scenes and they have all been UV'd. By Danny doing the buildings we now know the sheer size of the map and what needs to be done as soon as possible. Me and Danny have disscussed the scene and we are aiming to get all the models done by the Alpha which is week 8.

Below is a few shots of the map so far, we have coloured the buildings so u can see who has modelled what, the buildings that are brown are the ones that Dan has modelled and the yellow ones are all mine,

As you can see from the shot above there has been a lot of work done so far and everything in that scene do far is UVd and ready for texturing.

The shot above is how were hoping the player of the game would see the environment from. We are doing the game from 3rd person so obviously this would include the charcater as well as the scene and also the car Dan has already modelled.

For next week I am hoping to start modelling some of the props within the scene because from the past weeks blogs all the rendered shots all contain buildings and not enough props. I am also going to start rendering all of my shots in UDK from now on because it looks a lot smoother than the shots in Maya.

So overall for next week I want more props in the scene which will all be UV'd and ready to texture and Im hoping that Danny has the floor modelled and UV'd because I know he is currently doing it, also we want to test light maps to see if they are working right with our scene, Id rather know now if there is something i need to change rather than later.

Week 4

For week 4 my aim was to carry on modelling more of the scene in maya and maybe try to put some of the scene into an unreal package, In week 3 I had most of the starting building's already modelled but i wanted all the building's behind and on top of these modelled for this week.

I started out by finishing some of the scene from last week and adding some of the background buildings to give the scene some perspective, I also started modelling some more seperate buildings which attached further on down the road, I did this because Danny was wanting to also model some buildings and the way we have split up the scene is like two seperate scenes, so for him to start his side of the scene I had to model certain buildings for him to connect his to.

Below is a quick rendered shot of how far into the scene we were on tuesday of week 4

The image above has the main tower of the big building which isnt in this rendered shot, I modelled the tower and small building next to the tower so i could get the scale right for the big building which is the main building you can see in the scene.

My next plan for the week was to try and put the scene above into unreal to see how it plays at the moment so I can see if all the scale was right and to see which parts I can use as modular pieces, also to start a package for the scene so we can re use certain props through out the scene.

Once the scene was in unreal I was happy with the scale and how the scene was coming along, as you can see in the unreal shot above i had modelled the main building in the background which gives a really nice perspective and when it has the height map fog in the scene it going to look really nice.

Also at this point which was the thursday Danny had finished his car and also modelled the post box prop which will probabily be on Danny's blog.

The rendered shot above is the latest render so far, Everything in the scene is ready for unreal and is all to scale, they are clean models and ready for Uving, i work really different and should stop uving after everythings done out of my system but that is my main aim for next week to get everything so far Uv'd and ready for texturing when needed.

This is the same scene just from another angle, the houses on the left are terraced houses which all look the same but I will make them look different by putting more grime on certain houses to make them look older than they are. Also in the render where the huge empty gap is, is where Danny is starting his buildings and also the damaged car has to be put into the scene.

For next week I hope to have most of the buildings that are not in the scene in there and also block off certain areas. I am also guna start modelling certain small props to cover the street with e.g petrol cannisters and rubble. My main aim though is to get most of buildings Uv'd and ready for texturing because I know that this is going to take a fair bit of time.

Week 3

For week 3 myself and Danny decided to get started on the models for the movie scene, we both decided that I would start with the buildings and that Dan was going to start modelling the burnt out car. I went ahead and started modelling some of the first parts of the scene because it's a good starting point and I also knew that once I had one building scaled right all the rest of them would just follow.

I started with the building that you see in front of the tunnel at the begginning of the scene, I did this building first becasue I knew once i had modelled the building to scale i could connect all the other buildings I would model and I wouldnt't have to worry about size issues, another reason was there was buildings on both side's so i could start to make the scene come to life.

These were the 2 first buildings that I modelled and I knew that once I had tweaked the buildings then the rest would follow very easily, at this point I disscussed with Danny whether i should carry on modelling that part of the scene or whether he wanted me to start on some props of some sort, we both agreed that carrying on with the area I was modelling would be the best because then the models would start to look like the movie scene.

To the left and below are renders that i have put together to show how far into the model we are, I have modelled most of the ground buildings but there are still buildings that attach to the top of them which are currently missing.

I have also added a few props just to try and get a feel for the scene so there some pallest scattered around and the crates under the old market store, and i think that when this part of the scene is textured it will look really nice.

When I had got to where I am now the first thing I did was import the models in to UDK to check if the scale was right and if anything looked out of place, I did this and everything was fine except the size of the door which has been changed.

 The plan for week 4 is to carry on with what wehere doing but we hope to have the damaged car in the scene as well as all the buidings that are on top of the ground floor buildings which will then give you an idea of how the scene is going to look when finished.

                                                                            



Week 1 and 2

Week 1

In week 1 we was told what to expect from this module and how the module was set out, we were shown our module handbook and out tutor went through the requirements that were needed to pass this module. We were told that the assignment 1 was to create a scene from a movie either on your own or with another person and assignment 2 was to keep an up to date blog of progress.

I decided to work with Danny Bannister and we decided on doing the film Children of men. For the second week we were told to get a presentation ready for the next lesson which explained what movie we were doing, how we researched the movie and the time plan we had set out to complete the assignment.

We decided on which scene we were doing and we both decided it was a great scene to do because it contained vechiles which Danny wanted to, assets which i was intrested in and the environment which we were both intrested in. The video below is the scene we will be doing.

Week 2

In week 2 me and Danny started putting our presentation together, and started researching different kinds of factors for our scene. Danny concentrated on real life reference e.g. Bosnian war and the Chechen war, where as i was researching the other kind of films and games that had a similar feel to the scene we were doing, e.g. Fallout, gears of war and uncharted 2. While I put all of the presentation together Danny created a rough block out of the scene to let the audience get a  idea of the scene we were doing. Also in the presentation there was information on how we would use our time to get everything done efficiently and also there was mood boards of props and environments.

On the day we presented the presentation we explained everything really well and at the end of the presentation there were no questions asked, so I assumed the idea was clear and everyone agreed it was a good scene to do.

In week 3 we are going start modelling some of the environment and some of the props, Danny will start modelling the rubble and other assets, were as I am going to be focusing more on the buildings. We hope by the end of week 3 we can start to see some good development in our work and see the scene coming together.

Advanced Rendering Techniques