Environment Analysis

I've been recently re-watching the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and I've been captivated by the environments they have been using. The environments vary in sizes yet they are all made up with simple shapes and forms. From looking at these environments, I can now see that majority of environments are created from simple shapes with excellent textures and lighting. From these environments I can see that I will definitely need to work on my lighting techniques as well as my unwrapping and texturing skills. 

The images I have included below are some of my favorite environments in the series. Each environment below demonstrates that simplicity is the key to a magnificent piece of work. The lighting captures the mood as well as the atmosphere of the planet where the scene is placed. Each model is made up of simple shapes such as circles and shapes that have then be warped into place to create a unique architecture design. The textures range from high to low detail but the common link is how simple they are. For future projects I will be looking to keep my environments simple and will continuously look at other examples of this work to further improve my workflow and skills. 

Self Reflection take 2

For this trimester I have been working on these two environments as well as watching numerous tutorials from Digital Tutors that were about lighting, scene creation as well as texturing. I've dedicated a lot of my time to my first environment over the tri. Originally I planned to do four environments however I personally did not realise how long an environment would take to build. Once3 I realised this, I thought it would be better to take my time with the environment so that it wasn't rushed and built with any errors. I never fully grasped the meaning I was taught as a goalkeeper "Quality, not quantity" until this trimester when I started building my first environment.

With it being my first environment, it took a lot more time than expected but by taking my time I have learnt spline modelling, lofting, uv unwrapping, texturing and I have also been able to improve my modular workflow so that I can, in future, create environments of a better quality in a shorter amount of time.

With my corridor environment, although I do have a completed version I have imported the environment into Unreal 4 and will hopefully have the finalized work up on this blog before I fly over seas on Friday.


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Below are some interesting topics I found during my final week before holidays.

http://www.3dartistonline.com/news/2014/02/create-stunning-3d-games-environments/

https://cgcookie.com/unity/2013/01/07/efficient-planning-and-modular-workflow/

http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=52975

http://blog.digitaltutors.com/two-easy-methods-rendering-wireframes-3ds-max/

http://www.themantissa.net/blog/2013/12/31/roundup-three-free-fragmenting-tools-3ds-max

Work this trimester

I've started looking into bump mapping for my environments. From what I've seen so far, I believe I will be able to generate some pretty sweet looking textures for future environments. I've also included a quick render of a city scape environment I'm currently working on for final project.

Reference Material for Alien_Environment

For the Alien environment I wanted to create a small corridor. I took inspiration from Alien Isolation and Bio shock. I wanted to create my environment so that it would be similar to the inside of a space ship or space station. I played through Alien Isolation to get a basic idea of how it would feel and what everything would look like from a first person view.

I've loved the lighting in Bio shock and wanted to replicate it in my environment. I found that the green tinge in Bio shock brought out the atmosphere of the game and gave a particular look to the environments. The lighting in my environment I am quite pleased with because I believe it brings out the mood I was looking for and gives of a certain atmosphere.

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My environment

Alien Environment

So after 11 weeks my Alien Environment is completed to a degree that I am happy with. It was a real eye opener to environment creation and from spending so long on it, I realize now that I have learnt a fair bit about my chosen area. By creating this environment I have learnt how to loft, uv unwrap, texture, a basic understanding of lights, modular work flow as well as how to model using splines.

Ways to Publish

 Our group has discussed how we are going to publish our VFX commercial numerous times this trimester. Even though we have a set target market, we will be releashing our product across a large range of media so that it can be seen by more people. By doing this we believe it will be viewed more as well as having a broader viewing platform. Our group strongly believe that this will create more opportunities for us. For the VFX commercial we are thinking of releasing short 2 second clips or even screenshots to hype up the audience across social media. We believe this will generate hype and draw people towards our product. Similar to the movie The Tunnel and how they were able to create their product. Each post or release will have to be aligned with the Australian time zone so that we can capture the support and interest of the local target market. 

To be able to market our product we as a group have agreed to use a number of sites to successfully run our product. We have be thinking of using Zapier as the main posting hub so that we can reach all platforms at once. This method should be very useful for promotion and project management.

The publishing places we have been considering are:

1. Facebook
2. Youtube
3. Vimeo
4. Instagram
5. CGBros
6. Tumblr
7. Twitter

Self Reflection

Over the last the few weeks I have been watching tutorials, practicing my artworks as well as testing out numerous environments. I am currently working on lighting for on eo f my major environments which will be finished in the next day or two. From creating this environment I have learnt how to use spline modelling as well as speeding up my environmental modelling process which will come in handy over the next trimester.

Other works I have done include experimenting in Unreal Engine 4 with  lighting, particles and also the textures. UE4 I am slowly getting the hang of and will be using it for future projects as a rendering and lighting program.

For the CIU project over this week I will be continuing my blog posts as well as creating some concept artworks for the desolate cityscape. I'm thinking of using fallout 3, Wasteland 2 as well as numerous movies as reference. I'm looking forward to traveling to Russia and Ukraine where I can grab some great texture shots and reference because of the derelict buildings including Chernobyl.