Tuesday 25 January 2011

modelling the Overlord - Complete

Wanted to post this a few days ago but didn't get chance. Here's the basic model of the Overlord complete.


The Mechanical Overlord

Completely underestimated how difficult it would be to model him. Had to jump back and forth from "drawing board" and back to modelling as my initial designs were impractical. This was mainly the joints of the arms and legs. The arms were designed to follow a more organic approach and because they were close to the torso it wasn't gonna allow much room for the arm to move. The moment I would bring it down for a rest pose the arms would conflict with the torso. In the end I went with a ball joint that pushed the arms out a bit to also avoid any conflicts between each mesh.

The legs, which I'm still not happy about yet, were troublesome as I couldn't get the right shapes out of the thigh armour. here's hoping these legs move well. The legs will be quite limited in movement so I don't have to worry about the thigh's spikes conflicting with the torso.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the outcome and how close I've kept it to the original designs. As for the torso vents, I'll sort that out in the texturing phase and also decide if they are necessary.

All that's left now is to model the True Overlord which will a piece of cake compared to the rest of the models ( or maybe I'm underestimating it again, haha!)

Sunday 16 January 2011

Modelling the Overlord

Started modelling the Overlord now, heres a progress screenshot. His face was a more difficult than I thought, mainly because I kept changing my mind with how I wanted the jaw to be attached. However, since its behind the cloak / hood anyways the joint isnt important. I chose the route that would better assist the animation process so the jaw has a slightly more organic feel.


Overlords mechanical face


Friday 14 January 2011

Project Enzo Final Animatic

2 animatics for Project Enzo, one in 2D and one in 3D.



Project Enzo - Final Animatic from Ravi Maheru on Vimeo.

"Predator"

I've uploaded my "predator" animation that I've mentioned in past blogs which featured a scientist becoming his experiment's prey.


It's like a Predator... from Ravi Maheru on Vimeo.

This is based on the October competition from the 11 second club. Enjoyed making it and pleased with the outcome.

Thursday 13 January 2011

New semester starts

Has been a really busy holiday (for me it just meant working all day at home). The big presentations are now done and provisional grades are coming in which have been awesome for me so far; really motivates me to work even harder and to do better than what I've achieved so far as theres always tons of room for improvement.

Project Enzo is the biggest project I am working on and it is a huge risk but its the result of constantly pushing myself further with each semester. I've reached a point where I have to outperform myself from each previous semester and its something I really hope doesnt bring me down in to a mess as even I can understand just how difficult the road ahead is. But Project Enzo is more than this as it is a chance to prove to myself that I am capable of reaching my life dream.

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Will be attending "Breaking into animation, armed with a crayon" by Curtis Jobling. Looking forward to it as it's quite intimidating with the end of the 3rd year quickly approaching.

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Don't have much to show since my last blog update, my body caught up with me and I couldnt concentrate on work for the past few days thanks to going to sleep at 3am-4am daily and a few 2 hour nights in between. It's annoying as I want to keep working but I find myself falling asleep. So a few days rest and I'll be back to normal as I want to get as much ready for 2nd semester which starts next Friday.

Friday 7 January 2011

Modelling Bird - Complete

Whoa, this took longer than expected. Was hoping i'd get this done by morning but got confused getting the legs sorted out. i was also toying with the idea with adding the forth claw that sticks out at the back of the foot but chose to stick to my original design.




Really happy with the model, I just hope the topology on the wings translate well when animated.

Modelling Bird continued




With his face complete (His eyes are just placeholders for now), I've moved on to the body. This is slightly harder as I havent modelled a bird before so I'm experimenting alot with the topology for the wing as I need to mimic a hand with the three large feathers functioning as fingers. Will be interesting to see if my guesses work in the end.

I'm really proud with how his face turned out, I'm glad that I changed the eyes from what i had originally as these ones will allow me to give him better expressions. I'm also glad I didnt box model him, opting to model it by edges instead, it feels alot easier to sculpt the muscles in the face.

I wish he was real now and sitting on my shoulder, haha! :D

Thursday 6 January 2011

Modelling Bird

made a start on 'Bird' this morning:



Changed his eyes as birds generally have round eyes
 Having a lot of fun modelling bird, although I really hope choosing to model it by polygons pays off as I could have used a sphere to model from for his head.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Modelling Enzo - base model complete






Enzo's base model is complete, now all that's left is modelling the slave gear around him which isn't a priority at the moment. Would have finished this yesterday but the hand gave me a few problems, mainly to do with the aim of having a quad only topology; which for the hand I've never tried before (using a mixture of tri's and N-gon's).

Worked out a quad only topology through experimenting, hope it animates well. What it has let me achieve compared to hands I've modelled in the past, is greater detail for the palm muscles and knuckles. In theory it should allow the hand to crease and bend naturally in the palm which is needed as his hands will be seen alot when holding Bird.

Had fun modelling him, definately the most detailed animation that will be present in the animation. For now, Enzo will take a break whilst I start modelling the other 3 characters. :)

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Modelling Enzo

here's a progress screenshot of Enzo's model. With the head complete, it doesnt take long to complete the body. After Enzo's modelling is complete, I'll move on to Bird's model.
Enzo so far

Sunday 2 January 2011

Progress Report 3

its been a while since I last posted, huge thanks to my internet connection messing up during christmas holidays :( Anyways, happy new year and I hope you all had a great christmas too.



Finally resumed work on my final project. Progress on my main character's head (Enzo):



Half of Enzo's head with an incomplete helmet

pleased with his face, got the topology sorted out and I also decided to give him a round eyeball to save headaches later on if I had of stuck to the oval eyeball. Still unsure I will create teeth for him, never included it in original artwork and didnt think about it at all. I will most likely include some but they will be small teeth that wont be seen often. Still have to model the tongue however.

After modelling the face, I started deleting polygons to decrease the ploy count, I think I had around 1000 polygons for half a face which is ridiculous so spent a good amount of time reducing the amount. I now have it around 670 for half a face (would have preferred to have it smaller but I think I should be fine with this hopefully.

I've moved on to the helmet which is a lot harder than I imagined although it's mainly due to how I went about duplicating one helmet band and attempting to remodel it for the next part of the head.