Alien_workshop01|Machinima

This week task was to create an alien model based on given referance. Finished mesh will be used in rigging tutorial. After final model is made it should be UV mapped and textured. It was a very challenging task for me, as I'm still quite new to Maya, but I've learnt a lot.

I've started with a cube primitive and kept on modeling half of the alien, as adviced by Mat.

At this stage my model was really simplified as I was concentrating on getting main parts correct (eg. leg, torso, arm).

 Next step was to finish up a rough model. I had everything in place and the only thing left was to model head. That part of modelling was really hard for me. Heads are way more complex than they look. For mouth I've extruded some mesh and moved it inside the model. Eyes were done separetly as two spheres (eye ball and eye lids).

I've tried to smooth my model a bit by moving vertexes and edges, as well as adding extra faces (or deleting unnecessary ones).

I've created a final model by merging together both half. It was quite an easy process, as it required only using a specific for this task tool (and flipping model along -X axis). However I've ended up with few holes in my model, which I sew by using another tool.

I'm particulary proud with how the legs and body (torso and bottom) have came out. Head looks a bit weird and I might try to fix later, but overall I'm happy with final model.

Game Module| Shell House - Texture

So, I've got my shell houses modelled, the next step on my to do list was to get them UV mapped and textured. As I'm still green when it comes to Maya (or Unity) this task was very challenging and I've spent good few hours on creating UV map just for one house. But also I've learnt A LOT ;).

Game Module|Shell House Progress

From the start I've knew that modeling shell houses in Maya will be very hard, especially since my concept art was very detailed and complex.
I've had tried few different primitives first to get basic idea, helix and sphere seemed to be the best solutions. However, I found modelling helix into shell is extremely difficult. As mentioned earlier, the other right shape to use was sphere.

•  A very basic model made with 3 different spheres. Although is very simple it gave me a rough idea of how I can take advantage of this shape.

• Almost finished model of shell house. Still need a bit more work on it, but I like those results.

• Another house; since it's bigger it could belong to shaman of this water tribe village.

•  Due to nature of Unity I had to multiply my houses in order to create a proper, visible walls (Unity, unlike to Maya, wouldn't display polygons that shouldn't be visible in the first place). I got rid of spikes since only inside is important.

Next step is to create a UV map and texture it. I've got introduced to MudBox and might use it for this task.

Game Modue|Props Modelling 01

After spending few hours battling with Maya and countless mistakes I've finally managed to create few of my basic props, fully textured and ready to be imported into Unity.

So here we've got pots, bowls, chair and table. I've tried to keep models fairly simple (also deleted uneccesary faces and edges) and colourful. Now I can make many variations of those designs by adding little details (or by changing colours slightly) to textures.

 Other objects I still need to model:

• signs ('hello', 'smile')
• 'firefly' lamps (animated particles to simulate fireflies)
• platforms
• shell houses (click here to see models)
• bridges and barriers
• boat
• animated fabric / flag

 Untextured signs and lamps:

Game Module| Crates

Finished models and textures of 2 crates (fantasy and futuristic).

I've used hand-drawn textures on both crates since it's something that I might use in my project (also I found those hand made textures are more unique and interesting). Bump maps and glow added.
Model of fantasy crate is matching my world fantasy theme and could be reused - with just a slight changes in textures.

A little progress shot showing the difference between model with and without bump map and glow.

Maya Tutorials|Creating UV maps & crates

Crate I've created by following UV mapping tutorial.

•  basic cube model with added texture (which I've quickly created in Photoshop)

I went for funky, vivid colors as the level I'm going to create will be very stylized and cartoony (game wise think a bit of Spyro mixed with Rachet and Clank + Rayman + Sly + Psychonauts + Okage: Shadow King ;) )