Minor/Major Project: Art Of Planning

I thought it would be a good idea to get a (as much as possible) full layout plan together for my art of document, rather than just winging it as I go, as this will help me ensure its well structured and nothing gets missed out.

Front Cover
Inner Cover / Contents Page

Premise and Planning

• Market Research, artistic style and sound
• Finding the cast (meet the zoo crew) -Pages of each
• Final characters - lots of images
• Environment references
• Concept art - before and after stages
• Room plans (technical drawings)
• Creating the story flow & refining direction/premise
• Font
• Storyboarding

Preproduction - Animals

• Orthographs
• Pages of model progression x1 each
• Stevie
• Georgie
• Spyro
• Basil
• Boots
• Lunar
• UV mapping
• Page of final models/wireframes/UV'd
• Texturing maps, plain & textured
• DP of all with textures
• Animal riggin
• Boots & Lunar - Spines
• Basil - Legs & mouth
• Stevie - tail swish 
• Final renders of all 

Preproduction - Environment

• Technical Drawings
• Key Assets Breakdown
• Creating a ... gecko viv (expanded components)
• Same with desk, wooden vivs, Stevie viv, frog tank, corn viv, skink vivs, Spyro viv, wardrobes/rack
• Before vs after - cupboards/viv, wardrobe drawers/rack
• Texturing (combine with above?)
• Individual textures - floor, wood grains, bark, leaves + plants
• Small detail assets (pots, plants, pictures)
• Lighting the scene and vivs
• Final renders

Post Production

• Sound collaboration - backing and voice overs
• Additional elements - flat images - bugs, fact file
• Editing
• Final Shots
• Further plans - awareness & education

Back Cover

Minor Project: Spyro Bearded Dragon - Modelling #5

When it came to starting the UV's for Spyro, I realised just how off his model was, die to the orthographs. His feet and belly were all at different levels, which wouldn't make sense, so I had to quickly do a few adjustments to make him flat bottomed, as he is. 

 Original Model

Fixed Model

Minor Project: Georgie Tokay Gecko - Modelling #6

I once again went back into a character model and combined the eyelid tot the body mesh, added a mouth and extra vertices to the nose, and cleaned up a little. 

Minor Project: Spyro Bearded Dragon - Modelling #4

Today included finishing up the Spyro model, I went back in and tidied up a few points across the model in general, slight adjustments to make polygons more regular and tidy some dips, also made the belly less squared off and more a straight slope down into the spines, as his does in real life, another aspect of his skeletal deformity. Lastly was to add in his spines. Bearded dragons have very rough skin and spines across most of sides of their body in particular, but where this is a simplified model to represent the creature rather than an accurate depiction, i wanted to focus on spines in positions that would help identify the model as a bearded dragon only, so added spines along the key areas where the spines are longest. 

Minor Project: Basil Blue Tongue Skink - Modelling #1

Minor Project: Spyro Bearded Dragon - Modelling #2&3

I worked on adding Spyro's eye previously, however I cannot locate my screenshots from modelling this, I must have thought I had already uploaded and relocated the files from my screenshots folder into my uni folder and deleted them, so there are no in progress modelling photos. I have however got screenshots from today when  I went back into my Spyro model and combined the eyelid into the body mesh, as I have with Stevie, plus added in a mouth and played around with the head shape some more to try and make it a little more accurate. 

Minor Project: Room Modelling #9 - Lighting & Texturing Advice

I also spoke to Alan regarding lighting and texturing my scene, specifically asking about the glass that will feature so heavily in the scene. Had a look at a few different types of lighting and which would be most useful in my setting, a sky dome being key with directional lights to create the needed shadows and possibly a few point-lights within vivariums just to ensure everything can be seen. I have a lot of notes about an array of questions I had re:texturing, including alpha channels and how to properly bring in and set up images to work that way, as my leaves within the vivariums are being created this way. I now feel a lot more confident going forward. Below are some screen grabs from explorations into a few things earlier. 

Minor Project: Updating Stevie Model

 Today I took my models into uni with me and got some advice on how to make them better focusing particularly on my Stevie model. First geometry was taken out of the tail to help it be less blocky, and I also went in and slightly adjusted multiple points within the ridges to make them less uniform and more natural. I also tapered the tail better than it previously had been. 

Next the eyelid detail was joined to the main model, which involved shifting and adding some geometry around. 

This is the finished joined eye, which I am very happy with as it does look a lot better. Geometry was also added for a simple mouth, I hadnt planned on originally adding geometry for a mouth as this character doesnt actually need to open or close their mouth, and was just going to add it in texturing, but I do think it looks better this way. Geometry was also shifted around the back of head/shoulder area to again make it look more natural and less blocky. 

The improved geometry, with extra loops around the arms, head, mouth and nose, to look more natural, and less around the tail. 

I also then went back into the model again once home and added more to the mouth, leopard geckos are smiley, that's their thing, so I thought I may as well make it accurate. I extended the extra geometry further back, and played around with adjusting points until I ended up with the final outcome I was happy with. Below is a head on comparison between the original mouth (right) and my more "smiley" tweaking.

Final geometry of Stevie model. 

Minor Project: Character Orthographs - Basil Blue Tongue Skink

The eyes are a little low but this will just be taken into account and adjusted while I'm modelling. 

Minor Project: Environment Modelling #8 - Leopard Gecko Vivarium

The last animal enclosure (for the beginning scenes) to model was the leopard gecko vivarium. This is another Exo Terra brand vivarium, but is a maxi wide and low, meant for ground dwelling creatures rather than arboreal, so I could still use the basic design as the others but just had to resize a fair amount. Also created the table this vivarium sits on, most challenging part was trying to ensure I got the heights of each right in relation tot he Tokay vivarium and windowsill. Again, as with all the vivs, the doors are on a separate layer to the main body. 

Minor Project: Environment Modelling #7 - Frog Tank

I still had the frog tank to create on my desk, which although is not getting specifically featured in the animation I still needed and wanted to have modelled, as it is quite a feature of my desk and I do love my frogs. I created an inner "frame" which will be the black silicone sealant that hold the tank together, as this was the best/simplest way I could think of creating this line to avoid the tank just looking too plain and odd once its all textured as glass. 

Photos of the frog tank right now for reference, ignore the tubifex worm massacre - they've just been fed. 

Minor Project: Environment Modelling #6 - Wardrobe Drawers/ Snake Tubs

Only the right hand wardrobe insides will actually feature in my animation, and only bottom half, but there do need to be two slightly different sets of drawers. The first feature of the open wardrobe it will have clothes drawers as in the first picture, and be opened to show folded shirts, but then will feature again to show how the room changes as the game progresses, and this time the drawers are instead snake rack tubs, also demonstrating a different way of housing certain species. This slightly adjusted model is shown in the 2nd picture, with the fully boxed drawers and shelf toppers, mirroring a snake rack design, including my own first rack (picture three). 

(left) My drawers (besides the extra newer one as they stopped producing the original style) have the drop corner design allowing you to see into the drawer a little, this I wanted to recreate in my model to both make it more personal and accurate to my environment, and also to help create another slight distinction between the two drawer types in the room as the game progresses. The bottom drawer is a mesh basket. 
Seen here (right) is my old (original and temporary) snake rack, made from a basic shelf unit and really useful boxes (RUBs as called in the herp community) that house the ball pythons. The shelves act as the lids for the boxes as well was what they sit on, and the boxes slide out to get to the animal and water etc. Some rack systems are on runners so are like drawers, as represented in my model below, however I got mine second hand from a breeder friend and knew I didn't want or need anything fancy as it would only be temporary. 

Wednesday, 9 January 2019 Minor Project: Georgie Tokay Gecko - Modelling #5 (final)

I had a little difficulty with lining the model to the orthographs, but this was really because I hazarded a guess when creating the orthographs and wanted them much more as a general guideline than a specific "must fit" as I knew I would find it easier to accurately create a 3D model over creating accurate orthographic drawings, purely as I know the Tokay gecko shape. 

Minor Project: Environment Modelling #5 - Adding Gargoyle Gecko Vivariums

 Now I had the base vivarium model created I simply duplicated and re-adjusted it to add in the vivariums for the gargoyle geckos. The tall freestanding one was a little different as its a  DIY vivarium I created from a glass display cabinet, so no mesh top and a different door, plus I had to add in the glass shelf I silicone sealed into place to create the hold-back for the substrate. However the most challenging part was the trellis, I couldn't just stretch to fit so went in and added more poles, which all needed to be lined up accordingly, making a much taller object. Unfortunately this was a day I mostly forgot to take regular screen-grabs.