Container City (part 2)

Week 16

Container City (part 2)

This week I have decided to undertake a task that I thought will give me a challenge, something I haven't had much experience in and concepting and a bar/restaurant sounded like an interesting job. To kick things off, I constructed a mood board by gathering images of different abandoned shipping containers and even stills from a game I used to play called Deponia, a point and click adventure game set in a makeshift and thrown together, dystopian environment.

To begin with I decided to use some painting and photobashing techniques to quickly generate some concepts. I found an image of a 3/4 view shipping container and by using other images and some paintovers I produced rough ideas to start with.

As a group we have chosen one that we really like to be further developed. To make the concept more unique I have worked on the silhouette to bring out interesting shapes by adding objects like gas tank, satellite dishes, wooden pallets and more.

At the end I came up with the final idea that was ready to be modelled.

After the concept was ready I was finally ready to model my bar, because we have been provided with a simple model of a shipping container all I had to do was use that and build additional assets around it. To keep myself organised I have set a budget of 11,000 tris for the entire model.

The next task was to texture I have used 1024x1024 texture sheet. The most important part of texturing was to keep it realistic so I have used real life images and textures in order to make the assets look Worn-out, dusty/dirty and rusty.

Container City (part 1)

Week 15

Container City (part 1)

A new year and a new project, this time it was a group project where the objective was to build a city using shipping containers as the main building blocks. As a group we had to decide between a Science Fiction or Dystopian city we went with a Dystopian city. I put forward the idea of a forest environment which the rest of the group liked, so I constructed a mood board for the scene. I then went on to construct a rough city using whiteboxing techniques

Mood board

Quick block out 

I was very excited to start building this setting not only because we could have pushed the technical side and use this project to learn a bit more about Unreal engine 4 and blueprints as well as be challenging to create busy environment with foliage, sound effects, particle effects, water effects and fog. Unfortunately the group wanted to go in a different direction and settled on a marble quarry environment instead of a forest.

Evaluation - Character Dichotomy Project (part 5)

Week 10

Evaluation -Character Dichotomy Project (part 5)

Q. How did my abilities improved during the project lifecycle?

• Improved texturing
• Gained familiarity with UE4
• Produced quicker and more interesting 3d models
• Higher quality concepts

Q. Any difficulties during the project?

The design and creation phases of the project was pushed back due to extension of concepting process.

Q. Was this project successful?

Based on the model, textures and maps, the project was successful, however, if I had I not been delayed at the beginning of the project, I would have liked to rig and completed other stretch goals.

Q. How would I approach the project next time?

I would try to push the designs further and work more with the silhouettes to create more unique designs. I would also try to paint fabric textures to add more realism to the character.

Character Dichotomy Project (part 4)

Week 9

Character Dichotomy Project (part 4)

The project is almost over the last task was to import the model to Unreal Engine 4 and here are few renders of my final character.

Character Dichotomy Project (part 3)

Week 8

Character Dichotomy Project (part 3)

This week I was ready to model one of the characters, I decided to model the elf as I thought modelling and texturing this character will be challenging and exciting.

modeling my character...

The final albedo map 

Character Dichotomy Project (part 2)

Week 7

Character Dichotomy Project (part 2)

During this week I was still working on the concepts for dichotomy characters. I finally came up with an idea, I used a quick sketch that I did and manipulated the silhouettes to create a more a dynamic character. (On the image you can see the process I went through)

I have decided to create Santa Claus and very shy, hardworking elf. I started with sketching different hairstyles and clothes for an elf. For the clothes I had a rough idea of what it will look like and I also did a quick colour combination just to make sure the colours look right together.

Lastly I was left with orthographic drawing for modelling, which I found quite challenging since I had to imagine the character from all angles and designing clothes and other aspects happened to be pretty difficult.

When designing Santa I took a different approach, just like with elf I had a rough idea and a sketch to start with.

I Started with painting quick silhouettes, I have then sketched some faces and clothes on those silhouettes, when I was finally happy with one of the designs I then did quick colour study and orthographic drawing.

Character Dichotomy Project (part 1)

Week 6

Character Dichotomy Project (part 1)

This week we started a new project, the character dichotomy project, the brief is to design a pair of characters whose styles indicate that they belong in the same universe, but show polar opposites in certain aspects of their appearance.

To begin with, I used Pinterest as my inspiration source and I created a mood board which I then used for creating characters. I have decided to create characters based of animated movies such as Monsters Inc. or The Incredibles, the idea was to create characters based off just primitive shapes and I thought Pixar and Disney used that technique quite a lot in their concepts to develop interesting and iconic characters.

Mood board

The next step was to create some characters, so I used simple shapes and I created silhouettes. I found this method of creating characters a bit difficult as it was very challenging to imagine or design a character from complete black shape however, this was a good start and good practice to get some ideas flowing.

Lastly, I have created more detailed and developed sketches of different characters. I had several ideas and various polar opposite combinations in my head to start with.

• Beautiful - Ugly
• Happy - Sad
• Rich -Poor
• Young - Old
• Tall – Short