Hard work texture maps!

Hi Ho, well recently i have been trying all different techniques/programs to work out how people get low poly meshes with high poly maps into 3-d applicatins for rigging *yawn*. My conclusion is.....it's awkward, but 3ds max seemed to be the easiest way to import all the different maps, it made the most satisfying results because the new node based plug-in was very simple to use.....ish.

Anyway i decided to put a lid on the high poly troll in mudbox and concentrated on importing it from 2.5 million tri's to something like 4000 to work with! (crazy), i decided not to detail as much as i wanted to because it was taking to much of my time. But i was happy with the end result and has learnt me a lot for my next conquest, heres a screen of the finished mudbox model :)

So after a lot of different research and trial and error with maya/xsi this is the result i ended up with in 3ds max, it's around 4000 tri's which would be a lot for a game character i know but will still be good for the animating in real-time. I am creating another character to be in the sequence to go alongside this one with the same workflow. The idea is just a short animation to show body mechanics and be a nice addition to my showreel and help me for my final year :)
This is how it ended up, it's still missing some detail but it's confusing why at the minute :S

Also if i haven't made anyone fall asleep yet this is how i am getting on with my channel ident, i decided instead of rotoscoping origional star wars footage i would find some 3-d models and use them in the scene. Regarding the teleport effect i am after i have achieved it by a tutorial in after effects and should hopefully be straight forward. Heres a screengrab of how the scene is looking and the other two are layered in photoshop of what i am trying to achieve :

 

Until next time :)

Forgetful!

Well as the title suggests i sort of forgot i created this blog :/ so from here on out i swear an oath to update at least once a week :) (hopefully...) . I suppose i best share this link aswell with people if anyone is bored would like to look at it.

Anyway what i am working on at the minute is a range of things throughout the 3-d world, I am trying to geta wider range of skills in everything for when i create my final year piece which should of really of been planned by now......... but due to lack of confusion with the module and me changing ideas every 5 minutes nothing is set in stone yet.

The first thing i am working on for personal progress is this stone tree troll thingy in mudbox, it's just an exersize i saw in the 3-d world magazine that i thought would help me in how to model details and hand paint textures. So here is how i am getting on, the base mesh was provided by Craig Barr who is one of the greats in the modelling world.

  













What i am also working on is a ship for a red dwarf game/animation/cinematic with a friend which will hopefully turn into something bigger if the time is there :), i haven't got very far with it as i had a deadline last week for my character animation work. Here is the start of what will be the Blue midget:

This is my channel ident idea for where we have to create a ident for a chosen channel, i chose the syfy channel so i created moodboards and researched existing idents for ideas. I came up with an idea of a teleporter room like the one from star trek and beam different characters/robots in from iconic films. It will also have a wildcard like a teletubby or somthing along those lines beam in to throw off the viewer :)

 














The last thing i thought i would post is what i have created so far in my character animation work this year. I could really of improved many things but im still learning and hope to get more skilled with practise :)

1.Walk/Push

2.Lip sync

3.More lip sync (rougher)

4.Taxi which i started again and sort of rushed this one :(

5.Joke, but sound seems off when uploaded ah well.

Well thats that, i will post progress soon :) In the words of Ron Burgendy "You Stay Classy San Diego"