i haven't done a 3D blog update in a while, mainly because the website project has taken most of my time up for the last few months...

i found it quite difficult to get back into plugging away on my little houses, i think mainly because the 3D stuff i've learned hasn't been repeated enough to really be concreted into my brain 100% yet >.<

all of the base modelling was already done for the candy house so the first thing i did was start on the normal mapping. i made a whole load of really bad normal maps because my shading groups were set up wrong. *but* i've learned how to set up my shading groups now so i shouldn't have that problem again yay! :D (i was actually having bits of the same problem with my bathroom project too so i'm glad i've got it sorted ^^ )

this week i've been blasting through re-doing a lot of the normal maps for the candy house! what would have taken me at least half a day is now taking me an hour at the very most - i'm really glad i've picked up speed! :D

at the moment i'm trying to set up some decent colours for the candy house - i've changed the colour of the smarties on the roof as i think the house will look a lot better with a more limited palette...but the colours are not decent at al yet >.< i've normal mapped in a couple of photo textures onto the custard creams and the pie, just to show what it will look like a bit...but i think i'm going to be doing lots of paint-work with these textures so they should all look quite different soon (and not just like a shoved a photo on there! XD )



i found quite a cool photo texture for the pie tho - pi pie! XD (man i can't stand pi jokes >.< )



i'll probably move on to normal mapping the scary house soon and getting some basic colours down for that...then i'll be spending a couple of weeks really working hard on learning how to make painted textures look good! its going to be really hard work, but i hope i can improve quite a bit...

oo! once i've got the scary house to this stage i'll upload a WIP shot of that too ^^

Tags: 3d blog, trick or treat
aroundabout now, i am: trying hard!

i solved my normal mapping problems!! i am a super genius!! *dances around room madly* XD

...now to spend the entire afternoon not, in fact, correcting all my normal maps as i'm itching to do, but doing pressing website work instead. ah well at least the money i get from this will allow me to keep learning about normal maps! XD

Tags: 3d blog
aroundabout now, i am: accomplished

( candy house progress - image under the cut )

Tags: 3d blog, rapunzel, trick or treat
aroundabout now, i am: determined

back doing 3D today for what feels like the first time in years o.O; at least i can still remember the keyboard shortcuts i was using...

have an inexplicable feeling of tiredness today even tho i got a pretty early night last night, apparently i look tired too - go bags under the eyes! XD

here's a screenshot of what i'm working on - its the scary house one of these - why i'm bothering to post a random in progress pic of it is explained in the mini art rant below ^_^



i'm really itching to upload some artz somewhere! i've been drawing *so much* lately but for the last ...erm...few months i think...all i have uploaded has been one CLM strip a week >.<

i'll only be able to upload the 3 standalones i've (well nearly) done once mace's art book has come out i think...the deadline is the end of feb, but i have no idea how long it will be before it is released? i've also been doing quite a bit of sketch work for the characters for my RSoM entry, but i don't think i can post any of that up there anywhere....i've done proper full expression sheets for each of my 2 main characters! i've never done a character expression sheet before so that was a good experience ^_^ i'm going to be practicing drawing them in a few different poses and once manga studio comes (i've ordered it but they were out of stock) i'll be practicing inking too ^^

but of course...none of that can be uploaded anywhere! (i don't think) *sobs* ...i guess there must be loads of artists out there who don't really care about showing others their work, maybe i just like to get comments? i hope i'm not too shallow, but i like showing people what i've done! if i could never show anyone anything i'd drawn over my whole life i'm not sure i would bother learning to draw o.O; altho i love to see improvements for myself, i need to be able to do the adult version of running into the kitchen shouting 'look what i did!' and generally getting in the way of mum cooking dinner XD

well maybe if i can't post anything comic-y up this year (RSoM will be pretty much my only project until september i think o.O; ) maybe it will show amazing improvements that no one thought i could pull off lol! XD

Tags: 3d blog, art, rant, rsom, trick or treat
aroundabout now, i am: tired

( portfolio breakdown )

Tags: 3d, 3d blog, portfolio
aroundabout now, i am: determined

( the initial bits of my new project - images under the cut )

Tags: 3d, 3d blog, hikari, room project
aroundabout now, i am: working

lee's opened up the entire oblivion archives for modding on his puter so i can now import any model used in the game into max and see how it was made! so much knowledge...must keep studying models!!

i've already saved out examples of stuff i've made before! i've got a mug and a small table (note to self: no round tables), plus a tower room and a farmhouse interior

this is invaluable to my knowledge of how things are produced for games! *is on learning cloud 9* XD

altho everything seems to be pretty high poly o.O; they must have some tricks up their sleeves...

Tags: 3d blog
aroundabout now, i am: ecstatic

does anyone know how to / if you can scale down the size of a camera in 3Ds Max? i think the environment i'm working on is the right size, but my camera seems really large...and i know you can scale down camera sizes in maya...

the sticking point i'm having at the mo with my games environment, well is for one not having an engine to run it in so not really knowing how/if it would work, and 2 not really knowing how the professionals deal with interiors in games (e.g. fitting the camera in for real time play, whether in 1st person or 3rd person view...if you think about it, in real life a high proportion of interiors photographers will use a slightly fish-eye lens, because interiors are often too small or oddly shaped to fit a good shot in - so how do they get a camera to take good shots in games??!)

i'm going to be researching this problem this morning - i'm reading the max 8 help files on cameras (i've been surprised what a decent read the max help files have been over the last few months), plus i'm also going to install doom 3 and dreamfall again, as i know in both of those you start off in an interior...i'm then going to make a few notes about what i think they're doing with the cameras or sizes on environments, and see if i can get mine to work any better ^^

the tower room is really coming along actually! modelling will only take a couple more days, but at this stage i need to get the scale right or i'll end up spending ages later tweaking the details to fit a different scaled room >.<

so...is there anyone out there who has any advice for games environment design/modelling? or knows of any good tutorials? ^^

Tags: 3d blog, work
aroundabout now, i am: working

try n make sense of this floor plan! MWAHAHAHAHAAA!!! XD



proper working floor plans n elevations being drawn today, should be able to start modelling tomorrow ^_^

hehe - i'm gonna have to compare the finished model to this at the end! XD

Tags: 3d blog, tower
aroundabout now, i am: amused
i've been listening to: cake - motorcade of generosity

...i hear the millions ask! XD well i worked all day yesterday, then went out food shopping in the evening and by the time we had got back, cooked and eaten dinner it was 9.30 and i hadn't taken a break yet, so i kinda wasn't in the best situation to start sticking the update together ^_~

all of the characters are lined, coloured, scanned n cleaned up now tho so its just a case of DTP-ing them into the right layout / adding text etc.

however

its WednesdayAnime tonight, so there's no way i'll be able to do it today

which means

i will do my utter best to get it finished on thursday evening.....which means it'll only be 4 days late o.O;

...hehe! which leaves me friday evening and the weekend to get my fleet page and the next CLM update done! guess that's my weekend sorted! ^^

----

but on a better note, my rapunzel model will be finished today! (well...to the point at which i'm happy to leave her for the time being - no textures or anything yet) .... there's gonna be such a 3D blog entry for that one lol! XD

starting today i'll be firming up the concept art on the steampunk tower environment which will be my next project, as well as probably sorting out the concept art for the 2 low poly stylised characters i'll be making to go with it - rapunzel in chibi-esque form, and her mad inventor dad! should be fun!

...anyone know of any good interior environment tutorials, or have any advice for modeling game environments?

Tags: 3d blog, clm, rapunzel
aroundabout now, i am: working
i've been listening to: samurai champloo sountrack album