For my PPP Brief I wanted to demonstrate that I am constantly practicing my Maya skills, and this made me really want to add to my portfolio this year as well, so what I have decided to do is aim to create a small environment or detailed object every week so that I have a really nice showcase of modelling skills. I wanted this module to also help to increase my texturing skill. I want to aim to start creating my own, using Photoshop to be able to hand paint them, and this in term will help improve how I use Photoshop as well, as before university I had never even touched it before, and now I feel very confident in what I do on it, but these skills could still be refined.
So for my first environment, Stuart (Brown from my course) had asked me to create ones of his characters environments which was for a character named Ambam, who is a gorilla and a sheriff. This was a very interesting prospect for me, and rather a large build for my first one, but still I liked the challenge. He gave me the initial look to it, and I kind of added my own influence onto it, which was a lot of fun.
So I obviously started with the basics, getting the floor plane the right size, as I wanted to make sure this built was to scale, and getting the walls in so I knew how high they were going to be, at this stage I also added in a step at the front to get onto the porch and shaped that and the step to make sure they had that extra bit of detail.
I then started to add in the columns to hold up the section of roof that is slopped down at the front. I wanted to go with a typical Western look so that the porch had beams so that you can't just jump off at any point and also experimented with the step going all the way across the front, which I thought looked okay, but towards the end I decided to change this back. I wanted to also get that shape of the front wall at the top so that I had an area where I could add a sign and then ensured that there were window shutters and the door frame, ready for the door later on.
I then moved onto the inside ones I had the basic shape of the outside. On the inside Stu wanted there to be a notice board and then also a map of the world, but as this is an ongoing project for him as well, he doesn't yet have a finished map, so this is something that will be added in later, this is also the same with the shabby wanted poster that is sitting on that desk, as it doesn't have a photo on it yet.
I then added a bit more furniture, this desk slightly smaller, and with a chair in front of it, so that Ambam can sit down. Now what is really interesting about this idea that he has going on, is that the world in which Ambam lives consists off many different animals, which are obviously different sizes. This has to be taken into account when building this entire office, for the animal who was the sheriff here before Ambam was a bison who is almost twice his size and the furniture has to suit him as well, which I believe will.
This size matter also applies to the cells, I had to imagine that these cells would house any kind of animal from a bison down to a mouse. This is why I planned out the size of the beds first. The ones closest to the camera is the one that is meant to be Ambam's cell, as in Stu's story he broke out of his cell as the previous sheriff was dying and the bison made him the sheriff due to his determination. This was actually very tricky to think about as I had to think about the size of the bars on the cells which then led to the inside two having large bars but had to then be next to three cells with very small bars so that animals like mice couldn't just climb in between them. I also ensured that there were different sizes of buckets to go in each cell.
I then added more detailed beds and ensured that they were placed correctly and were the correct size in comparison with what kind of animal would be staying in that cell in the future.
I then also bent the cell bars slightly on the closest one to signify that this is the one that Ambam would have crawled out of in the story.
I then started the UV Mapping and Texturing process, which did take a lot longer that I thought. I started by adding this checkered pattern to the object as I was unfolding there UV maps as it was easier to tell whether they were stretched open enough or whether they were too squashed up. Once I had uv mapped everything I then took them all into Photoshop and began to hand draw the textures onto them, which I found a very fun process. I originally started doing this process with the mouse, but then got myself a wacom graphics tablet and found that I could create such better textures using this instead and was very happy with how some of them termed out.
So below are some final images of the sheriffs office. I wanted to go with this very stylised look that reflected a hand painted textured look, and eventually I will take this into Unity and create a turn table out of it, and adding lighting to get some nice shadows, so that it can be used in a show reel, but for now I am just very happy with the look and for a first time making my own textures, I'm very proud. Although I was quite lazy in some places, I really think it turned out better than I had hoped and can't wait to start doing my next PPP project.
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