Week 4 – Environment Modelling

P 10th February 2022

F 2.1 Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques

Maya Modelling

Puppy House

I tried making the door with Boolean however, the vertexes made were too many and too messy. Instead I used the object above as a guide and made the appropriate number of vertexes, using the multi-cut tool, on one half of the door. Then deleted half of the mesh and mirrored it, to produce the completed mesh with the door.

I bevelled edges every so often and then extruded them in. This will later help me to give the appearance of wooden planks on the house.

The model is mostly done at this point. There are a few visible changes I wish to make based on my opinion and on peer feedback. The small roof over the door looks strange. I will remove it. And I want to exaggerate the ‘tall structure from the perspective of a small animal’ style. I have changes this like so:

The front and back side of the dog house have been rotated/ more inclined backwards.

As you can see, from a lower angle, it should help with the perspective, even slightly. To resemble the feeling of looking at a skyscraper/ very tall building. I will do the same with the main residence building, however, I think I will have to adjust the camera so that there are more shots of the buildings from below, looking up. Since the effect will not work as well otherwise. I wanted to have more high-angle shots looking down at the ‘vulnerable’ animal. Nevertheless, they will simply have to be lower than in my storyboard, but above the character. Then, I can have a shot somewhere when looking at the tall building from below.

Colour Assignment

The primary colour pallet is only for viewing purposes so that I and my reader can easily identify what the differently coloured parts of the model will be. Also, the way I have planned this (the key to my diagram) is that the labels with only codes, e.g. ‘R1F’, have an Arnold material. Any that have a material before the code, e.g. ‘Wood R1F’, mean to use Substance Painter. The codes refer to the colour pallet in the corner. I will try to have mostly Arnold materials used for most parts of the model. Other areas that are the main structures of certain details can have more realism using Substance Painter. For this, all I will do is apply a material in SP such as ‘clean concrete’ and overlay a fill colour layer on top with altered opacity accordingly. This way I can have some level of realism, as well as not too much strain on time.

Textures

Tree Model

Most of the tree roots are traditionally at ground level. I tried to mix things up a bit by curving them off the ground more, to vary their shape. This may also become a narrative prop in the animation, I could use the roots and have the character trip over them? While this idea is still doable, I do not like the look of the model, and may undo the roots that are not on the ground. Also, this may be best considering the scale of the puppy in comparison to the size of the environment. Roots that are too large will not work for the small size of the puppy.

I am making progress with the tree model. At this point, I wanted to critically analyse the visual structure. The base seems to large, it looks unnatural.

This is the result. Much better, in terms of proportions.

I finished the branches, however with the direction and angles of the curves, I think I strayed away from my original design too much. They should be curving down and out more. I want to restart the branches and make them more like I originally designed them.

Leaves

Testing shape

While these models are directed around my initial drawing, I do not resonate with any of them. I want to try another shape, as I do not think having block shapes as leaves would fit with the environment style. I want to try an alpha map, as I mentioned before, however, I will try to style them around my initial design. By this I mean, they could be sized, shaped and positioned similarly.

Alpha Leaves

This was the first time that I made alpha leaves, so it took me a while to get used to it. This is the result of the experiment.

I want the leaves to be the same colour scheme of the initial design, however, I made a few alpha leaf variations just in case I want to experiment with colours later. (I have more than in the image above).

Leaf Placement

Here I experimented with the sizing and placement of the leaves.

I think that the size should be increased.

Like so. With a larger density of the leaves, this should suffice. Perhaps positioned slightly higher also.

Looking at the leaves now, I think the density is questionable. I will need peer feedback, however, it should be suitable for my environment. One part of the leaf placement I should correct is the angle of the upper leaves, they should be downwards more to fit with the lower half and the concept design. I am also wondering if the colour of the leaves is appropriate, yet this will have to be revaluated when I have complete the rest of the environment textures.