Week 8

Week 8? Week 9? I've lost track at this point. Anyways, since I'm still doing research on how to rig this nye impossible creature, I decided to go in and have some fun. Fun is good right?

Wrong... People, when you subdivide in mudbox, apparently there are some special settings in the subdivision section you have to check so your UVs don't screw you over. You may even have to start over if it's bad enough.

 Fortunately for me, I was able to fix, (or at least hide) the problem and now look at that amount of detail? This is a render close up of where my main problem was and it looks great! May have to make a few texture changes because I painted on an incandescence layer in mudbox.

See, I have these magma cracks on the pincers which I really think came out well, but their appearance is over written by the incandescence. So I'll have to go back and tone it down a bit.





So this is going to be the basic theme of my centipede's texture. It's sad to hear that mudbox is on it's way out, because it's an amazing tool and I really enjoy using it, even with all of its quirks. Anyways, gotta smooth out some other texturing issues (mainly how lighting affects it) But we'll be moving onto the bodies next week!

Week 7

Alright, Week 7. I had plans this week, but due to some unfortunate circumstances, I have fallen ill. I was not able to do much but I was given the go ahead to give my centipede a skeleton.

As you can see here, I have a lot of joints which will prove the task of rigging this creature somewhat daunting. But I have faith that my choice of locations and my plans in the future will be fruitful.






The antennae have numerous joints because when they move, they don't flick and wave around like most insects, they squirm and writhe like worms.







I placed the root join just behind the head and placed a node in the middle that will branch off into the numerous joints that connect the antennae and pincers (in case there are problems with weight mapping in the future.) I have also decided that each joint affecting a segment will actually be at it's rear so that there is a more realistic side to side and up and down movement because if they were in the middle, then the segments themselves would bend which would look ugly. In the legs, each joint is between the two creased edges connecting each leg segment and an end joint at each tip, just to move them along.

 

Last is the rear end which is somewhat similar to the head where I just added a node that would split off the leg joints so that there wont be any issues later on.







This week was not very productive with me getting sick, coming back from GDC, and next week being spring break. I had already done some coloring, but I'm not proud of what I did so I am starting over. I had originally decided on the colorful insect appearance in the numerous pictures I've posted in this blog series, but I think I'd rather create something more inventive and give it a sort of volcanic rock material for it's carapace. I'll see what I can do once I'm feeling better. Have a good spring break!

Week 6

Hey there!

So this week was a little different because I was attending San Francisco's GDC (Game Developers' Conference). I was fortunate to learn a lot while attending summits, tutorials, and boot camps. I saw a former UFC fighter, now lead animator for EA Sports put his co-speaker in a sleeper hold just to give the audience an example of how his animations would look (since his higher ups censored the animations in his power point when he wasn't looking.) Anyways, it was a wonderful experience and I believe it was worth paying for the pass. I will have updates for my work up next week which will include texturing and coloring!