CAGD 493 Senior Portfolio

 

Post 3: Walls: Fixed

Like I mentioned last week, this time I ended up fixing and redoing the walls. This process was less complicated than before, but it still took me time. I also decided to do the UVing of each piece.

Thanks to this decision, the walls ended up looking more clean and cohesive than before. Although this set me up behind a little bit, I have the basic idea of how to start modeling the rest of the building to save up time and to not make the same mistakes as before.

The UVing of the different walls was pretty simple task, which help me identify which walls were bad or had wrong topology. I also decided to do the inside of the walls, as well as the frame door and window (although these may change in the future, depending of other people's suggestions). I decided to do tile for my UVs for a better work when texturing them.

For this week, I'll try to cover up more ground and finished the other walls, as well as the roads for the city and their respective UVs. I don't like the speed at which I'm currently working, so I would have to pick it up with multiple modeling. The rest of the modeling would be done in coming weeks.

Post 2: Walls

This week was the preparation for walls on the first type of building. Because there are going to be different types of buildings, I decided to make the pieces modular to make different houses with the same type of walls. Although I would have different types of walls in the end because some buildings vary in design. 

To begin with, I started doing the parameters that the houses would follow, the average size of each wall and how they would vary between each other. I need it to do this first in order for them to fit with each part. This was really simple to do.

Second, I started to model different walls for the first type of building. This was a little more complicated to do since most of the references images for the houses were different between each other and they also only have drawings that showcase parts of it and not all the houses. I had to do most of certain designs of the houses by imagination. 

Even with these advances, I decided that I may have to start everything from the start and redo all the walls. I ended up deciding that I want the interior of the houses too because some houses have open parts for kitchens or living areas. This is going to put me behind a great amount of time, but I think it would be worth it in the end product.

Post 1: Planning

Week 1 - 08/07/2024

One of my goals for last semester was getting better at 3D modeling, since I want to work as a 3D Artist. One of my problems is the lack of motivation sometimes, as well as not planning the models well before making them. This affects my overall progress and time management. The ideas that I have can seem big or small, depending on the amount of detail each of them has. My main goal is to recreate the city of Chichen Itza, which is one of the most important cities for the Aztecs, before the arrival of the Spaniards to America. I want to plan this project, thinking of all the details each building would have to prevent burning down, or art block, especially since I’ll be using references from other media on how the city looked like before.

First, I had to identify how big the project is going to be by identifying all the different elements that I am going to need for the project. Because of all the elements that I was looking at, I decided to not give myself any poly counts and make it more about the art, since I want this piece to be more emblematic and beautiful but having into account the amount of time that I have to spend with each piece. Because of this, my timeline would look like this:

• ·         Week 1 & 2:

o   Looking for references

o   Decide which pieces to make firs

o   Start modeling the easy pieces (modular for the simplest buildings) and creating the UV pieces along with each model

• ·         Week 3 & 4:

o   Finish the last modular pieces and their respective UV (if not finished)

o   Continue with the most complex buildings (higher rank buildings) and their respective UVs.

o   Start texturing the finished pieces

• ·         Week 5 & 6:

o   Start modeling all the props that would be around the scene with their respective UVs

o   Star texturing all the props when finished modeling

• ·         Week 7 & 8:

o   Make the main building or center piece with their respective UVs

o   Start texturing the main piece

o   Finish any other piece that was not done

• ·         Week 9 & 10:

o   Start modeling trees and plants (this may take the most time depending on the plant)

o   Start UVing each plant

• ·         Week 11 & 12:

o   Finished modeling any plant, building, or prop left

o   Fixing any UV that was broken

• ·         Week 13 & 14:

o   Build scene into Maya, to see how it would look

o   Bringing the scene different programs, to see which one is best for this scene

o   Finishing any other model that was not finished in the previous weeks.

• ·         Week 15 &16:

o   Make sure every file works into the chosen program

o   Rendering different shots from each object done

o   Rendering different angles of the final scene

o   Present the final project

The timeline would probably change while going along it. Is not a set in stone and it may become larger or shorter, depending on how complicated each object is. If it becomes larger, the number of objects on the list may shorten. If it becomes shorter, I may add new objects or do another project if the time allows it.

Reference images gathered: