The Work Continues

Okay, I really think I went beyond the "block-out" stage.  Kinda nervous that I lost myself in the modeling and may have gone too far into the details and the individual pieces when the HW was just blocking it out.  But...well...at this point, whatever happens, happens.  If it's all good then yay!  If not, well... :(.  Anyway, below are several shows of the dump truck.  I've decided to call it here in terms of modeling out the various pieces and placing them properly.  Some were a real pain and took quite a long time (mainly those which the reference images didn't show clearly *sigh*)

I'm...fairly happy with what I've got so far to show in class on Thurs.  As this is the blockout, I didn't make any bevels, nothing is modeled to smooth yet, there are tons of smaller details that I restrained myself from going into in the interest of time, and several pieces are just basic primitives still.  The only complex pieces are the complex shapes of the vehicle that required the use of EP curves and extrusions/lofts/revolves.  One thing th at peeved me was how the details in several of my reference images conflicted with each other and with the image plane images.  It was crazy.  Some details were seen in one reference image that isn't in the others.  I see a detail in the image plane that isn't in the reference images...ugh.  In the end, I just had to make decision calls and go with what I could to keep it looking ok.

Tomorrow, I'm going to spend a bit of time renaming everything properly and also grouping everything logically.  Once that's done, I can h ave some breather before class on Thurs.  Here are the wireframe renders.  Shaded renders are further below.  Again, nothing is smooth-able.  It's all just the block in shapes.  After Thurs I'll be going back in and fixing up every single piece to be smooth-able.

And here are a few shaded renders:

The Mighty Dump Truck!

Time for another update!  The new term has begun and the first week of classes is over.  As a recap, this term I'm taking Perspective (since it's a prereq for Environment Design and I took it before but couldn't finish due to personal problems), Lighting and Rendering 1 and Hard Surface Modeling 2 with Max Dayan.  All cool classes. No homework in L&R just yet, we only really had an introduction level and a recap of the basics of lighting and rendering.  Perspective started off on the same stuff as before so I'm pretty familiar with all of it and eager to get going on the drawings.

Hard Surface Modeling 2 was...just wow!  Intense.  I am freakin excited about this class.  For the midterm we were able to choose any vehicle that exists in the present day or even any vehicle that used to exist in the past (aka viking ships) as long as it existed at one time or another.  After doing some research I was split between doing a Scania truck, my relative's truck (since I could then take all the reference images I wanted) or a Caterpillar Dump Truck.  I went with the dump truck.  Why?  Well, I wanted something that I know I can do and finish within the allotted time frame at my current skill level.  I felt that the dump truck would be nice.  I was tempted on the excavator, but eventually said, "nah, dump truck works for me."  After collecting all my reference images I got to work!

Today I started to block out the truck.  Now, here's something I noticed.  I think I went beyond the "block out" phase and added in more details in the various parts than I should have.  I probably should have just thrown in cubes and called it. But sometimes...my hands can tend to move without me thinking and because some details as relatively simple to get in, I just had to get them in.  The "block out" is due Thursday.  I have Mon-Wed with no classes to finish up.  Going to try to not get bogged down by details, but...no promises! 

This is actually a poor post since I didn't put in any lights or show any wireframes.  I'll do it tomorrow and post those pictures before continuing on with the block out phase. 

Texture Painting Final

So this was an interesting project.  I admit that my texturing skills need more work and I have a long way to go.  A couple classmates (Daniel and Hoang! Thanks guys!) were able to give my buildings first texturing pass a good critique and even went further by helping to demonstrate how the overall scene could be improved.  Big thanks to Eric Miller, my teacher in Texture Painting (who I will be seeing again when I take Hard Surface Texturing and Shading) for teaching us all kinds of neat stuff, including headusUV, various Maya MEL scripts, Bodypaint and Crazybump.  Awesome stuff!

Next term classes are already set to go - Perspective, Hard Surface Modeling 2 and Lighting and Rendering 1.  Should be some fun stuff to look forward to!