The Kitchen...It's Coming More To Life.

So as the title clearly say's, the kitchen really is coming to shape. As we keep filling up with more & more kitchen equipment, it seems more alive and a sense of realism to the scene now. However we keep referring back secondary resource,continuously asking the question "what can you usually find in a kitchen??" so we look in our own kitchen for some ideas & inpiration, to see what can be modeled & incorporated in the scene.
On our team blog we each allocated objectives of what we must model. I took full charge of modelling FRUIT BOWL,MENUS,BOOKS
DOG/CAT FOOD BOWL,PHOTOS-OF THE 3A
POTS, MORE DISHES. The results so far have been great, we want to keep cross referencing with the Tom&Jerry colours, so that we can keep the theme consistent. But right now the fruit bowl needs modeling & more touch up's on the texturing...so its to be continued.




The test render image isn't as clear as i hoped, but it was meant to show the dog food & bowl. D's was originally modeling crumbs, but however the end result came to looking more like dog food. So i just duplicated several of the pieces & just randomley laid it in the bowl also with some trails lefted on the floor. For a more casual, messy look. I mean let's face it, whos kitchen is ever tat clean!!!!??????






More texture added, i didn't texture the floor with a "blinn" but with a lambert instead, because i don't want the final outcome with such a shiny,reflective mood..which will just be to much to the audiences eye.
The greeny/turqouise blue was yet again referred from Tom&Jerry...personally i think it really works, its becoming more of a softer cartoon environment.


The textured pots & pans i previously modeled...I feel it needs to be re-work, both pots look abit to "white". Needs more of the mettalic/metal appeal.!!!!

Just 4 Funnnn..!!!! =P

...Sorry Fer. I Had 2 Top your Image....LOL =D

The ideal "Teenage BOYs" kitchen.hey!!!!

Let's Model More...I Mean Why Not????

Pot & Pan

Another upgraded design to D's pots & pans. Gave it a more modern shape, relating the design to everyday kitchenware we use today..But this time i gave the pot a lid which also can be use for the pan... The surface & revolve tool has been very good to me, Its helped in making models look so much more appealing, to the eye which in the end hopfully compliments the scene.

Wine Glass


An updated design of the wine glass, re-modeled from D's original design. I just gave it a more narrow, sleek design, abit on the posh side....i must say!!! & yes there is a hole in the glass now, we're back to more realistic...

Dog/Cat Bowl


The Pets bowl, "where 3A eats from"!!! will be lefted somwhere on the ground, it will either be filled with water or dog food, one or the other...still ain't decided yet??..

Take-Away-Menu's

Take away menus was soooooo easily modeled. Just a simple grid plane, attached with a lambert image of a menu taken from the internet...

so Chinky ones for dean & i... & "gandhi" for Fer. man!!! BO!!!!

....A menu for each of us, fair??Happy Now??...¬_¬ lol

3A Frame


Just a simple modelled frame, with hopfully a picture of the members of Team 3A to be placed in & mounted on our kitchen wall...we leave that at the end hey!!!!

More Test render's with those damn!!! lights
........man they are pissing me off!!!

Wall-E & his pet Cockroach..!!!!

Cheers Mr Rob L.Jones!!!!

FRIDAY 21st NOVEMBER 2008

Our last sessions with Rob, started off with a short animation movie, "a Gentleman's Duel" made by BLUR studio.
It was amazing, animation was just stunning to watch, which also complimented with a simple storyline about love and rivalry between two men & one lady.

We did finally learn about rendering in layers & how faster, easier & efficient it will by for us in reaching our deadlines. It was very interesting, its always nice to learn & take new things in especially if it helps us for the better in the future..

But as the day drew closer to an end, we just got some last minute advice from Rob on texture & lighting. He told us to look into more of a smeg theme/colour if we wanted a hard influence taken from TOM&JERRY that clearly shows in our kitchen..so we will look into more detail through the web & see what colours can be incorporated in our scene..watch this space!!!

Just some stills taken from "a Gentleman's Duel"-BLUR studio:-

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FXET1kvEOAY

More Lighting&Texturing Research....

Resources Taken From Tom&Jerry
-Colours in the pictures are taken as reference. Hopfully to be incorporated the kitchen.

Today session was with Rob Jones, the main man who's going to introduce us into rendering in layers.
He kicked off with a little brief of what he's familiar in doing & to get some sort of idea of what all our project environment is based on.
What he showed 3A was a way of experimenting with our camera shots, using a technique called "bookmarking". It was definitely something new i learnt which made camera shot playing so much more easier.
Also through looking at the new changes made in the kitchen, Dean was able to clean up any unwanted polygons with a few changes to the objects. Which as a result will make working so much more smooth and efficient.

VERY ROUGH TEST RENDER WITH CHARACTER & LIGHTING

The Light Of My Life..!!!!

Part 4...More Testing..??


More light-Testing with those candles... thats all, going to keep it short..

The Light Of My Life..!!!!

Part 3... Im Testing You Out..!!!!

So the lighting experimenting still continues, & by now on stage 3 i am able to test render the candle light etc. inside the kitchen. I just played around with different tones of ambient seeing how well it reflects off objects & whether the contrast does actually compliment the scene.

But i must say playing around with lighting in maya is pretty enjoyable, & probably might look in to it alot more in the future.who knows???.

Yet again are a couple more updated screen shots of the sort of lighting i was using in todays event, ranging from all sorts of different tones and colours. But still experimentating & hav not settled with a final tone...to be continued.

The Light Of My Life..!!!!

Part 2...
Today the modeling & LIGHTING continues, i just began looking at some candleStick's online as reference and to get some sense of idea's in designing one of these things. Modeling the candleStick, was done using the surface/revolving technique, which i personally found so much more easyer & can i say alot more comfortable, complimented with alot of less-stress.
The completed look of the candlestick is the image posted on the left & another with an added candle & wick on top.
Modeling this was good practice, your able to go alittle nuts with the design just as long as the shape has more curves than 3-point polygons.

I continued to play around with the design, working from the top-to-bottom using the scaling & extrude tool, until i was happy with a completed shape structure.
The candle however, was ever so simple to model. It was just a simple cylinder polygon extruded. Secondly i scaled down the top face, followed by extruding the face up to create the wick...Very easy!!!i must say.....






















A screen shot of the modeled candlestick accompanied with the candle & wick...!!!! (Above)


Half the day gone, came to finally playing/experimenting with some textures & some fun lighting...
I started with the flame, however it was painted on photoshop,mixing 'fire' colours with the blurr or smudge tool.
After that had been done, the file was just saved as tga & attachs to maya through 'lambert,new material', and WHAA-LA..a flame on maya.

Finally i just used the colour palette from the software with some fill effects to bring the wick alive. The candleStick holder was from a lambert colour taken from a marble effect mixed with two tones of brown-ish/yellow.

Lastly i attachs an ambient increasing the glow to the flame to expand the lighting & just kept on test-rending with mental-ray to see the current result until lefted with printed screen shots that i was satisfied with...

But overall i am please how it turned out. By just adding increasing the ambient glow & adjusting the shadows really adds to the appeal of the candle and stick.


Here's the finished results...
More to come
see you then, stay tune....

Todays meet up was a little catch up on how the group is getting on, with their allocated task. We finally made the floor & ceiling extention of the kitchen to widen up the space & added the remaining features, that Dean modeled such as, candles, wall clock, pots/pans etc.

I must say the kitchen has come through a long way, just hope that it carrys out until the end. We just need to add the gas cooker, & a touch up on bits and bobs!!!!

But for the time being, heres a screen shot of how the current state of the kitchen looks.

more screen shots coming soon, stay tune...

The Light Of My Life..!!!!

Part 1...
I think the time has come to really start focusing on 'lighting'. I do hope the group agrees & is behind me on this area in the project.
I want to begin looking around the web & finding anything that inspires me or puts me in a clearer understanding of how i am going to tackle this part.
Here to my left is a couple of images i found very eye -'capturing', which is something i want to achieve in the end for this kitchen project, let's just hope these maya tutorials give me as much
help as i'm going to need, fingers crossed now team. To be continued........

http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/classes/cmps080c/Winter03/Assn/maya2.html

http://www.3dlinks.com/3dtutorials/maya/Links.cfm?categoryid=13&subcategoryid=113&subsubcategoryid=57

http://www.cgtutorials.com/c32/Lighting_and_Rendering/newest/

Today i headed for morning contextual studies just to have a brief chat with Mike.H about what needed to be done for this years module.

Eventually he did some things up to a more clearer and a precise understanding which involves a short presentation and a 2000 word essay/report. THANK GOD FOR THAT..!!!!

!!! Larry's getting modeled up !!!!

For the rest of the afternoon, i just continued to concentrate on the environment project with the rest of the group. We decided as a group to model 'Larry' the cockroach together so that each of us has some contribution to the form,shape & design.

Yet again we kept it very simple, making a lot of use of cubic polygons and cylinders shapes.

So far we managed to model the outer body shape, including head and just a leg which can be duplicated or mirrored later on.

We posted up a couple of screen shots showing you the stages of how it started, but obviously more to come......

Welcome To The GeekFest...!!!

Eurogamer Expo/GamesIndustry.biz Career Fair

Wednesday 29th October 2008

Old Truman Brewery,

91 Brick Lane

London

E1 6QL

I don't know if this event could relate to my environment project but, i noticed playing most of the latest games, the locations,sets etc. had alot of precise details, some abstract or some just plain crap!!

It got me relating back to my kitchen project of how we can add these textures & lighting seen in games & show that it is possible...So i was always thinking about ENVIRONMENT!!!! ENVIRONMENT!!!! ENVIRONMENT!!!! ENVIRONMENT!!!! ENVIRONMENT!!!! ENVIRONMENT!!!! ENVIRONMENT!!!!

Overall the experience was great, i got to play a couple of games i had my eye on, except for RESIDENT.EVIL5...damn bloody hoggers!!! but thought that the careers fair people wasn't as open as i would of like them to be. They seemed very reluctant to give out information or answer questions i had in mind, which i found personally a waste of time & moments felt that they didn't to talk, and that just F*cking pissed me off!!! oh well!!!...it was goo though!!!!

I just whack a couple of pictures taken on the day, as my way of evidence attending that a event. LOL!!!!

What Can I Say...??

INFORMATIVE ASSESSMENT- Tues 28th October.2008'
On the day i wasn't nervous as an individual, but for the group. I had some source of work to show Jared but wasn't aware how much work came from the others own individual blogs. I knew my other members of the group had alot to say personally about me, but i was more eager to open up of what i had to say about this whole project.
So Dean & Fer. laid it on the table of how i become very much of the 'NAG'. of the group & became alot demanding & less-motivated to the members. I was pissed-off that day of how i had more bad points to mention than positive feedbacks from the group. Jared personally felt what i had been trying to do was a 'good thing' nagging & generally being concern about the project was positive.
It didn't intentionally happen on purpose to how i'm acting, but had been reflected from a past project we did do based on storyboarding. I realise that i'm working with two other members who have such big imagination & eccentric ideas, which is NOT wrong. but restricted us to be that glamourous,from the time schedule we got given. So the more complicated we got with designs, shots etc. the more nervous it got me, thinking that it just can't get completed in time... So this had played a big part of the way i had been thinking & continue to think.The aim now was to always keep it simple but obviously effective,, the "LESS IS MORE" approach.
But Jared was please at the blog i showed him. i had work posted up, but i knew i needed more, which is somthing im working on.
I do feel that i always pull my weight & take full responsibilty of the roles i get given in the group. don't get me wrong, i've had moments where i've been lazy ( i mean who hasn't???) but i know work needs to get done. So here iam !!! powering my way through to the end!!!
But to be honest it's been my second time round working with these guys & i haven't been to impressed as i would like to feel, because this time's fallout had got alot worse, which is a big shame.
All i wanted from Dean was to pull his weight, be more self-motivated & just have more commitment to the project. If you are reading this, then i hope you knew that this is what i felt at the time, & hope you have taken on board of what i had to say about you in general & changed for the better to this project.
My problem with Fer. was i wish he had opened up alittle more when it came to group sessions & not take feedbacks or critisms to heart. I'm not one to slay peoples work but to throw my ideas in of how it can maybe be improved, I always felt that was a "ok" thing to share & work on ideas.
I know he's heard me out now, & also hope that he's remembered what i got to say & act upon it as much as i will from what they both had to say about me !!!

Jared said 'dont take this session as a way to beat people down etc' i did feel that at the time, but know that it has mades things alot clearer of peoples perceptions to your views of working & as a whole, your attitude to work.
....But i am gutted that the group has had this major fallout, however if things are now cleared up for the better, knowing that we will gel more as a team & walk out with a successful project to hand in, then it will be a very very happy Christmas to meeeee !!!...

DesignMuseum

DesignMuseum
Shad Thames
London,
SE1 2YD
020 7403 6933

http://www.designmuseum.org/info

On the same day visiting Imperial war museum, we shifty moved onto THE DESIGN MUSEUM down somewhere on the outbacks of Tower Bridge.
Now this was one museum that I've never attended in my life, so on this circumstance i was looking forward to this one!!! Camera ready!!!!! where the building had been situated was surrounded by some really lovely scenery, from posh fine dining restaurant & nicely built residential homes from corner to corner. It was a nice atmosphere to take in. The pictures posted above were taken outside the scene. The decapitated head outside was very interesting and was worth that picture taking. The back of his head had some unique machinery designs, i didnt understand the meaning of the statue but hey!! it looked cool, & was worth adding to part of my research.
I didnt realise the D.Museum, charged for entrance but was paid by Mr Jared Taylor himself, Thanks to him. The main feature was dedicating the life's work of a man named Alan Aldridge:- The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes, the famous illustrator & graphic designer.

My first impression was WOW!!! like really wow, i could automatically see his style kicking into play from the first couple of paintings i saw. What i noticed about his work that everything was just full of detail, filled with only bright, vibrant colours & it seemed like every piece of work was sooooo neat that there wasn't room for mistakes.

Most images had alot of use of exaggeration, each piece had eye catching moments that tell had some sort of meaning to a story. But it also got me thinking of S.Dalli's work at the time where he took on surrealism.!!

But overall what an experience, the work presented was absolutely amazing, very impressive stuff. Some people felt his work was alittle daunting and some what eerie. But i think thats typical Alan.A. A unique style that stands out amongst, in a sense where his work becomes more recognisable from a far......

Alan Aldridge himself & a image taken from one of his work 'Old King Cole', posted it up because it just reminded me of one of those characters from PICA TOWERS.

A storyboard sequence taken from Poor Old Edgar, these drawings seen on the walls was absolutely amazing, i felt the shading, detail & tonal work was just spot on!!!! So it had to be posted on my blog alrite!!...Bravo Alan!!!