More model work.

After getting a splitting headache last week after spending 5 or 6 hours in front of Maya - non-stop; I thought I'd give this whole 'take a break' thing a go.  I think it'll work better if I move away from the screen.  We'll have to see.

For today, I've just been working a bit more on the model I posted last week.  I'm still a bit out of my depth but I think I can feel myself starting to flost somewhat.  I still can't touch the bottom and stand properly, nor can I swim or even tread water.  But a slow ascent to the surface is a start.

At the top right is a different model.  The left hand side and the bottom right are the same model in different positions but I started thinking that the arm wasn't anywhere near big enough.  So I duplicated the model and blew the arm up some.  I like it, but I think I'm going to finish the smaller-armed model and then tweak the arm.  I don't know why.  It might bite me in the bum in the end.  We'll see.  And learn.  That's the goal.

Lunch time.

Peace.

A little progression before home time.

Not a lot of detail or anything, but I'd been working on the bigger, alien arm of my character for a while, building up the forearm and then the hand.  Josh came over and told me that I could use the 'fill hole' option and ...  well..  fill everything in and then split up the shapes until I got something that was easier to work with and that I could arrange and rearrange until I have the shape I want for my character.

 

Here's how it's going so far.

 

 

 

As you can see, there's still a big hole through it.  That's going to get filled in next week.  The way I've drawn out the character means that the head doesn't attach to the body as it normally would, so I'm going to be looking at how to join everything up in an effective way.

 

Actually, Josh was talking about the way I join things up affecting the way they move, so if I'm not too worried about things moving at all, it might be worth just smashing everything together and making it look good.  Aesthetics beats function, right?  That's what most fashion has taught me, anyway.

 

Snack time and then home time, I think.

 

Peace.

Sketchbook work.

I only have one of my sketchbooks with me today, so I thought I'd scan all the works I've done so far and put the pages up here.  I'll do it again with my other sketchbooks when I find them...

This is my first page of the year - two different monkey janitor designs.  One with a slop bucket, one with a mop.  The writing is just ideas of where to take the project this year.

The first designs I drew out trying to think about creating/finding a drawing style that I could more easily transfer to Maya and the 3D stuff therein.  I'd also started to draw out textures that I was going to scan in and use on the models themselves.

The Ant-headed monkey here was a doodle that came about in one of those lovely moments where nothing is really needed to be done and so I was free to draw anything.  I'd seen a good picture of a monkey on a ledge, as you do, and tried to get that position with the body on here.  Then I drew an ant head on it because I was too tired to figure out how a rabbit head would look.

The drawings starting at the top left, making their way down and then round to the middle of the page are my explanation images whenever I try to tell people what I'm doing at the moment.

Some notes and thoughts on what I thought I could try and do.

More notes and thoughts.  At the moment, we don't have to internet, so my wifey and I go to McDonald's and get a drinky.  For a few hours.  She catches up with her family and I draw and write out notes in my sketchbooks.  This is one of the pages.  I often work with two sketchbooks at once; one above the other.  It's nice to have four pages to go to and from instead of flipping back and forth.  The pages that came from this are in the sketchbook that I don't have with me today.

Here's the page I drew up when I was thinking about how to market the game that - at the moment - I've thought of.  The ideas for the game may well change but at the moment this is what I'm thinking it could look like.

The idea is as follws:
The customer buys the box that the required card comes in.  The idea is that the required cards carries the information needed to see the main character of the game appear in 3D when looked at through an Augmented Reality app.  As the game progresses, the character levels up and becomes stronger, more powerful, better equipped, etc.  To do this, he must fight monsters that he comes across and these are in the form of other cards.
The cards will be sold in booster packs and will be level-orientated.  Booster packs with monsters at levels 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, etc.  As the character levels up, the player buys the appropriate booster packs.
The box will come with the character card and three level 1-4 booster packs.
Also in the box will be a code that enables the player to download the app. that the game runs on.  The cost of the app. will be included in the price of the box.

In as smooth a nutshell as possible; that's the idea for now.

A few posts ago I made a little image that (hopefully) explained what I'm wanting to achieve.  This is the robot that I used for the card design.

 

Designs and poses for the main character.

More designs and poses for the main character.

And then this is today's progress at modeling the character.  It's not too strongly adhering to my usual style, but it seems to be working, so I'll not complain.

Time for lunch.

Peace.

A fourth.

I could have just updated my first post, but there we go.

A quick candle with a gradient or two for me to see what they look like.

I can do better but I want to go home to my wifey.

Peace.

Tutorials!

I found a pretty nice blog post that I think I'll try and follow.  It's a basic character and a basic technique in texturing it.

http://lowpolyproject.blogspot.co.uk/2011_03_01_archive.html is the link.  I think I'll go there now.

Peace.

...

I'll try that again.  Here's the link to the actual post - http://lowpolyproject.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/tutorialreference-texturing-casey-jones.html

More modeling stuff.

I don't take size into consideration.  This is a bad thing.

I spent a good while trying to iron out little flaws and niggly bits in this next model and then my tutor came past and showed me at what size it would be seen on screen.

 

It's not that big, really.

Now that I know that a bit better I'll try and spend less time on the texturing and more time making models.

Peace.

Research. Back to the grind.

So this blog is going to be a big list of research things that I've been looking at to help with my Augmented Reality stuff.  It's a good thing because it means I don't have to cart round a huge sketchbook any more but it's also a bad thing because at the moment I can only really update it twice a week, so I'll be saving up my research things and adding them when I can.

First for all of this is a rundown of a few websites I've been looking at.

We're encouraged to use websites, but not too much.  Books and journals are pushed.  Which is nice and I'm looking at a good few - but when I'm in uni and I'm on the computer doing whatever I'm doing, it's easier to get online and do a quick search for what I'm thinking of at the time.

All the websites were accessed today - the 16th of October, 2012.

As with all great research projects, I started with Google.  I searched for 'Making Augmented Reality business cards'.  At the moment I'm not interested in making AR business cards - although that'd be pretty nice - but I wanted to have something more specific to search for than 'Augmented Reality'.  ...  Which was last week's search  :D

First of all, I reached http://www.harmony.co.uk/use/augmented-reality-developer/?gclid=CIOylpyahbMCFYTMtAodq0UA7Q which is a nice looking site but very much a business site.  A lot of talk about how they'll do this and that for you; the customer who doesn't know what AR is yet.

Then I got to http://daqri.tumblr.com/post/6727434885/how-to-create-an-amazing-augmented-reality-business which was alright.  The video won't play because it's a private video.  Which is frustrating because it seems to be a public page.  The main page, however - http://daqri.tumblr.com/ is pretty amazing!  Not a lot about what I'm looking at, but there's a whole lot of stuff to look at.  Give it a go - there's a great video with a computer projecting contours on/in a sandbox and it updates to re-project the contours as the user digs and builds hills.  Pretty nice.  There's also the ZeroN - a ball that's manipulated by a big, computer-controlled electromagnet.  It's great.

From the first daqri page, I found this link to some of the top AR business card ideas - http://dzineblog.com/2010/10/20-incredible-augmented-reality-business-card-designs.html  and to be honest, I'm not that keen on a lot of them.  They all seem fairly samey and bland.  Burton Posey - about 1/3 of the way down the page - has an idea that I like more than the rest.  My idea is to have a little 3D me on a looped animation of my character running on the spot.  Nothing huge.

What I'm wanting to do right now is get an idea of how to go about making an AR card.  It'll be a huge step towards what I'm wanting to do in the long run and a great morale boost!  Even if it's just a static AR model of a prop that I throw together quickly - if there's something that I can see in 3D through an AR app, I'll be over the moon.

From one of the sites I saw this morning, I came across the company Aurasma.  The site - http://www.aurasma.com/ - is pretty nicely set out, but going to the 'pro' page - http://www.aurasma.com/partners/- it's a partner programme as opposed to a 'here are some steps for doing it' page that I was rather hoping for.

So my search continues.

Frustratingly, I have had several people download both the String app and the Aurasma app so I can get an image up on the computer and show them what happens.

Nothing happens.

There's only so much disappointment one can take.

My post may well be filled with typos and absent words.  Not that something can be filled with an absence...

I'm going to sulk and do Maya.

But before that - I'd really hate to post a wall of text.  I'll find an image to lighten the mood.

It's an image from my huge reference folder.
Nice and simple.

Peace.