BA3 - 40k Door Update 4

I remade the barbed wire, but added spikes, as it didn't look dangerous enough in my scene. I think it looks a lot better now, but maybe I could get away with even less geometry.

I've also begun to play around with texturing. I find it really fun, adding whatever skin you want to an object. Its a whole new medium to work in. I came to the course wanting to be a concept artist, but more interesting things keep coming up!

Even in the 41st millennium, there are runtime errors.

BA3 - 40k Door Update 3

In these screenshots, I have finished the basic structure of the door. I made my design intentionally quite simple. With it's major components numbering very little.

As you can see in the picture above, I have also begun to add extra objects to my scene. Namely, the three sandbags near the control panel. They were really easy to make, just a rectangle, subdivided a few times, with either end's verticies squished down a bit. In addition, I made a single sheet of corrugated iron. This will line the earthen wall, either side of the main door.

Recently, I found a great little tip on how to make barbed wire in maya. I used the helix polygon, then made some alterations in it's attributes box, to stretch it out. I made up a rough, war-torn patch of ground to place my wire on, then created a small scene which I will eventually add to my door.

BA3 - 40k Door Update 2

The first thing I decided to make, was a model of the Imperial Aquila. I knew I would need this, regardless of any design alterations in the future. So I grabbed a good quality reference image from the internet, and began tracing over it with polygons.

Still need to make width more even

BA3 - 40k Door Update1

I chose the game 'Fire Warrior', for which to design a door for. 'Fire Warrior' is a first-person shooter game from 2003, based in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It was released on the Playstation2 and PC. I thought it looked sub-standard, even for the time it was released, had very primitive AI, but had a fantastic storyline. The game puts you behind the eyes of Kais, a Fire Warrior of the Tau race, fighting the Imperium of Man. The story takes the player through several types of location. The first real action takes place in the Imperial trenches. This is where my door would be situated. It was going to be large, bulky door, which would lead to an Imperial dugout, or a small, underground barracks. The first thing I did was draw up a quick sketch on paper, before creating a colour mock-up on photoshop.

BA3 Companion Cube - Update 5

I then had to make the 'love heart' appear on the centre disc. Once again, I had to learn this on my own, and eventually,I managed to apply the texture to the object. I had to line it up right, learn about UV's, it wasn't really easy. But I managed it, and went onto duplicate this process on the remaining sides. It was exciting to actually go through a process of which I have seen the end product so many times, in video games.

BA3 Companion Cube - Update 4

The next step, was to further define the small details of the cube. I studied the reference image again, to find small indentations criss-crossing the central cube. Also, the middle circle was more detailed than I previously thought. It had more layers, and was flat, not slightly curved, like I thought it was.

The cube with basic colour added

Afterwards, I found out how to add basic colour to my shapes. From lots of online research, I could sample colours directly from the original reference image, onto my Companion Cube. The image above is simply just coloured, but without texture. Like in the reference image, the Cube is visibly worn and battered. It has marred surfaces, with cracks running over it. To bring it closer to the original image, I made up a simple texture on photoshop, which i would stretch over the white sections of the Companion cube.

My Photoshop texture

In the above screenshot, I brightened the white sections to a degree, and added my texture to one of the top corners. Which is shown in a dull grey colour.

The cube with the texture added to the outer pieces

BA3 Companion Cube - Update 3

I was always trying to remember that good topology is important when modelling objects. I may create a fantastic looking object, but it may not do well when put into a game engine, with tightly packed edges and or vertices for example.  I had to spread out the faces was evenly as I could, whilst trying to emulate the shapes with the minimum amount of faces possible.

Before

After

On the top picture, the corner piece is in need of less subdivisions, on the large, flat face at least. In addition, the curved slope needs to be tidied up somewhat. 

After I had done the corner pieces, I moved onto the smaller pieces in-between them. These also featured clean, bevelled edges, and similar, curved slopes. The great thing about using a computer program to sculpt  objects, is that I could make just one corner piece, for example, and can instantly copy it, and reposition it. Therefore speeding up the work considerably. The next bit to do was a central circle, raised slightly up from the surface of the core cube. 

BA3 Companion Cube - Update 2

The next part of the cube I concentrated on, were the corner pieces. Following the reference image, these were bevelled cubes, with spherical shapes cut out of them. These were probably the hardest parts to complete. Although, the reference image was really helpful, as it mainly became and exercise of 'tracing' over the image with 3D polygons. However, there was some degree of 'eyeballing', as each corner piece within the image wasn't identical. Which meant that my pieces wouldn't be either. But this was necessary if I was going to stick to the reference image.  

Perspective view

Side-on view

BA3 Companion Cube - Update 1

Its been some time since my last blog entry. However, I think I've come on a long way from when we began.

After we were introduced to the companion cube project, we were given a couple of basic lessons on the first few steps, with our tutor, Mark. When these sessions took place I had already progressed further on my own. Mark showed us his own method of making the core cube, and told us about a couple of tools. There would be several sessions following these ones, continuing onwards, sticking to the same method. I however, had started a few days before the first lesson, and simply made the cube in my own way. It may not be as 'exacting' as Mark's method, but I felt happier making good progress with my own way.

Beginning to add borders to the edges

I began with the core shape of the Companion Cube. Then moved onto creating a border, which ran round the edges of the cube's shape. I had to use the subdivision tool to get a perfectly proportional cube, divided into smaller cubes. And the extrude tool, to push and pull the faces around to get the border edge. All of this was ad hoc. I was just trying to teach myself how to create this cube as i saw it.


I was often unsuccessful, with unexpected things happening, and the process revealing itself to be more and more complex as I went on. It was frustrating when I was faced with large problems, which I didn't know how to solve. But I was persistent, and kept on at it. Trying various ways in which to get round it. I asked for help when it was available, and spent much time in the media lab slowly constructing the shapes I needed.