Star-ship Enterprise from Star Trek in Maya

Today we were given a task by Robin to make sure that we retained all of our Maya skills after the period that we had off for the Christmas holidays. As I have quite a passion for Maya, I was eager to get started with this lesson. 

We were told that we would be modeling the USS Enterprise off of the Star Trek film and T.V series. I recently watched the newest sets of movies and thoroughly enjoyed them, so I was looking forward to making something so iconic.

Pasting the plan onto the plane.

The first that I had to do was get the plan that Robin had given us and past it onto a plane. This was simple enough. All I had to do was create a plain and type in the right measurements to make sure that the ship that we are going to make will be the right size. On the plane I created a Lambert on it so it had a color and changed this to the image that I wanted. This meant that I had the plan ready on the plain.

Lining up the plan.

The next thing that I had to do was make sure that the plans were all in the right place. I used the insert edge loop tool to split the different images apart. After this I duplicated the Image twice and then simply deleted the parts that I didn't need on each one.

I had to line up the perspective properly so that the ship that I am going to build will look right, again all I had to do was use the rotate tool and then using the bottom picture of the ship, make sure that it's lined up properly.

Starting at the secondary hull.

Now that It's lined up I started off the secondary hull. This was something that Robin was taking us through at the same time, as most people found this difficult. We started off with just a cube. We lined this up with the different planes and set to work.

The first thing that we did was press "3" on the keyboard which makes the square more organic. This is a perfect tool when it comes to creating things such as characters or creatures. In this instance, it was very useful in creating the ship. Once I had the basic out line of the ship ready, I selected the vertex's on the ship and moved them into a position that I was happy with.

Rounding it off using the extrusion tool.

To finish off the bulk of this ship, I extruded the front of the ship. As I had done this many times before it was a simple task. All I had to do was extrude, re-size it , then extrude and pull it forward. I did this till I reached the radar at the end. This technique gave it an extremely crisp edge and made it quite professional.

Giving a smooth finish.

The next thing that we had to do was create the dish on the front of the ship. Now, There are many ways that we can go around this, the problem being that most where time consuming. Robin showed as technique which was extremely useful and wish I had learnt earlier, the EP Curve Tool.

Using the EP Curve Tool.

Once we had created the line that we wanted, its a lot to understand from here. You have to first select the move tool and make sure that you go to "modify" and then "center pivot". Then by holding down just the "D" button on the keyboard, we can move the pivot to wherever we want. It needs to be in the middle where the line will rotate. The next thing that needs to happen is you select the "surfaces" bar at the top and select "revolve". After this you choose the surface you want to rotate on and then you get this result.

  

The result of the EP Curve Tool.

The tool has made things so much more simpler and now when it comes to other parts of the ship, I started using the same tool. In the picture below, I started to main dish, again using what I had learnt and then did the rest in separate parts.

Creating the central hub.

The trickiest bit of this part was getting top perfect. I need to modify it once I had made it, so I selected the piece that I had made and went to "convert" and then clicked on "NURBS to Polygons". This means that we can edit it later. The only problem with this though is that it doesn't look as smooth, so it does require some play around.

Finishing the front of the ship.

Once the front of the ship looked sleek, the next thing that was required was the jets that power the ship. I first started off by creating the stands that will hold them. By just creating two cubes and lining them up, then putting them in the right position, I had the stands. 

The thing that I had to do was the jets, by using Robin had showed us with the EP Curve Tool, I did a line that covered half of it from the top. Then by revolving it and coveting it, I could extrude the end to finish it.

Creating the engine and lining it up.

The minor details had to go onto the ship, such as pipes. I did this by creating a cylinder and extruding it out until I had got a result that I was happy with. I had learnt a lot from past experience of when I had created the game myself and doing the piping in that took me a long time, so I used the lessons there to help me.

Adding a fuel pipe to the engine.

Once I had finished the first get engine the last thing that I had to do was duplicate the engine and rotate it so that the details were facing the other way. This is an extremely small step in the process but gives it a professional edge.

The engines have been detailed.

There was detail that I missed out when I was creating the stands that held the engine, So I deleted them and started again. By doing this I felt that I had the freedom to take it wherever I wanted. By using the "Insert Edge Loop" tool, I managed to create the gaps that I wanted in the piece and then I "beveled" the edges so it gives the structure a soft corner.

Putting the detail in the structure.

I decided that this would be the time that I will go back to the bridge and shape it. This step was quite easy as all I did was select the half that i wanted to modify and kept moving and re-sizing it until I had the perfect shape.

Shaping the bridge.

As I had got the basic parts of the ship done, I felt it was now time to add in the last bits of detail. At the back of the ship there was a bump at the end. I decided that I would replicate this by selecting the faces at the end on the ship and extruding them.

Extruding the back of the ship.

I had the last detail to do, such as the phaser and other sections of the ship to put on. Again, me being in my comfort zone, this was easy to do, just by extruding and lining every thing up so that the model was the right size.

Lining up the last detail.

The very last thing that I did was soften and harden certain edges, to give it a crisp finish and make this model actually look like a spaceship. The only thing was, that I wasn't happy just leaving it there, I decided that I was going to render it.

The model is finished.

The setting for render where quite easy to get a hold of. All you you have to do is set it so that the menu says "rendering" and then click on "render current frame". I thought though that I wanted to create the illusion of shadow, so I decided to add a spot light. This made the ship look like it was sailing past a sun and worked really nicely.

Getting ready to render.

I also wanted to make this ship more realistic and different to others, So I added a background to it. I got a large plane and placed it behind my ship. I then applied a Lambert to it so I can add a file of my choice to it. The file that I chose was a deep dark space.

The next that I did was change the color of the light to give it a more yellow sun effect onto my ship, adding more realism to it, I then decided that I would render the frame.

Changing the tone of the light source and applying a background.

The rendered final image came out better than I had expected. The color and texture is not there but the model looks clean.

The final model.

I'm really happy with the result that I got today. The shadow effect has given it much realism and makes the ship look like its passing a sun.

I'm really glad that I have managed to retain what I had learnt before the Christmas period and in my first full Maya lesson, be able to create something such as this. I need to make sure that I strive to keep this up and continue upon this achievement.

Lizard Man Painting on Photoshop

When we got into our first lesson, I was really looking forward to what we would be doing, digital painting wise. Once we had sat down we were taught about the ideas of lighting and shading on a character. Something that had helped us learn this was a video tutorial that our group watched, this was by FZD school of design, located here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el_V-hXeZEY

By constantly taking notes, I felt that this video was brilliant in what it was trying to teach. The guy who was taking us through his tutorial managed to whip this up in an 1 hour, from the sketch all the way through to the final design, which I found impressive. The technique that he used as well was also spot on, by starting with an extremely simple sketch, that blocking it out further with some detail, after that adding the tone and finally the last bits of the detail. I would like to further study this YouTube channel as there seems to be some good values that I could incorporate into my own style.

Once the video was over, there was work at hand and Steve had given us a task to complete. Using the actual rough version that the person in the video had used, we were told that we would be going over the top of it in Photoshop and trying recreate what the person had done.

As I said before, we started off with the rough drawing that the man had done in the video. We were also given lighting references by Steve, this meant that we could constantly reference his work and what different stages we needed to partake in. 

The blank rough drawing we were given.

My first objective was to paint out the base color. I first went to the original sketch and set it so that the layer was on soft light. This meant that I could paint over the top of it while being able to see what the original picture looks like. The next thing that I managed to do was to get the lasso tool and follow the outline of the rough sketch. This was so that when it came to painting the Lizard creature, I wouldn't go out of the lines and make it look rough.

Now that the line had been made I was going to put the base color on the image. By selecting the eye dropper tool and opening up the first light reference, I managed to select the color that was the base layer and put it all over the image. This was good to do as it gave me a sense of direction in where I was going to take it.

The base coat being put on.

By selecting the different tool brushes, clicking on the lighter brush and again, using the reference image to select the color, I started to put in some lighting effects for this character already. This was interesting because looking back to last term, I really did struggle with it. By lightly apply the brush onto the character and using the reference that I had, I managed to get this effect in which I was pretty pleased with, even though there was a way to go.

A bit of lighting put onto the character.

The next thing that I wanted to do was to get the lighting on the top right, directly from where the source was coming from, so I selected the eyedropper tool again and used the same brush while selecting the sand hue. The difference this time was that this tone was a little bit stronger than the others, this meant that I had to press down on the tablet quite hard so it would give off this effect. The color would be used to highlight things such as muscles, glare off of the characters armor and the crevices of the weapon. Once this was done, I had to move onto the next stage.

New features where added to create realism.

The next part I decided that I would switch back to the original paint brush, this was so that I could highlight the shiny points in the armor and skin where you would get a reflection. All I had to do was change the settings for the brush and then I could get to work. This work quite simple and all I had to do was add in quick streaks by pressing the pen onto the tablet fairly hard but only for a few seconds. This created a shimmering effect that I also decided to use on this characters head.

The whitish streaks put into the armor and head.

Now that I had the basic color shape for the skin, The class was told by Steve that we were going to put some material onto the skin of the character to make it look more realistic. Our teacher then took us through the stages of doing this and we set about doing it ourselves. I was quite happy that we were going to learn this as it had been something that I had always wanted to know, It creates so much realism in a piece and can be the difference between a professional piece and a rough piece of work. 

We started off by using the lasso tool to select the head in which we were going to "texture". Once this was done, we could move on to the next stage.

Outlining where we would put or image.

The next move was finding the texture that we wanted to use. Because we had a Lizard based character, I really liked the idea of snake skin, the way that the scales are positioned creates a piece of art and is very eye-catching. By using Google, I looked up the pattern that I wanted and saved it to my project.

The different types of snake skin I looked at.

By creating a new layer, I could past in the skin in the head area that we had selected. The next thing that I had to do was size this properly. This is when I came across the tool that I had been waiting for, the "warp" tool. This meant that I could adjust the skin and position it in as many different directions as I wanted. This added a lot of realism to the piece and the last thing that I had left to do was to turn the opacity of the skin down. This makes the character feel more real and also makes the shadow effects that I made earlier, more visible.

Modifying where the skin would go.

I was pretty impressed with myself, getting this stage. The character looks very interesting and has a lot of depth to him. The addition of color does say a lot about an image, The use of the strong, dark colors makes you feel that this is a monster that you don't want to mess with.

The skin has been fully attached.

There was one last thing to do and that was add in the final detail. This meant that I had to use what I had learnt so far and fill in the gap.The thing that was left to do was the armor so by selecting a much darker hue, I started to paint away. This was a far more easy and less daunting task. The next thing that I decided I was going to do was select the light paint brush and use a lighter tone to paint in the reflection of the armor. 

The end product.

The Lizard man had been finished and I must say that I'm fascinated with what I was able to achieve in such a short amount of time using such simple techniques.

I'm extremely happy with what I have learned and got such an amazing result in my standards. I just need to now take the techniques that I have learnt here and incorporate them into my further work. One thing I do need to improve on is the lighting and where it is positioned on the model.

Back from the Christmas Period

I have just had a period of time off over the Christmas period and I'm raring to go into the next part of the course. I felt that last year there were a few things that I could have done better or worked on, that's why this year, I'm really going to push it in this aspect.

Over the Christmas period I tried using the time that I had free to practice Maya and my drawing. I got a few ideas down but after the period off I felt that I should of probably spent the time that I had off to learn how to code properly. It did start to become a bit boring as I had no sense of purpose, nothing that I had to achieve. That's why I'm really looking forward to starting the course again, to learn.

This next term will be a learning curve, using the skills that I had learnt over the last term and incorporate into what we are doing this year. Hopefully I can learn almost as much as I had last term, this term and have a great time while doing it.

Screenshot of my Game

This is just a few screenshots to show the game play from the game that I had made for our winter submission, I had put quite a few hours into it, but still feel that there is room for expansion and in my own time, I will add detail and more code to it.