Week 4- Urban exploration

 This week we went on our first ever trip since I started the course, which was to an industrial museum.

The goal for this was for us to make some preparatory sketches for an environment that we will be doing next week, which will be either a victorian one or one that would fit the theme "Jack the Ripper".

I decided to keep an open mind regarding the theme, so I tried drawing different scenarios, that would give me lots of options that I could approach the final drawing.

Since we had very limited time, I had to approach these sketches in a more simple matter. I tried getting things like the perspective, composition, and scaling right, with minimal shading, just so that I will have an idea of the lighting scenarious afterwards.

For this srawings I have used  B, 2B and 4B pencils, 

Week 3- Material and surface properties

At this point in time, I have required quite some experience with still life, in comparison with last year. As a result, whenever I am required to make one, I know what the process is and how to approach it. 

For this task, we were required to create a still life with objects of different tonal value and made up of different materials, such as glass, metal, and organic tissue for the fruits. 

The first step was making a quick thumbnail sketch to figure out the composition and placement on the paper. 

After it was approved by my teacher, I started working on the actual drawing. I ended up drawing a new outline for it since the paper was too big and did not have the right ratio. Using the techniques that I learned last year, such as the ellipses and symmetry I started rebuilding every object.

Having the sketch done, I moved to the shading. Working on that, I had to be mindful of lots of things, such as the transparency of some objects, the shininess of the bottles and metals, etc...

I also decided to add some nice gradients in the back to make the values pop even more.

After some final touches, such as more shadows, etc.., the drawing was completed. 

I am very happy with the final result, the only thing that is bothering me is the dark bottle, which looks a bit too rounded. For this drawing I have used a range of pencils, starting with F and HB, and 2B, 4B, and GB for the darker objects and background. 

Painting and baking the pumpkin

Substance Painter is still a software that I am not as confident using. I am aware of how powerful it is and how much it could help me with my current projects and also with the next ones. It is really important that I get more experienced with it as soon as I can.

Starting with the bake of the pumpkin, at first, I thought there weren't any issues, but when I started painting using the colour ids I have noticed that there has been some leaking of the texture from one surface to another.

Fortunately, I was able to quickly fix it adjusting the max rear and max frontal distances. 

As in the painting itself, I gave the metal part a copper-like colour, trying to enhance the scratches, but not giving it a too-bitten-up look. I did give it some colour irregularities and played with the roughness in some parts. For the organic part, I chose two different colours, one for the inside of the pumpkin, and one for the outside bit. 

Overall, I like the look of the pumpkin after the texturing, resembling the initial idea that I had in mind, but I do think it lacks some detail and imperfections. Unfortunately, I have to move on and work on the other project, which is going to be really challenging, so I can't spend any more time working on these textures. If I do end up having some spare time, I will definetely come back and add more to it. 

Start of the backyard slice project

 From the moment I read this brief I became extremely excited about working on this project, but also a bit worried because I knew it was going to be a challenging one. We have done environmental bits before, but not on this scale and not with this level of detail.  

The concept of this project is really important since everything I am going to do has to reflect that, so the idea has to be strong and well researched. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to do something unique, with a specific vibe and mood. After some thought, I decided to pay homage to my birthplace, which is Transylvania. I am aware of the spooky image that has been created around this place, so I will try to make use of that. 

Something that not many people know is that in some rural and also more poor parts of Romania, in the past, people used to bury their past loved ones in the backyard, so I decided to channel that idea and build on top of it. 

After I decided that I wanted to make a Transylvanian graveyard/backyard I started to look for references, and thankfully I found many.

Besides the real-life references, I was lucky enough to have an example of how other game artists approached the subject, the setting for the Resident Evil 8 game being Transylvania.

After I filled my brain with references and decided which elements from which pictures I was going to use, I went in and made a quick concept that will help me with establishing my Blockout.

 The main focus will be the house, but I will also add a small crypt on the left side of the backyard as well to establish the mood and composition better. 

Retoping and unwrappig the pumpkin

Retoping the pumpkin was not that difficult, but it was really time-consuming. In comparison with retoping a character, where the topology is important, here I could have triangles anywhere, the only concern is keeping the form true to the high polygon version. I also tried to keep a consistent size of the polygons, but I did use smaller ones in the areas of interest and where the player would look more frequently.

The tri count budget was quite generous, so I tried to make the most out of it as much as I could.

 For the smaller bits, I kept the size and placement of the polygons consistent since they were perfectly symmetrical objects. 

With everything done, there was still something that was troubling me, that being the inside of the pumpkin. Retoping it would have been a nightmare, and also extremely wasteful. After consulting with Katarina during class, I decided to use the double-sided material in Unreal Engine, but i did retop the bit that you would have seen as missing while looking at it from the side angle. 

Before starting the unwrapping process. I made sure to set up a multisubobject material with 2 different material ids, so I would be able to place the pumpkin base and the props on two different texture sheets. 

As in for how I approached the unwrap. I cut the pumpkin in half, and for the objects, I placed the seems along the different faces of the surfaces, in order to get better results while baking it. 

Before i exported the high and low poly objects I made sure to set the colour ids for the different objects and also for the different materials on the base of the pumpkin, to make the painting in Substance easier. 

Sculpting the Pumpkin

 Getting the main shape of the pumpkin was not difficult, considering that I have done it before, and also having the explanations provided by Katarina. I decided to stay true to my reference image and make the pumpkin longer. At this stage, while masking where the cutouts were going to be, I also took into consideration where the metal part was going to be. 

Using the extract tool I was able to get the cutouts, but I did encounter some problems, and I had to go back and polish my masking since the extraction had made some artifacts. Also, I was having problems with some holes in the mesh that have appeared, but I was able to fix it using dynamesh and then zremesh afterward. 

At this stage, I have decided to use the same tool to achieve the metal bit of the pumpkin on top of what I already had. Due to the cutout of the mouth, I had to move the metal bit a little to the right because extruding it right by the corner was creating lots of problems. 

I decided to keep the metal part of the pumpkin and the organic one as two different subtools, to make the detailing process easier. I will be retopping them as one object when it comes to that though. Adding the surface details and refining the shape was a very fun process, using different brushes and alphas to achieve the desired look, while also keeping in mind what kind of materials these are. Some examples would be the standard brush, trim dynamic, dam standard.

For the handle and the metal eye, I have decided to start in 3dsmax, because it is easier to do sharped-edged shapes in there. I appended them to my model in zbrush, subdivided them a few times and then added the surface details. 

Thinking about retopping. I am going to make these separate objects from the actual pumpkin, and also place them on a different texture sheet, making the baking process less likely to have errors. 

Week 2- Shape and Pattern

 This week we have been presented a way more difficult still life, that had very interesting objects with very different textures. I knew this task was going to be difficult, but at least this time we were allowed to shade, which made me really happy.  We had multiple still lifes to choose from, and the one that attracted me the most was one that had a basket and multiple shells inside it.

As always, I have started with some thumbnail sketches. The first one ended up having the object too far from each other, which made to composition look off, so for the next one, I brought the elements closer and positioned the vase slightly higher in order to get a nice S shape going on. I also made the canvas size smaller, because I had way too much negative space on the side.

After that, I started working on the final piece, which was more challenging than I thought. The basket looked off and I was struggling to get the shapes of the shells right. Teodora reminded me that the elements that were making up the basket would get smaller on the sides due to the perspective. I have made the adjustments, and that totally fixed the visual. She also told me that I should try to understand the shape of the shells better before I start drawing them, so I took photos of them from different angles, which helped me a lot in the process. The problem was that I was looking at them from a 2D view, which was flattening my drawing. 

Unfortunately, the session was over by the time I finished the sketch, so I took some pictures and continued working at home. I worked some more on the shapes, added more detail, and then started the shading part.

At the start of my projects, I like adding some graphite powder all over the canvas to have a nice gray as a starting point. After that, using a rubber I erase the lighter objects and also the highlights. I found this method incredibly helpful for achieving the objects' tonal value.

As advised by Teodora, I started shading the dark object first, the vase in this case, in order to have more range of shades when I get to the others. Since the object was the furthest away, I didn't add too much detail, but I tried to induce that t was highly reflective with very bright highlights and a lot of contrast.

To make the objects pop even more, and showcase the difference in the tonal values, I have added a darker background around the shells, and a lighter one around the vase. After that, I started adding the shadows and details to the shells, trying to showcase their structure at the same time.

I decided to give the basket more contrast than the ones on the shells since it was a darker object, and also one with a lot more texture. I have also simplified the shapes a little, not too much though, because I think the basket was way too detailed for an A3 drawing. 

The final step was drawing the nuts and adding the shadows of the objects, which tied the entire composition together in a nice matter.

Final piece

I am particularly happy with how this drawing turned out! I think It achieves the effect that I was aiming for, but I think I could add a little more detail to make it even more interesting.

For this drawing, I have used a range of materials, as: Graphite powder, rubber, rubber pencil, and F, HB, B, 2B, 34, 4B, 6B pencils.

Start of the Pumpkin Project.

 The first project that we have to complete for this term at 3d programming is a pumpkin. Its main purpose is to refresh the workflows that we have previously used in the first year and develop them more in the process. We had a similar task last year when we were practicing working in Zbrush, but we never really got to complete it.

The most important part at the start of each project is the research. We have to figure out what direction we want to take it in, and also how we are going to approach the challenge.

I started looking for references right away. I knew from the get-go that I did not want to make a regular pumpkin. I wanted something more interesting and also more fun to work on. 

My first idea was incorporating some sort of creature inside the pumpkin, maybe have a huge eye sticking out. 

Afterward, I have noticed that this idea was being approached by multiple people, and I really do not like not being original. So, looking at the last picture I have decided to go for a hybrid pumpkin, partially made out of metal parts. I honestly think that would look very interesting visually, and also would make me practice
the creation of different materials regarding texturing.

image resources: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/stefanandrei47/pumpkin-project/

Week 1- Reinforcing Skills: Line and Line Weight

In our first week, our task was to draw a still life in the studio, using the principles that we studied last year regarding line and line weight, and build on top of them. 

This technique is something that I don't particularly use, and I remember the struggle from last year... 

Essentially, what we have to do is induce the form, the depth, and the shadows and highlights using only lines, without any shading. I find that quite challenging since my drawings rely on shading entirely.

This was the first time drawing in the actual studio, and we only had 2 hours allocated, so my goal was to get the composition right with some thumbnail sketches, and then try to get the shapes of the objects right. Teodora has shown a new technique that really helped me scale up my thumbnail, and that was dividing the drawing into smaller parts. 

Getting the shape of the objects was not that difficult, but I really struggled drawing the flowers, since I have never drawn anything like that before. They ended up looking very stiff and unnatural. Fowers are supposed to look organic, alive.

With the feedback that I had received in class, I have decided to restart the whole drawing from scratch, paying more attention to detail, and focusing on representing the objects as accurately as possible.

I started with redrawing the thumbnail, but this time on the left, cause last time it ended up getting in the way of the flowers, and I didn't want to erase it, since it is very important to have the small version at all times. This way, I won't loose sight of the bigger picture while I would be drawing the final piece.  

When I started working on the final piece, I have decided to draw all of the other objects first, and then move to the flowers, since I knew I would be struggling to make them. When I got to them, I followed the approach of drawing the ones from further back, and then make my way to the ones that were closer. 

While drawing the flowers, I have used more rounded shapes, in order to induce a more natural feeling to them. 

I also made sure to have more line weight on the objects closer to me, constantly changing the pencils to thicker ones while making my way to the nearer objects. 

Shadows and highlights are very important in defining an object's shape, so I used more rounded shapes to induce the highlights, and parallel lines to induce where the shaws were. 

Final piece

I do like how the final piece turned out, particularly the composition and the fact that I conserved the organic feeling of the objects, but I think I should have made the objects in the back lighter to get more of that spatial depth.

 

For this drawing, I have used an F and HB pencil for the flowers and the back, a B and 2B for the flowers in the front and the vase, a 3B and 4B for the vegetables and plate, and a 6B for the onions.