the end!! :D

so this project was really ambitious for us to take on. but i'd rather be ambitions and fail then work with lower aims. having said that... i dont think we'll be taking on such a big project next time, lol. this term i learnt so much tho, so from that point it was a really good project. we storyboarded properly this time and stuck to 90% of the angles we originally decided, which helped alot. the production schedual was more detailed this term and it was a good guied for us to follow throughout the term.

A couple of environment bits i did

So i finished my character and had time to do some of the environment. this totem pole was litrally a slap dash job due to time, which is why it looks so bad(as you can see)!! haha. Having said that i baked it and the normals just wouldnt work. But i think that was fate because i re-did the pole, keeping it simple and worked on the texture more. i quickly zbrushed it and it looks pretty good, you can see it in the animation becasue i dont have a picture with me t put up. I also did the blood pattern on the floor around the totem ploe and the mountain in the background.

*squeltch*Zombieeeeeeee!!!ahh!

well here is the final zombie, un rendered. i think its a bit bitter sweet because there was so much effort put into it and we were having so much trouble on this project. that said im not overly dissapointed with her. she was my first attempt at a human(ish!) life model and only my second character modeled overall. i think part of my dissapointmet was having made all the high poly zbrush parts baked onto the low poly character. i think it looks pretty bad in comparison but oh well... i've learnt alot this term, more than any term i've took on this course so far. hopefully i wil be able to take what i learnt this term into next term and make something much better.

there were sertain things that had to be axed, like... THE plat! :( but dan just didnt have time to animate it and we'd rather not have it in than do and it look shit. also, i iad to axe an alpha map i made for her. it just didnt want to work, which was pretty annoying.

Texturing

Ok so this is the zombie's texture map! At the point of us beginning to texture, me and Anna were a week behind on the production schedual. However Jake was strugeling with animating, so we all decided that he should model the camp, Dan.C would animate and me and Anna would commence with our characters. Now, this actually took a shockingly long time. However i wanted it to look good so i didnt rush it. I UV mapped all of her body and items and sewed together various parts and so on using the checker texture as a guide to line. Under the texture map there is the normal map and the specular map.

High poly character modeling

Ok so this is my favorite piece i zbrushed for my character, her plat thingimibob! This was actually the hardest to make also. I made this out of a rectangle, which i then divided in zbrush to sculpt. It took me a couple of days to make this becasue it kept looking like shit, litrally. Eventually i ended up with this, which im really proud of. I used the mask tool to mask off areas i didnt want to effect then inflated the rest, using the rake tool (rake tool's my best friend) i defined the bunched up parts. I found it quite difficauly making it look like it had weight but i think i managed it in the end... That made it sound quite easy. if.only.


lastly i did her boob tube, i kept it fairly basic. i did the same as i did with the skirt when making bumps in the material. she's going her have fur around the lower part of the top, using alpha channels. and her shrug will be overlapping the upper part which is why i havnt done anything drastic to it.

High poly character modeling

Ok so below is the zombies hair, i wanted to give her a quiff with lots of feathers sticking out of it, which i plan to do using alpha maps. To get the shape i adjested the low poly geometry in zbrush using the tweak tool, befor i devided the geomitry further. To get the hair texture i used the rake tool and identifyed the hair line, as to where the hair would be pulled. im going to give her a plat at the back of her head, which is why there is an area where it all gathers.



Below is her scabby crusty foot bandage. I really like how it tured out in the end considering it was one of the objects i had most trouble with. To get this effect i made a brush in photoshop, which has a bandagy texture on it and streched it out over the geometry in zbrush. The brush was quite shit, but it gave me a good enough outline for me to follow when crustying it up. I used the level took with the softness all the way down to get a harder dege when extruding areas, i used the rake took also to get a cross hatch in the sock too.

Next is the skirt, considering its a basic looking item, it was fairly difficault to make good folds along the seam. I took a different approch with making folds this time, using the level tool on soft then smoothing the ends out, then i used the pinch tool to pull in the ends to give it a tighter fold look. i made another brush in photoshop which has a grainy bump to it that i applied to the skirt to make it more material like.

High poly character modelling

So, having got a low poly body, which me and Anna are sharing we took it into Zbrush to make the high poly version. By me and Anna sharing one body between us, it allowed us to save time making one each. We hoped to Zbrush the body to the extent where you couldn’t tell that we both worked off of the same body. I think that both our characters have very distinct features, on there face and body which separates them enough. As I mentioned before I've never used Zbrush before making this character, let alone making a close to realistic human character. I began with the body, just working over it with brushes I had made in Photoshop to make her look scabby and rotten. This wasn’t too difficult because being a zombie, the character could afford to look not so perfect, which allowed me to play about with brushed quite a bit.


I then took a bone and Zbrushed that up, but I don’t have a screen print of it so I haven’t put it up, however it’s nothing special and I’ll wack it up once it’s been UV'd. I planned on working from the feet up because I thought the garments on her upper body would be harder to create. So I Zburshed her "leg warmer", which is basically animal skin wrapped around her shins. For this I used the 'Macro' tool call 'rake volumiser', which allows you to raise the surface to create lumps and bumps. Its harder then it might seem, but I think I got a good result. I used the rake tool's hatching in my design to my advantage, rather then smoothing it all out, as I thought once it has the rope tied around it, it would make quite a nice scrunched cloth bump. I’m going to use alpha channels at the top and bottom to give it tattered edges.

I attempted to move on to her bandages, which are wrapped round her feet. However, as much as I tried it kept looking like a verooker sock, so I passed on that one for now. I decided to Zbrush her shrug instead, as I had been quite successful with the leg warmer and I didn’t want to leave it before I lost my touch. So I used the same technique as I did with the leg warmer, but I smoothed out all the bumpy bits. The problem that kept occurring with me was whenever I divided the geometry of the low poly mesh I lost allot of shape, particularly with the foot bandage. To I had to 'tweak' the low poly mesh in order to keep the higher divisions shape how I wanted it. Below is the shrug more or less finished. However sints then I’ve elongated the sleeves a bit, so it’s long enough to go down to the bangles. As well as giving it a subtle grainy texture I made in Photoshop. I’ve applied that to a few of my objects because it takes off the plaslicy looking feel some Zbrushed things can gain. Also I’m again going to give the edges alpha channels, giving it tattered edges.

Ok, so I then went back to the body to zombify her up some more, buy giving her a sticky out rib. To get this I used the 'level' tool and had the radius down so the brush had no softness, which allowed me to work away into her stomach, where I then softened some of the edges slightly. I then used the same tool to pull her rib out from her stomach, rather then pushing in with the tool I pulled out the faces until I got a nice sharp rib. I then looked at what I did and realised I had got a bit carried away with the level tool and she had a gapping hole in her so I tried to flesh it out a bit with some oozy flesh. I plan to UV maggots in it to make it less gapey.

High poly character head

Having spent a week modeling the low poly head, i took it and used the sculpt geomitry tool in Maya to define her head even further to make a hight poly head.



However, Dan.C said it would be better to re-modle the high poly head in Zbrush. it took me a while to get over it, but a cup of tea or two later i was fine. So, below is the third attempt at the high poly head. the second version was also a nightmare. I worked on it and got her how i wanted, but Zbrush being a stupid programme decided not to save it. We we'er saveing our attempts as 'documents' which one would assume was the...document. But no! You have to save the 'tool' to keep the head as a working document, because that makes sense (severe sarcasm right there). So i had to re do it from scratch again. which resulted in the below images. having never used Zbrush this was a big learning curve




Below Dan.C attempted to see how the low poly head would look having had the high poly normal map baked on to it. the low poly is around 600 polys where as the high poly has 600,000.

Low poly character head

This week me and Anna focused on building our low poly heads. This is the first time we've ever attempted to make a model as human as this, as a guide we followed a tutorial we downloaded, which was really helpfull. I tryed to styleis her as much as possible in the low poly modle, to make it easyer for Dan.C and Jake to bake the high poly normal map over the low poly version later on. I aimed to keep the tri count as low as possible so we didn't go over our brief restrictions, as a result i think i ended up with a good mesh. Altho having said that i had to add more devisions around the mouth and eyes sints the character will be takling and blinking, so having a higher poly count is required in thoes areas.

Lots of group work and character research

So this is second week and i dont have much to put in here because we did loads of work as a group. i think it was a really successfull week having got the script finalized, the storyboarding finished and we finalized our personal brief, which is all up on the group page.

as an individual i found some interesting images and attempted to design my character. below are just a couple of the images i found.I really like the image above, the tree's and a really nice windeing style as well as having a nice painted texture. it might be quite nice to have a painted style for the scene, altho i dont think it would particulaerly work for our brief, but it's something i could consider to use in a future project.

I really like this zombie character i found. the markings on her face are quite different, rather than having a big smudge slapped across her cheek or something. Her colour is really saturated, which makes her looks quite styleized.

Below is a serise of pages from my sketch book. The first image i was just jotting out a few conscpt ideas, like seating in the camp and a couple of storyboard shots i had in mind (befor we did all the storyboard as a group). Also to the top left is a really basic outine of my charactes head. i really want her to look quite chizled and hard, which would add to her evilness i think.

below are some more really quick sketches i tryed for her head. i tryed to take it further in photoshop by giving her some tone and a better definition, but it was taking up to much time, altho i got a getter feel for the characters look.

Below are some character designs for her clothing and hair. i really like the use of bones in her design, giving her an exo-skeleton look. i might avoid free flowing clothes though because that would take up alot of time in the animation prosess.


Below is one video i found which demonstrates some awsome fighting techniques. it's from the film 'Drunkern master 2' which shows the drunkern stance quite extensivly. I thought this style of fighting would be really good for our zombie character becuase it's very limp and bendy, much like a zombie's stance. i showed it to the resto f the group and they really liked it.

My version on the script

Having got a concept together the group tried to come up with the characters back story, so we could have a better understanding of the characters and how they might look. we didn’t want to spend to much time on it though so we tried working on a script alongside the character development, but we all had different ideas that conflicted each other so I suggested that we all go and write our own versions of a script over the weekend and bring them together, then take the best of each script and merge them to possibly make a final script. Below is my version of the script I wrote, although it’s not a full script I did what I could.

The woman walks up to the camp entrance, runs, then slows down as she goes through wooden spikes sticking out the ground, blockading the entrance and continues through the gate.

She walks into the camp, looking cautious. She looks from left to right then turns all the way round, checking behind her for anything while still walking forward. The camp is deserted as she walks around, with her hand on her holster hip. She comes to a stop in the center of the camp, near a giant totem pole, noticing markings on the floor. She inspects the markings closer, only to reveal she has the same marking on her hand. She touches the marking on the floor.

Goodie “Blood?”

She stands up taking a few steps forward then pauses, noticing a cloaked figure in the distance. The figure is moving very slowly and hunched like an old woman, with its back facing her.

Goodie “I thought this place was long deserted…who in hell could survive out here”

She takes a couple of steps forward.

Goodie “Hello?”

The cloaked figure stops moving, still with its back facing her, swaying from side to side slightly.

Goodie “Hello!?”

Baddie “what do you want…”

Goodie “What’s this symbol on the floor mean? Do you know?

Baddie “death, is the only thing that you will find here.”

Goodie “what? Look, I don’t play well with others, especially when threatened. I was tolled I would find answers here and I’m not leaving without them.”

Baddie “I answer to no one!”

Goodie “I’m not no one, I’m someone! Someone who’s come this far for something, which will help me fined answers and I”-

Baddie -“and I have seen and heard enough.”
Goodie “let truth be seen in the eye of the beholder… that’s it.”

She gets her whip out and lashes it towards the woman’s face. The woman quickly razes her hand and grabs the whip.

Goodie “get over here!”

She tugs hard on the whip jerking the woman down to her feet as she still clutches it. The cape falls off revealing her for what she truly is, a zombie.

Initial ideas

Myself, Anna, Dan.C and Jake went on to develop some more ideas as were researching, but wasn’t really getting anything that we thought we could have fun working on. Having had a day of creative block, me, Anna and Dan.C were walking home and I pointed out a massive tree which had all of its branches cut off, which looks quite wired. Anna mentioned how it looked like a totem pole and joked that we should do a Pocahontas style character... at the time I thought it would be quite interesting but didn’t mention anything, mainly because I didn’t want to be stoned on the spot. however the next morning Dan.C an I were driving to uni and he tolled me how he was thinking about this Pocahontas idea, and tolled me his thoughts and ideas about us having a dead Pocahontas style character, which I liked the sound of. When we go into uni we tolled Anna and she wasn’t to keen at first, but liked the idea of a lead female character, as did I, Dan.C and Jake. So our idea really started from there... a tree stump. So with everyone having had a bit of input on the concept we finally got something we all like the sound of.

Below is a page I sketched out rough of a random character idea that night, as I didn’t think the Pocahontas idea was going to go anywhere.

Initial research

Well well, i'm armed with a cup of tea ready for a new project, so here we go.

Over the christmas hollidays i gathered various images while spending countless hours sitting on the internet doing nothing, as usual. i didnt really look out for anything in particular, rather kept an eye out for anything that looked good, weather it be style, subject or lighting an so on. Myself, Anna and Dan.C had all ready decided that we wanted to work together as a team, so on occasion we attempted to meet up for "research" days. these days usually ended up being "playstation" days, but we did generate some good ideas.

The image above was something that i had collected because i really liked the use of colour and the approch these people had taken towards modeling a vheacle, taking a bus which already has loads of character to work with and taking it further. Rather then just modeling a smooth shiney sports car, which seems pretty generic. It's something that i would like to create myself, which is what came up in one of our get togethers over the holliday with Anna and Dan.C. To simply put it, we came up with an idea of each of us creating a unique vehicle whith a character relating to it. We thought we could style them to look like there vihcles and have them race through a scene, or have them connect in a 'Power Ranger' way (for whatever reason). alas this idea has not been taken further.

Above and below are two images of character that i really like, both for different reasons. i think that the character design above is awsome. he's really basic with lots of character. Also, i really like his texturing. Baring in mind that we previously had done quite a dark, gothic styled animation and have been labled..."goths"...jarred (we have our sources) lol. i think it would be Typical of us to make sutch a character. The character below has a relly nice sence of realism, while being quite characature, which is something that the group could look into. So these were a few of the images which i got over the holliday that really stood out to me.