22.04.13 Texture progress

Carrying on texturing the depression/poverty/drug abuse scene. Got on to doing the kitchen area.

The cooker faceplate took me a while to do because the numbers around the dials were pixelated horribly when rendered out, so I separated it from the main mesh and applied a new texture at a higher resolution  rather than having it stretch accross the whole cooker object which just looked horrible. I also created a vector flame graphic for the gass switch button, I don't think you'll really see it clearly in the final renders but it's there just for continuity. Needed the faceplace and cooker to look like all the dirt and grime was cooked on, or ingrained into it, so I created a bump map and played around with the settings until I was happy with how grimy it looked. The cooker handle I figured would not only be grimy but also a bit rusty due to all the spillages and various other bacteria corroding away at the metal over time. This is a 3D procedural texture.

Finally the walls are whitewashed with some yellowed dirt near the ceiling to suggest that they have been stained by excessive smoking.

The walls were looking a bit too "bright white" to really show off the amount of dirt that would have accumulated on them, so I made them a bit duller and a bit more yellow to show off how dingy they really are.

17.04.13 - Texturing the Druggie Bedsit

So hit a bit of a block with the Happy / Content couple scene and just couldn't even really deal with looking at it any more because it was just making me go askdasldjaskdljdskfjk, or in other words, "no."

So been UV mapping and texturing parts of the junkie flat scenario.
Here are a couple of screengrabs of what I've got so far.

Making dirty textures is actually surprisingly fun. I felt like a kit with a paintbrush just firing globs of paint everywhere. Then I realised I can't just do that because the stains and dirt on the surfaces have to look like they have gotten there progressively over time, and not just the result of the drug abuser going on a mad trip when he's out of it and throwing muck everywhere, though I guess using drugs could make you do that? I don't know, never had the experience myself and I really don't want to. I think going that far would be way beyond the boundaries of practice based research. So I started to think about how stains and spillages would get there in the first place, and think about what substances and objects would cause which sort of stains and patterns. Obvious ones like tea/coffee/juice stains and spillages were easy enough, and other things like little decals where food has spilled and dried in to the fabric due to it not being washed.
I also included a dirty blanket as the character's duvet, but after creating the mattress texture I found I liked this better and I think it stands out more amoung all the other browns and yellows of the sofa and the table, and looks better aesthetically. 

Started making some high res bump maps for the sofa, which is killing my maya scene when I put it on the high quality viewer, so I'm going to seperate everything with high res textures/bump/specular maps into different render layers so maya doesn't die when I attempt to move and rotate around my scene.

Also the mug in the above image is wayyy too shiny and reflective and this is because when I exported the cut as a .fbx with the blinn texture I set up, maya inexplicably changed this to a phong texture upon import into a new scene. I don't even know. So I went ahead and copied down the material settings for the cup so I could change it once it's imported into a new scene.

Obviously the lighting needs work, this is in no way the proper lighting for the scene, this is just so I can see how the various textures and maps are interacting with the light.

11.04.13 - Happy / Content Scene

To contrast with the darker themes of the Nursery scenes and the Drug Dependency scene, Ryan and I spoke about including a scene with happier themes, so thought about showing a happy/content couple through a room. So I started work on the basics of that this week. I am finding it pretty difficult to come up with ideas on how to show this. I found it much more rewarding and thought provoking to create the scenes with darker themes, I feel that this room is just starting to look like a showflat and doesn't have much personality at all. All I can think about including in a happy couple's room is nice, matching furniture to hint at their contentedness as they are wealthy enough to afford nice furniture and fixings. This in itself is annoying me because I feel it's pretty naff.

Also the only thing I could think of that really shows off their happiness would be a bottle of champagne with glasses on the bed, as though they are celebrating getting engaged or something. Having photoframes with pictures in of a happy couple would also help to illustrate this, but at the moment I feel like I'm just putting together the building blocks for a showflat and I'm not really sure how I'm going to get over this creative hump and create something with a bit more personality and backstory.

05.04.13 - Blocking out the Drug Abuse scene

The idea behind this scene is to illustrate a sense of depression, hopelessness and poverty. The inhabitant has succumbed to substance abuse addiction and entered into a downward spiral.

I collected some more visual research of small bedsit flats which have fallen into disrepair or just generally exude the themes I'm trying to convey in my scene.  Some images are purely to gain an understanding of the typical layout of a bedsit and how much space / objects I should aim to work with in terms of general architecture, fixtures, furniture and space.

All of the above images have small, cramped enclosed spaces, which will help to convey the idea of poverty and give the scene a claustrophobic feel, hinting at the closed off state of mind of the character who would live here, suggesting they have little options available to them and are trapped in this drug abuse cycle.

I had already blocked out a VERY basic scene but after opening it again I really, really didn't like it so started over.

Above images show the rough layout of the bedsit flat. I opted for a sofabed rather than a proper double or single bed because I felt it would help to illustrate a theme of impoverishment and also quickly convey the lack of space and multiple functionality that the room must have as a result. The coffee table is pulled right over to the sofabed to suggest that this is where the character would spend all of his time, plonked in front of the tv. The kitchen area is based off the visual research into small bedsit kitchenette areas often found in small enclosed spaces. Decided to go for an old fashioned style of gas cooker as I felt this would again enhance the theme of poverty as nothing in the flat i high tech or particularly pretty to look at.

With the general layout and main frame of the flat laid out, I can now go back and add in more assets and think about lights and textures.

Supervisor Meeting 25.03.13

Over the past week, I lost quite a bit of motivation for doing practical work. So all I've done in terms of maya work is to roughly block out the scene geometry but I've not gone as far as lighting or texturing or a colour pass.

Ryan and I discussed the project Aim as I felt it was a bit naff, or didn't quite illustrate what my project was about and he agreed. So I just need to reword it and remember that I'm using the game environment as a visual storytelling aid or device to help tell a story or convey a mood, and not as the primary narrative device. So the aim needs reworked.

Brought up a copy of a rough introduction and went through it with Ryan because I'd never really brought him any of my written work and I think that if I make a push to bring in a bit every week it'll ensure I'm keeping to the right path and actually motivate me to keep it up and not leave it all lounging in the back of my mind. So we went through that and isolated the parts which weren't really relevant and drew attention to the more important sections.

Next thing to do is to regain my motivation by perseverance and make a big push for practical work to show next week. Ryan wants to see the basics blocked out of the drug abuse scenario and an idea of the lighting / colour pass. So that'll be this weeks tasks.

State of Mind Scenario 2 - Drug Abuse

Came up with a mood board and a quick written idea of the room under my critical framework.

Images in the moodboard above illustrate a typical representation of a run down impoverished flat. The colours are all very neutral and dull, with mostly browns and creams. Materials and textures feature some stains such as smoke stains on the walls, making them appear yellowed. The main light source is always the window - which suggests that the owners of the flat do not have enough money to ensure regular electricity.

Bellow are the critical framework categories for this scenario

Ambient;

Colour : Muted
Lighting: Lighting coming in purely from windows (suggests no money for electricity)
Materials/Textures: Decaying, decrepit, dull and moth-eaten
Space: Not a lot of it (suggests trapped in poverty)
*Sound (No sound will be in final environments)
Framing: main points of interest (fold out bed and debris and small hob) framed in light
Geography: Outside covered by curtains/boarded up with splits for light to come in.
Architecture: Small, boxy room, rectangular.

Narrative;

Player Created Space: Not a lot of room to move about in,
Scenes, Events and Vignettes: A lot of drug stuff? Skins, weed, joints, pipes. homemade "bucket"

Props;

Artifacts: Piled up dishes, blankets, joints, grinders, crip packets (big bags - munchies) choclate/sweetie wrappers
Decals: Scabby paint, stains on carpets, bedsheets, burns on sofa/futon
Effects: permentant "smokey-fog" effect
Posters and Graffiti: Boards on a window? Graffiti on the walls to suggest it was broken into

Navigational;

Beacon: Light from outside shining on the table where all the drugs etc are.
Signpost: Lightstream from window shining in through cracks in the boards/curtains falling on the points of interest - the futon and druggie table
Trail: Wrappers and artifacts leading from the table across the futon bed.

Supervisor Meeting 18.03.13

In this weeks meeting, we discussed the feedback I got from the Crit presentation session in more detail. Ryan again said that he was much happier with the direction I was taking the project in and was relieved that it was all starting to come together.

Decided that producing 3 different "States of Mind" was a good number to go for, and had a brainstorm over what those stories and mental states could be. Came up with a few;

• Alcoholism or Drug abuse - shows a range of emotions all contributing towards "Dependency" and "Paranoia".
• A Soldier reintegrating into normal everyday life - "Schizo", "Paranoia" "Isolation"
• Poverty - an impoverished person living in a run down neighbourhood, "Fear", "Desperation" "Hopelessness". Possible research for this would be going off and watching Harry Brown.
• Spirituality - someone who's really into their crystals and spiritual self-help - "Hope", "Delusion"
• Thought I should try and include a "nice" state of mind in there to contrast the much darker themes being flung about. so maybe a well to do, "Centered" individual who is content with life. A Just-married couple could be the driving story behind this. "Bliss"

So next up I'll have a think about which ones I want to take forward and compile some mood boards. I think the drug/alcohol abuse story would be a good one to go for as I've already watched and researched Requiem for A Dream which is a brilliant example of those themes.