Tentacle Research

For our first task we are to make a colour concept of 'Tentacles'.
I will just say that researching this has now given me nightmares. Creepy creatures in the sea.

Generally when you think of tentacles you would only think of an octopus or a squid, but I did find out that not only sea creatures have tentacles but also carnivorous plants.

Here is my research on real life tentacles. Not all of them are scary some of them look pretty beautiful but others would make you want to run away. (from top left to right)

The first image is a picture of the giant squids tentacles, as a defence mechanism they have teeth inside there tentacles.

The next image is of a baby squid, its lack of colour makes it look so harmless, so not as frightening as other images.

This is the suckers on a octopus, I thought it was a nice close up of what they look like.

This is a octopus, I thought it was a good picture to include because although he is stationary he looks extremely intimidating and powerful.

This is a cuttle fish, after my research this is the kind if tentacles I am more keen on at the moment.

This is another picture of an octopus, just showing the different ways in which tentacles can go.

The bottom image is of a jelly fish, these tentacles are poisonous, but look extremely beautiful and delicate unlike the octopus tentacles which could crush or eat you.

The final image is of a carnivorous plant, the smell of the tentacles attracts insects.

This is my research on various artists methods in displaying tentacles.

The first image is a piece of work by HR Giger (the guy who designed 'alien'). As always his work is immesley creepy, but he has integrated the tentacles so well in the female face that it looks like they were always there - but they don't look slimey like you would imagine them too.

This is Davy Jones from Pirates of the Carribean - although he is the bad guy in the film this image doesn't portray him as that frightening but definatley as stern, but it is an amazing piece of art work, the detail is fantastic and the tentacles look amazingly realistic.

This is a piece from Zbrushs website to advertise the kind of stuff that it can do. It is meant to be Davy Jones, but is more of a comedic version of him, but once again the tenticles do look amazing.

This is a Malboro from Final Fantasy X, i thought it was an interesting way to display tentacles as the look very wood like.

This is the most different of the images I have found, it is the least scary and realistic, but a little more cartoony, almost makes you feel not afraid of them anymore.

This is an ice sculpture of an octopus, the detail is really well done, but it also looks so elegant that they no longer look scary.

Based on my research I think I want to go for something little and cute. I can't image trying to do something that is scary, so I wouldn't want it to be creepy.

UV Unwrapping

Today I have spent the day on the UVMapping a house task. There were a couple ways of trying to do it but most of them would take a long time so i decided to go for the most simple.

This is what the house looks like at the moment. There is still a little bit left to go, but at the moment I am happy with how it is turning out.

I am much happier with how this is acoming along now. The only thing I don't like is the roof. So i will sort this out. Also the windows they are meant to be glowing but it hasn't come out right. So i will try that again.

Final

This is the final house. I decided to go for a thatched roof. I am also happier with the windows. To me they look like they have a little light on :)

Here is an example of some UV Maps.

 

Panasaur

So I have been working on creating a texture map for the Panasaur model in 3D Max and Photoshop.
Its taking a little while to work out where the seams are. But at the moment I am happy with the colouring of it, I just need to make it look more realistic.

This is my texture map. Not very fancy, but after everything else I ran out of time to make it look better unfortunetly. 

Video

Sci Fi Gun Model

For this task I had to create a low poly model of a sci fi gun with the reference image supplied.

I have spent a good few hours attempting this one. I haven't learnt in tries, only polys.
At the moment my gun has just over 1000 verts and 992 polys. There are a few little bits left to add, mostly detail, and I need to smooth the gun as its a little bumpy.

The basic shape is there, I just need to add the final details and make it smooth.

I've added some more detail and made somethings a little smoother. But im on 1264verts. So i am nearing the limit. So the rest of the detail that's on the picture I probably think is a material rather than part of the gun. Which is a shame because it makes it look a little bit silly. Still having a little problem making the gun smooth.

 

Final

 

I checked my tri count and with all the extra circle it put me over the limit, so I had to remove them. So it makes the gun look really bland. But never mind. This is my final piece because I am out of tris.

 

Video

 

The background colour is horrible but i didn't want to waste my time making that look better. Also the metal material is a little more reflective than I would have liked (because it reflects the awful background)

 

Lighting

I had a go with lighting the town like a sunny day.

While i did use coloured lighting it made it look silly. So I decided to stick with the white light.

This was simply with the light behind the main building. Although you can tell there is lighting it doesn't look like anything other than having lighting added.

With the next image I thought that I would change the direction of the light so you can see the casted shadows.

This one is much better. It actually has some shadows in there. But I am still not that satisfied. I am going to try using something other than the skylight.

Here I used the daylight system. This is more what i was after, far more crisper shadows that you would get on a sunny day.

At the moment I am happy with the final result. If i get time after the other tasks I will fiddle with the angle of the light more and maybe add a sun.

 

Final

 

This is my final render for the lighting system. I think it would look more like a sunny day if I added an image to the background, but in terms of shadows and intensity of light, I am happy with how it came out.



3 Point Lighting

Had a little fiddle around with the lighting task today.
Which was to light the troll with 3 point lighting (key light, fill light and back light)

My first attempt is far to bright and I think some of the lights are too targeted and the light needs to fall off more softly.

Looks way to evil and the intensity of the lights don't match.

This then lead on to my final product. I am much happier with the lighting all of it sort of matches so, other parts aren't a million times brighter than the rest.

I am much happier with this, however I couldn't quite figure out how to make his face look as detailed as the previous picture. If I have time after the other projects I will come back to this and fiddle around with the settings a positioning a bit more to get the face more detailed.

 

Final

 

This is my final render of the troll I have increased the shadow density, and although it only looks like a subtle difference, I think it makes it look so much better, lets you notice the grooves a little more.

 

Skills Audit

Been given a skills audit for the first task at university.
We have to do a little bit of modelling, lighting and texturing (including UVmapping)
I will be spending the rest of the week on this task and will be back in on friday for the handin.