Month: March 2018

Unfortunately, I do not have any footage of the creation of this texture.

The texture of this model split into 3, Steel for the Grappling hook and connectors. Plastic for the wrist mount, and a differentiating colour for the handguard. After that, I added some minor scratches and wear and tear to mainly the plastic and the steel to not only make it look used but also to allow the light to have more to bounce of so it would fit better into the scene I put it into.

The main challenge was the masking as I had combined the whole model together instead of separating each individual component apart. This was something I did not realise till it was too late and did not have time to retexture and render my scenes.

Unfortunately, I do not have any footage to show of the creation of these textures other than a spin of the almost completed texture. I used substance painter to texture the drop pod. and experimented with various masks and different presets of smart materials.The sealed window on the door is made of rubber. The door and casing are made of 2 different types of steel. The challenge was trying to create the damage and dirt on the pod. There are 2 separate dirt layers that I added one with a positive height map. and one with a negative height map to create not only the build-up of dirt from the crash but also the damage from the pellets that would have ricocheted across it. I then decided to take it a step further and attempt to add large chunks taken out of the pod.

I attempted adding another mask of a material with its height set to low to accomplish this but didn’t have the effects I desired. Instead, I created a stencil using the alpha mattes and painted height data directly onto the pod. The stencil allowed it to have that random damaged look as well as added in the texture detail needed to sell the crash landing damage.

Finally, I created textures for the rocks within blender using nodes and following the tutorial below. The tutorial only helped so far before there was no noticeable difference in texture, in which I adjusted the settings of the nodes already added and finalized the look.

During the grappling hook model, I knew I wanted to create a robust shape from a cylinder starting point. I set out to have everything attached together under the same model. this quickly became apparent that this would not be possible and I would need to separate the model into 4 parts. The base, the handle, the grappling hook and its launcher.

My second problem was the subdivision model in Maya creating wrinkles at the end of the base and glove. This was solved by adding caps at the end and extruding them smaller.

I then encountered the problem with the grappling hook itself and modelling it to allow for the subdivision to happen was causing a lot of model errors due to the placements of loop cuts. There was no solution I found around this other than trial and error by using the multi-cut tool to get the edges that I wanted.

Overall the only part of the model I am unsure about is the glove for the hand. If anything I will see if it is something that needs to be adjusted when adding it to the camera footage.

The drop pod was the first model I created. Unfortunately, I don’t have any footage of its creation.

When I started creating this I rebuilt it from ground up 3 times as I could not match the shape as well as I wanted. and in turn, make the drop pod look like it does in the concept art. On my 3rd attempt, I decided to start with the base cylinder and create a more oval shape from it. Giving it a sleeker modern design. From there I was able to extrude the door in slightly and develop from there. The window and section for the door handle took multiple attempts to create as both of them created unwanted shapes when a subdivision was added. I went back to the hard surface modelling tutorial mentioned in a previous post to see if I could find out why and realised I had been cutting ngon’s into my model. After working with the multi-cut tool and deleting unwanted vertices I was able to achieve the look I desired.

The rocks were created with an addon called ‘Rock Generator’ using an asteroid preset to get more of a rubble look from the start, then adjust the settings until I got the quality I desired. I generated around unique rocks and placed them around the drop pod to create the ground displacement from the crash landing as well as few scattered about the floor to add to the scene.

Although the model isn’t completely similar to what I originally intended from my concept art, it instead became a mixture of the industrial and futuristic concepts I made up and in turn still works within the narrative I wanted to create.

For this shot, I wanted to create an object track and decided that I wanted it wrist mounted. I started by looking at other wrist-mounted weaponry and utilities and decided to go with a wrist-mounted grappling hook. During my designs, I thought about the process of the track itself and what I would need to be aware of when adding the 3d model to the track. The main worry I had was having the hand visible and needing to clean up the shot with roto and potential painting over my tracking markers so I decided to keep the hand enclosed within the device.

The rest of the design focused on making the grappling hook look like it could work, with the controls being within the hand section and the grappling hook itself being bolted on tight to the wrist mount.