Saturday 14 June 2014

UVW Map and there power

So Half way through the semester we learnt how to make a UVW Map. At first glance I really didn't appreciate the method of a this technique and honestly thought it was more work then it was worth. I mean why not use the multi-sub object tool and just identify which polygons you want textured.

After designing my spaceship for my lecture's class and as I unwrapped my model and saw it's UVW map I was convinced more and more that this method was an utter piece of crap.

How does one Texture So Many Poly's!
As you can see it came out with a shitload of little polygon's and even with the stitching method of putting polygons together, It would take a long time and in an industry where it pays to be efficient, This method was turning out to be anything but efficient.

My un-textured Spacecraft
I persisted with the texturing and used both the multi-object method and a bit of the UVW mapping  technique but refused to map those little polys just simple due to time restraints 

but I was still unconvinced on this method until...
I saw a particular video. Doing a gaming cause obviously I play games and enjoy them. I have pretty much since I was a child due to my father being a programmer. I've always had a PC and pretty much always will. So when I saw a video on a game I played (and sadly still do) on how they textured there model in game using 3DS Max, Photoshop and holy shit UVW maps to texture. I was like "oh damn" I gotta get good at this. 

The video can be found Click here. It's off World of Warcraft's Web series Azeroth Choppers. Now while I couldn't give 2 shits about building a bike. If you scroll to 3.45 you'll see there techniques on how they build there models. After watching this video I became inspired and started to respect the methods power and how it could be used.

I've gone on to since build simple models like barrels, crates, doors, rockets, SAM sites and other assets for  my game in Unity all having being textured with this method.


Hopefully in the future with a little bit more time and skill i'll be able to design something like Blizzard  did.








Week 1

So I've been a bit slack and probably should get around to writing some more about my show reel and my progression through the course.

Week 1 - Temple Scene and Learning 3DS Max. 

The first week within 3DS Max the program was extremely foreign to me but with some tutorials and worksheets provided in class, I slowly progressed, and very slowly started to learn the short cuts and how to manipulate objects to my will! 

I started out building a car for my group project under the "Googie" Theme as well as learning about standard primitives and how to turn them into an edible poly. Using this method I learnt how to create Arrays, Extrusions, Insert, Bevel polygons to transform a shape into something a little more appealing and different.

So starting out with the Car, I started with a simple square and started manipulating it to look more like a "Googie" era car with a space sort of feel. Ultimately my knowledge and ability in 3ds Max was holding me back from unleashing a master piece!
We also built a temple scene in another class, using these same methods and introduced texturing to our polygons to make the scene more realistic and stylized.


 The whole googie theme is about a space age and alot of curves as you can see due to my lack of knowledge I was yet to acquire that style of car