Headphones Turnaround

Click the YouTube link to watch it in a bigger format.

Things to do

I've been blogging my thoughts and news so much recently that almost forget I have my website/portfolio to put up some of the stuff. So need to do this to keep it up to date.

Already added the headphones I posted on here as well as a few more detailed pictures so check that out here: Liam Kirkman CGI Artist

Also need to add the work I have been doing for the game project and once I have finished my work experience carry on with the texturing and some last additional modelling for that project.

Headphones Finished

Reference

Final render of headphones

Wireframe of headphones

The logos are slightly different from the reference model, just because I was working from a couple of different images and they seemed to have different graphics.

More images of the headphones can be seen at my website here: Beats by Dr Dre Headphones Project

I was going to post the turn around of the model but didn't have time over the weekend and also accidentaly left my memory stick at home. Will post it soon enough though.

First week of work experience nearly over.

It is now Thursday night and I've nearly had my first week at Red Star 3D.

The experience has been really good so far. Some great insights into the company and some really friendly extremely talented people. I've also been in some of their important meetings and reviews watching various stages of shots for their current project. Some of these shots fully animated, lit, rendered and compositited and some just in the blocking phase.

What first surprised me about the structure of the work force was how much input every single person had on all aspects of the design. It seems like a very good way to work and everyone know's what the other is doing even in a different department.

Now back to my work. I finished the headphones today. A turnaround is being rendered out overnight so will upload that tomorrow. The headphones has been a fun project and was a good early test for learning modo. The modelling was perfectly fine, it was only when it came to uv mapping and applying textures and materials that I was having trouble. Coming from maya and the hypershade, It has taken me a while to get used to how modo works with materials more than any other aspect of the software. Even though it works similar to how photoshop layers work, it can still get quite complex without you knowing where something exactly is very easily. As a result of finding this step quite tricky I feel I was put back a day or so. I could make the models, I could make the textures, I just couldn't figure out how everything liked to be handled in modo.

Upon finishing the headphones today I was given the privilege to be allowed to work on an actual film production currently going on at the studio. I don't know how much I can say but all I will say is that I was modelling things, which suited me fine :)

Tomorrow I have my last day for the week, and then I'm travelling back home (hopefully if the snow doesn't get worse and trains get cancelled) and more than likely working at my normal job Saturday and Sunday. Fun Times!

Will post another couple of updates over the coming week.

Work Experience

Started my work experience yesterday. Just thought I would post an update on my thoughts about the place and my role.

I am essentially a runner for 2 weeks, but it's not a huge company so I'm not doing too many odd jobs. Just the occasional post check and making teas/coffees for people and general tidying. So 95% of my time is spent working on my own little side project and getting used to modo. All the staff seem really friendly and one thing that has actually taken me by surprise is apart from the obvious higher level of skill and professionalism, a day in the studio isn't unlike doing a good days work back at Uni. Everyone collaborating in their own little teams and talking through and fixing problems. I am also in awe of how they have their files set up on the network so more than one person can work on a file at the same time, such as one person animating and another set dressing. I know this is how a professional company works, but its just seeing it for that first time hands on, It's just so awesome.

The guy I report to for modelling set me the task of making some headphones to learn some of modo. So far Modo is actually okay. Its like maya... just different. Imagine the jump between windows and osx, you can do the same things you just have to press different buttons. However I am finding myself once in a while thinking "Oh, this is much better than how maya does it" and sometimes thinking "God, I want maya back, I know exactly how to do what I want in that program"

I like that with the default settings of Modo you instantly get nice renders, not faffing about (although obviously you can change settings to your hearts content).

I thought I would post my progress of the headphones so far

If you couldn't tell from the obvious style of the headphones themselves they are based on a pair of Dr Dre Solo's should anyone want to know. From feedback from John I seem to be progressing well and modo in general has a learning curve but at the end of the day, It's still 3D modelling. Although I am learning new techniques which I can also carry over to Maya which is handy.

I will post more about how I am finding the company in the next few days and next week, but I won't discuss in great detail as I need to be careful about what I say such as their current projects.

Underfloor detail

Couldn't resist putting this picture up. I feel impressed with myself for somewhat very simple tools that i used to make it look like this.

Update on Life, Game Textures and Work Experience Preparation

Happy late new year!

So I had a good Christmas and have been trying to get lots of work done for Dave before mid January.

Mainly been texturing stuff. In the most recent issue of 3D artist which I have a 3 month subscription to, there is a cd with a dozen or so really good sci fi textures on. So I'm using those while adapting them and also adding my own hand painted parts to the final textures. 

The textures also include really good ready to use normal maps which are great as seen here.

A single wall section

Several wall sections together. (Lights are used to demonstrate normal maps)

The problem comes when I chop up and move and scale the textures so have to do exactly the same for the normal maps. Which is fine for the ones above but the example below which consists of one of the textures from the CD and other stuff hand painted by me, means it might be very difficult to combine it all.

However I don't know if Dave is planning on using normal maps in his game yet. 

I must say although this is familiar techniques and principles, I'm still learning with trying to keep geometry moderately detailed while not too high poly count. Also making sure its clean so the game engine can handle it without problems.

 The main corridor section texture so far.

Due to the limitations of lights in a game engine I've also experimented with "painting" light around the yellow lights. I think it looks reasonable for a first attempt.

A close up of the broken cables on the floor

There is a couple more things I need to finish modelling, such as some details that can be added like crates, barrels, broken pipes, terminals, panels, vents etc.

One thing that is close to finishing is these stairs. Pretty basic but they will only be used to mark the areas where the levels will rise or decent. They should also be pretty simple to texture.

As a last point, my work experience is very soon and I am very excited. I have been following some digital tutors videos on Modo and making some notes which I can take with me to give me a slight headstart. Had a play around on the software and it seems fairly intuitive, camera controls were a bit funky but managed to change them to match Maya's which made it a lot easier and nicer. Just experimented with making basic objects and aiming to work out which tools are similar to mayas and which are new to me. But all the normal principles are there.... quads, neat edge loops, clean geometry etc

Hopefully post at least one more blog post before I go to my work experience on the game environment stuff.