Evaluation

FGA6 was a more challenging project then the previous too due to me attempting to produce things using software that I do not have alot of experience using. For this project I attempting to create a 3D model of a creature that I had designed for the pervious project then rig it up and animate the model in a run cycle aswell as then creating a plasticine model of the creature I was creating on Maya. It was all very time consuming project to do as I had to relearn everything that I was taught the previous year about maya.

Having to relearn Maya for this project took alot of time and because of that I had to focus most of my time and energy on doing it, giving me less time to do the other things I said I would like to do for this project. I remembered the basics of modeling on maya so making the base model wasn’t too difficult just more problematic in getting some of the shapes of the model looking correct, mainly with the beak and feet of my creature. Overall though getting the model to the level in which I could transfer it over to ZBrush and they begin to start to add extra detail was most likely the smoothest part of this project.

ZBrush is another piece of software that I had to learn this project but I wanted to do it so I could add extra details and texture to my model to make it look nicer. I watch alot of ZBrush video tutorials in my spare time leading up to me using ZBrush to when I first loaded it up I had a basic knowledge of how stuff worked for when I began to sculpt on my model. Zbrush wasn’t to hard to come to grips so it didn’t take me too long to finish my model to a standard that I liked. When I tried to create the displacement map/normal map from my model so I could turn it into a texture in maya, there was an error and I was not able to make the map so I had to start again which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I managed to make my model look better the second time around. I was happy with how the texture came out on my model when I imported it back to Maya, the detail wasn’t too over detailed I thought it was nice and subtle however when I would render out the image all the detail on the feathers seemed to disappear which was disappointed to see as that was how the the model would look in the animations. I tried my best in adjusting and adding lighting to my model which can help bring out the textures in my normal map although it brought out the detail in the feet and beak it didn’t do too much to help the feather texture on the body of the bird.

Animating my model in Maya was another thing I had to try and relearn aswell as the rigging on my model as the last model I made on Maya was simple compared to my Flampingo meaning there was alot more to rig and to think about when rigging it. I had the skeleton that I drew which made the rigging easier however, there was a key problem with my bird. I model it and drew the skeleton/rigged as if it were a penguin however I wanted the bird to move as if it were a chicken but I did not model it to have the tight muscles that chickens have to make them able to move the way they could move so if I were to do anything again I would remodel the leg area of the bird so it moves more like a chicken and less like a penguin. There wasn’t too many problems with the animation and rigging except from early on when I first began to animate something went wrong with the weights that I painted which meant I had to start again on my animation and re paint the weights for it. However this too ending up being a blessing in disguise aswell because I then got told that I could make a ‘reference’ of my model which would create another save that had my model in it but if I were to come across an error in my model, I could go back to the original model and then fix it and it would reload the reference with the fix featured.

The main disappointment for this project was my plasticine model that I created it but I think the main reason for this was because most of my time was focus on the main part of my project which was my 3D work. It was the first time for me making a wire mesh and I actually enjoyed doing it however it was the down fall for my model as the wire I used was to weak so when I applied plasticine it either go through the gaps or bend the mesh if I tried to smooth it out. If I were to do it again, I’d use stronger wire for the mesh and make the gaps smaller which would of hopefully stopped most of the problems that I had with it.

And lastly, for this project we also had to make a portfolio for our work, originally I was going to make an iWeb site however I wasn’t to fond of it and afew things went wrong which ended up stopping me from being able to use it so I decided that I would try and make a flash website as I found afew tutorials on how to do it. Once again it was a big learning curve for me to deal with as I have no had that much experience with flash except from afew tutorials and even if you do know what you’re doing, flash still has a way with not working. I spent most weekend nights learning new script to try and make my website as good as possible, some script taking longer to solve then others mainly the roll over image script as the one I found was for action script 2 where I was using action script 3. I tried to keep my website design as simple as possible and easy to navigate through and I think I achieved it however the file itself is to large for me to put online and will take me a while to do able to decrease the size of my image files to be able to put it online but I will work on doing that over the holidays so it should hopefully be online soon.

Overall I am happy with how this project has turn out, I think my second animation turned out well and so did my website, the only things I would try and improve as stated earlier on would be my run cycle animation and my plasticine bird model.

Model.

For this project I made a plastecence model of my creature aswell as the 3D model however I don't think this turned out successfully at all and I'm not happy with it one bit. There was alot of problems getting it smooth as the wire mesh I used was too weak and would bend if I put too much pressure on it. I'm very disappointed with how it turned out and don't think I'll be making one in the future.

Mature Lady.

In my bio for my Flampingo I wrote about how Mature Lady wear their beaks as hats so I decided it would be fun to paint what one looks like, it was quite nice to do and to have a break from doing alot of 3D work.






Here are 4 development image of my mature lady.



Here is the final Image of my mature lady, I might do more to it later on but atm I'm happy with it and I need to get my website together.

Final Design.

Here is the final design and character sheet for the Flampingo, including the skeleton and size comparison.

Beaks.

So I wanted to give my bird a colourful beak so I look at the designs of a Toucan beak for inspiration;


Here are the first set of designs I came out with although I don't really like either of them.



for the first 2 design, I didn't feel either of them was working so I decided to go back and study a toucans beaks some more and from there I got the 3rd design and decided that this was the design I was aiming for from the start.

Here are some alternate design that I can up with for the final design, I decided to go with the middle design as I enjoy the extra colour it adds to the design.