Thurs 16th April 20:
The first version of the environment appeared peculiar as there wasn't a clear plan of the layout. After concept art was developed for the environment, a clearer understanding was gained of every asset. Reorganising the scene until the layout was correct.
When moving the lava rocks into the foreground corners, the aim was to have the small rocks (next to the big rocks) to be a different colour to the original so the 'Change Colour' effect was added to them to make it unique from the other, but this just changed the colour of the whole rock to look abnormal. Therefore the idea was abandoned, the duplicates were deleted and a new idea was established. The assets were continually being readjusted and the environment was rendered as another version as it progressed.
Afterwards, character modelling of the devil continued. As the model progressed, it needed to be expanded in certain places where it looked jagged. After that the character needed rounding out so the form of the character was adapted to appear 3D and less flat by the polygons being stretched. Henceforth, the arms were extruded to the size of the drawing by adding more edge loops to correct the dimensions to be in the centre of the side of the body.
Finishing the arms, then the head was modelled by cutting a hole out of the top of the character so its borders were extruded for the neck of the character using the multi-cut tool to draw out the shape so those polygons for the hole could be removed.
Extruding the border of the hole aided to creating the neck of the character that could extrude out to build on the head. As the borders were extruded more, the face was compressed and pulled to shape it properly.
During rounding the top of the head, the low poly character modelling tutorial was used to discover how to connect and to see how they constructed the head. They used a separate box for building the head so all my action up till the neck was reset and stopped, so the head could be made through the box to attain the desired form, but soon it was restored to the previous format as it was more aesthetically pleasing. So the spare box was removed and the head was reformed to the previous way as Ctrl+Z couldn't be used to undo because the software wouldn't allow this.
When I returned to the previous point and the character modelling video didn't show me how to connect the vertices together, the research on how to combine them together led to a video called 'Maya Tutorial How to use the Target Weld Tool' where it told me to weld the vertices together using the target weld button to combine the vertices so there wasn't a hole in the top of the character's head.
After welding the horizontal vertices together, figuring out how to not have slit holes in the sides of the head - where the vertices weren't connected to the welded top - was the next challenge. Maya wouldn't let me delete these vertices therefore using the multi-cut tool to add the edges and vertices that the spare vertices had to be welded to, to complete the head as a full shape with no holes.
Afterwards, the form was revisited as the overall shape wasn't satisfactory and needed the ridges/dents of the hips to be removed. Later while creating the horns by pulling up the eight polygons on the top of the head, a nice point was made. Furthermore, the top of the head between the horns seemed too curved so the vertices were flattened to create the aimed appeal.
Later, the character was rendered in Arnold renderer so that the right place for it in the environment could be found in After Effects. Although when rendered, the Skydome gave the render a white background so in After Effects a 'Colour Key' was added to get rid of the background to expose the environment behind the character.
After placing these assets, the colour of the lava rock had to be changed to differentiate the versions so it could go next to the bigger rock to contrast it. The colour in the ramp material changed in the Hypershader, so later it needed the brightness and contrast of the character changing. Next a red tint was applied so it would look natural in the environment. Finally, the new version was rendered to show the development.
When moving the lava rocks into the foreground corners, the aim was to have the small rocks (next to the big rocks) to be a different colour to the original so the 'Change Colour' effect was added to them to make it unique from the other, but this just changed the colour of the whole rock to look abnormal. Therefore the idea was abandoned, the duplicates were deleted and a new idea was established. The assets were continually being readjusted and the environment was rendered as another version as it progressed.
Afterwards, character modelling of the devil continued. As the model progressed, it needed to be expanded in certain places where it looked jagged. After that the character needed rounding out so the form of the character was adapted to appear 3D and less flat by the polygons being stretched. Henceforth, the arms were extruded to the size of the drawing by adding more edge loops to correct the dimensions to be in the centre of the side of the body.
Finishing the arms, then the head was modelled by cutting a hole out of the top of the character so its borders were extruded for the neck of the character using the multi-cut tool to draw out the shape so those polygons for the hole could be removed.
Extruding the border of the hole aided to creating the neck of the character that could extrude out to build on the head. As the borders were extruded more, the face was compressed and pulled to shape it properly.
During rounding the top of the head, the low poly character modelling tutorial was used to discover how to connect and to see how they constructed the head. They used a separate box for building the head so all my action up till the neck was reset and stopped, so the head could be made through the box to attain the desired form, but soon it was restored to the previous format as it was more aesthetically pleasing. So the spare box was removed and the head was reformed to the previous way as Ctrl+Z couldn't be used to undo because the software wouldn't allow this.
When I returned to the previous point and the character modelling video didn't show me how to connect the vertices together, the research on how to combine them together led to a video called 'Maya Tutorial How to use the Target Weld Tool' where it told me to weld the vertices together using the target weld button to combine the vertices so there wasn't a hole in the top of the character's head.
After welding the horizontal vertices together, figuring out how to not have slit holes in the sides of the head - where the vertices weren't connected to the welded top - was the next challenge. Maya wouldn't let me delete these vertices therefore using the multi-cut tool to add the edges and vertices that the spare vertices had to be welded to, to complete the head as a full shape with no holes.
Afterwards, the form was revisited as the overall shape wasn't satisfactory and needed the ridges/dents of the hips to be removed. Later while creating the horns by pulling up the eight polygons on the top of the head, a nice point was made. Furthermore, the top of the head between the horns seemed too curved so the vertices were flattened to create the aimed appeal.
Later, the character was rendered in Arnold renderer so that the right place for it in the environment could be found in After Effects. Although when rendered, the Skydome gave the render a white background so in After Effects a 'Colour Key' was added to get rid of the background to expose the environment behind the character.
After placing these assets, the colour of the lava rock had to be changed to differentiate the versions so it could go next to the bigger rock to contrast it. The colour in the ramp material changed in the Hypershader, so later it needed the brightness and contrast of the character changing. Next a red tint was applied so it would look natural in the environment. Finally, the new version was rendered to show the development.
References
ARTV_Tutorials. (2016, 9 Oct). Maya: Simple Character Part 01 - Modeling. [Video file]. https://youtu.be/xzmg0grXHyE [Accessed 16th April 2020]
