Shack Attack!

Hey Guys, let me know what you think of the shack. Experimented with some colour, i think it works quite well. Need to add more details, but still keeping it simple. Also keeping the colours blocked so lewis can do his thing with the toon-shader.

Coffin Maker

Well here he is the zombie coffin maker. Now this, I'm very happy about espescially the glowing eyes and the shading. I really like this character, after seeing A Fist Full Of Dollars I had to colour this bad boy in, let me know what you think. In case you're wandering I used inner and outer glow to get that glowing effect, just makes sure the layer you're doing it on is on top of your line art.

To Hell and back..........

Here's some examples of Mike Mignola's work. All the images are taken form his comic book Hellboy. I love his use of heavy shadow. This is what the look of my coloured Maya Mountain reminded me of.

Lewis vs Toon Shader (round 2)!

Hey guys, I've finished colouring the mountain using the toon shader. I decided to colour the unsmoothed model as I just think it looks more interesting. I had a good hearty go at the toon shader and this is what I came up with. I'd heard of this this called 'Non Realistic Shading' from the Internet, which apparently gets a similar effect to the new Prince of Persia game. However, I found out that I would have hack into Maya to install the add on. Now, I'm no computer expert, so I decided to throw that idea out the window. Instead I decided to battle the toon shader once one. I drew influence from the two tonal shading from our concept designs and decided to make the shades of the mountain quite stark. A bright orangy-yellow for the highlights, a deeper orange tone for the mids, and a abrasive black for the shadows. For the outline, I decided to keep it quite thin as i think that a really thick outline can look a bit tacky. However when fiddling with the outliner I noticed there are different settings. There is the usual outliner effect which just does the border of the entire shape, or there is another one which outlines just the contours in the model. I chose to use a combination of the both to get the effect that you see in the images. It seems, that the unsmoothed model has created a really cool effect, as it has given the mountain a very blocky, comic book style shading. Also, because I used An outliner for the contours of the model aswell, it has outlined certain, jutting parts of the model which gives it a more 3d look. The use of heavy shadow has given the model an interesting look which reminds me of Mike Mignola's art style. Sam suggested in a telephone conversation with myself that, for my next model, I should put the model against the gradient background that we made to get an idea of what it might look like in the final film. It's funny because I think that the coloured model, actually looks a lot like some of our concepts. Obviously, there are some things I would like to change about the model, but all in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

A search for the edge...

Hey guys here I have uploaded two pictures from my recent maya model of a mountain. It's been going OK (for once), and the front and side view sketches that I did really helped, I recommend that anyone who is having trouble should do it. I made the mountain from two cubes, which I messed around with using the 'insert edge loop tool' function. I have uploaded the unsmoothed model and the smoothed one. After, smoothing the model I ended up not liking how the mountain looks, it seems to my to look really bland and boring. I actually favour the unsmoothed model as I think it had far more character to it. It sort of reminds me of the look of the new Banjo-Kazooie game coming out for the X-box 360, which has a very cube like design. I want to here what everyone else in the group thinks but, personally I much prefer the blockier style. It reminds me of comic book artist Mike Mignola.

Mood Board.

Hey Guys,
Thought I'd post up the mood board if any one needed it as reference. Hope everything this going well over the weekend. Starting to think more about starting Maya modelling next week. Lewis your rocks are really good, the top one is spot on i think. Exactly what we need. We'll probably do some more experimenting but i think you got the toon shader to work perfectly :)

Toon Shader

I have been spending all day today, modelling this boulder and colouring it in maya. Firstly the model of the boulder looks like a lump of poo. Secondly, I have spent many infuriating hours using the toon shader in maya and to no avail. I did receive the look I desired. I don't know what anyone else thinks in the group but I am quite unsatisfied with look of the effect.