the Dwarf town..

a wee update on work done to the town.. maybe needs to be bigger.. and needs life for sure, but as the camera is moving and the town will be burning.. a bit more vis needed to nail it!

Burning Paper Test 1

I tried to take John H's burning map and use it to add fire - for reasons unknown I couldn't access the textures. Anyway, here's the first version with some fire - it needs to be worked on but you can see the potential hopefully!

Dragon Progress

Still lots to do, but here's an update. Ignore any texture/shading issues.

River texture

According to a tutorial from John Mcgowan and it looks not bad > <. John!!!!! you are brilliant !!!! Any problem?

Tree-Hand Moodboards & Concept Art

Looking through everything that is being worked on at the moment I realized that not very much had been done for the 'Tree-Hand' which entraps the eagle, so I've gathered some research into moodboards and created some artwork concepts.

Tree-Hand Moodboard:

Origami/Paper Trees Moodboard:

Concept Artwork:

I quite liked the idea of the 1st one I drew (top left) of the roots looking like a second hand clawing at the ground - this part wouldn't need animated though, just the main hand part of the branches. With two hands this adds a slightly more human quality, as if Morgoth himself is clawing his way up through the ground. Also the branches and roots look quite contorted which add a sinister and creepy feeling to the tree.
I also tried out a tree with the fingers/branches more closed inwards and claw-like (middle bottom).
Added a few leaves to the tree (middle top) which could be shaken or dropped off when the tree becomes more alive - as if the hand was in disguise.
Also drew a more simplified and origami design for a tree (right) which could be the surrounding trees.

- Lilly

Wake of the Dragon

Another fire test - all animated textures at the moment - timing is to get right, as well as shape and disguising the paper split.  Will make a huge difference when we have real fire to cimp in!

Colour Script/Coloured Moodboards

Here is my attempt at coloured mood boards/ colour scripts. The last couple I just left as Sheng had already coloured them.

Updated Eagle Model

George had begun some tests on rigging the eagle and had asked ne to update the wings to add in some more feathers, straighten out the wings and slim the connection between the wings and body. In addition, I tidied up some of the geometry, enhanced the lines on the head and changed the way the sections wrap around the wings a little. I re-rendered these with a little transparency on the wings and tail, which gives it a more vulnerable papery look.

Map scene

I know we have changed the idea of how a mountain will be modeled. However any thoughts on the setup?

Paper Mountain

Discussing the distant mountain shapes with Kirti and John H. Is this this the kind of thing everyone else was thinking for the mountains? Feedback please.

[Animatic texture] the river

                                         

Texturing in Mudbox

  

Texturing the mountain in Mudbox is the final pipeline for texturing the mountain.This is because its easy to draw onto and you can easy move the model around to match up to the projected drawing. This  as well and drawing anything that is missing straight onto the model. to create a full finessed effect. You can the export exactly what you see in mud box into maya. The model is initially exported to mud box as a fbx file. If you only texture one side of the model that how it will export to Maya as shown in the first image. But you just need to move the model in Mudbox to complete the texture. Therefore it doesn't have the same complications projecting straight through the camera in Maya would have.

[Storyboard update]

Eagle Design

This is the semi-rough character design of the eagle, on which John M. based his 3D model. It is essentially a mixture of elements from our initial eagle designs. I just sketched all the elements together on a sheet.

Eagle Version 1

Here's the first version of the eagle model, so the riggers can get cracking! And, of course, if anyone wants to experiement with textures as well? The wings were a bit of an issue, in terms of the overlapping elements. So, I've slotted them in to one another to allow room to move up and down - we may have to widen them depending on how large the movements of the wings are.

These test images are just with some ambient occlusion - the file is on the shared folder. Any feedback is welcome!

Modelling Progress

Modelling progress, still blocking out most of the body and wings, but you get the idea. 

Forever Texturing

Ok so, I've been meaning to post this up for a while. Rebecca and I have been messing around with projection in mudbox and maya.

                                 

This first piece is more of a  concept. The texture was projected on in maya (if I remember correctly). But there was so little control over where the texture sat. There's just a backdrop and light thrown in there too, to help create more depth.

UV map

                                                     Texture created in Mudbox & PS

Elements put together in Maya

This is just like the test Rebecca previously posted, checking the projected texture against the map (obviously it's not in the right place, but you get the point).

The method that seemed to be easiest was to apply the paper colour/texture of the map as an actual shader and then to project the lines on top, placing them where we wanted them and just updating the changes from the projected stencils in mudbox to the existing shader. Once the lines were on the 3D model, they seemed to be less sketch-like. I think we'll need to tweak the stencil a bit. It's not perfect, but it is getting there.

Dwarf Town...

Couple more test renders of the town area.. more team on board now, so should get bigger, quicker :)

Final Dragon Design.

The rendering isn't quite as good as the first test, but it's more just to post the model. Ignore any shading/texture errors.

Burning..

Thinking of the burning town, here is a cinder test, looking at the effect of heat on paper.  No smoke or fire yet, just animated texture, ramp masks and noise.  Some bump mapping to at crinkle to the paper over time. Animated smoke volume and mesh distortion modifiers do look cool, but still to be worked on.

Projection - texturing pipeline

I tried out different ways of projecting throughout the camera using 3D textures and locators. This was to work out the best way to texture drawn lines onto the mountain. we were looking at how to project them in Maya the camera. This however was proving to difficult due to the multiple sides this version of the mountain had.

     

Mountain Concept Sketches