Pirate Final Project Post 1 - Modeling

The semester, my final project is going to be a fake trailer for a pirate movie (pirate of the Caribbean style). This is a group project, so with my two classmates, we plan to shoot some footage on green screen and place it in a 3D model, use some Ncloth animations for the sails and flag, some 3D Fluid for a burning boat and canons firing, and the DMM plugin for a cracking mast. But first, I had to model the boat. Here comes the evolution of that assignment (it took a week to model).

Projection Mapping

This month assignment was pretty cool.

 We've learned the basic of projection mapping, and had to choose a picture and make our own. When we watched our instructor doing it, it looked so easy. Of course, the reality of it is very different...

 I choose a picture i've taken from downtown austin, because there wasn't much people or cars. I cleaned it a bit on photoshop, taking out stop lights and passer-by.

Downtown Austin

Ok, now basically the idea was to recreate that scene in 3D. Now here is a good tip: you want to do a good projection mapping? CHOOSE A PICTURE WITH CUBIC BUILDINGS, DAMN YOU! Seriously, do you see those two buildings in the back? I was thinking "meh, it's gonna be fine, I'll just have to recreate them", well, I'll tell you what: this was one of my stupidest moment in 3D.

I don't know what smoked the architect who built that building, but it's not cubic, it's not piramidal, it's not triangular or rectangular, but it's everything at the same time! Aaaah! Every time I passed in front of it in the bus during the month, I tried to figure out it's logic, but no! Too complex! DO NOT DO A PROJECTION MAPPING IN A BUILDING LIKE THIS! Or if you do, take pictures of it under every angle, and recreate it as close as possible.

 Anyway, moving on. After modeling the scene, I projected the picture onto the 3d elements, and with a camera was then able to move into the scene. Ok, it's the very short version, it's actually more complexe.

 Because I had issues with the horizon line, I decided to hide it with some fog created thanks to maya fluid. There is still some issues, but overall for a first try, I'm pretty happy. Now I want to try again, but this time with cubes. Gosh, it's gonna be so easy...

 

UT Flag with NCloth

It's been a while I wanted to try NCloth in Maya, so as a true Longhorn fan I decided to create a little flag. But a war flag, you know. Because they are cooler.

UT flag Maya from Vincent Desgrippes on Vimeo.

DMM breaking table in Maya

I was playing around in Maya with the DMM plug-in and came up with that result. Just frustrated the plug-in's limit is that low, and that we need to spend 300 dollars to be able to fully use that wonderful tool of destruction.

The Expendaballs

A shirt design I have made for my volleyball team using photoshop:

Medieval UT Tower

I just wanted to use some new tools learned in class, and so I decided to create a composition about UT.  My idea was: what if UT had a Medieval era?

Here is the original picture:

And here is the result:

The Draghorn is made of a mix from a Longhorn, a Velociraptor and an Eagle.

A Nazi man receives a Raptor in-between giant flowers

That's not every day that I get to draw something fun. Firstly because I never draw. Secondly because I really never draw. My handwriting is awful enough to remind me to stay away from pencils and anything close to painting creation.

Which is why, when we get that assignment to create a photoshop painting from an idea generator, I freaked out.

But then, I have to admit, the fun of creating a nazi man receiving a velociraptor in-between giant flowers helped me a bit to reconsider my skills. So after finding references online, I started painting. And man, I really, really sucked. So much that if my computer was a sheet of paper, I would have throw it away angrily (instead I was only able to wave angrily my arms with sounds of frustration.)

But I knew we were allowed to do anything we needed to achieve the painting, so I found some nice pictures of a mountain, and I just draw on it. Yes, that's cheating, but seriously, I can't draw.

But after a while I realized that this method wasn't that bad. I was only using 3 colors, and it gave a style to the image, and at the end I was even a little bit proud of it.

Then I created a tree and made it a brush, which allowed me to create the forest. The grass brush already existed.

And finally, the two characters and the flower. I used the same technique as for the mountain, and it worked pretty well. I can't draw, but at the end, I created a composition.

Now it's definitely not perfect. I don't know how to make it look nicer, and not like an element on another. That will be for next time....