Chelsea's Maya: January 2011

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Cake Is a Lie!

A quick model and UV mapped cake!
And yes it is a lie, it does not exist in real space just stupid Maya space, thus a lie.

The textures on the walls are very detailed, I am not sure if it is marble or if it is just cracked and aged, but either way that texture helps to give the player a since of something real around them rather than a computer generated plain wall. What I really like is the floor, and I am not sure how they did that to make the gold parts so much more shinny than the rest, maybe that will be something I learn to do in this class. I think that the game designers probably have people dedicated to just making the environment textures considering how detailed they are. I doubt that they find these pre-made and just plug them in.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

There are so many different textures in this screen shot yet they are all in the same monochromatic color scale. The distressed look on the brick and cement walls give a since of something that has been abandoned or run down- which is usually the time of environment that Call Of Duty sets its maps. Now these textures seem a little bit more cookie cutter, they probably had a brick or cement texture already made and they just tweak it, but they have a lot of surface area so I do not blame them.

Red Dead Redemption

This game has A LOT of wood grain textures in it, which is appropriate becuase it is set in the old west. In this picture I like the texture done on the "Sheriff" sign because that is a good example of a texture being done in a 2D program and put in, I can see the texture map now and how you would UV map that into the scene. There is a lot of repetition in the textures, between wood, rusted metal, and leather, I think that they probably only had a couple different texture maps and just layered the UV map pieces on top of each other.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Project #3- Texture

SNACK TIME!!!!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

This is my Metropolis tower after I worked on it. What gave me the most trouble was the indent in the entrance side, as you can tell I never did get it to indent on the lowest level like I wanted. But what I am happy with is all the slanted tops of cubes, I think it really helps it look more like the original. It still needs alot of work, but for my second week of knowing Maya I think it is pretty good.

Reflective Essay #2

Dostoevsky's San Francisco by myownself

http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/civilization/cityscape/#/d3d0w2

1. General composition: it is an image of the city as seen through a window.

2. Foreground, mid-ground, background relationships: The window and newspaper make up the foreground, the closer buildings make up the mid-ground, and the background is the distant buildings.

3. Scale contrast: Good scale contrast because of the small details on the large buildings.

4. Use of value contrast (differences between light and dark): There is good contrast in the image because of the extremely dark frame created by the window and the lighter shades in the buildings and sky.

5. Color (intensity, palette, warm/cool colors): The image is black and white for the most part.

6. Placement of details: I love the placement of detail that you can read the newspaper and see the window details in the lighter building.

7. Do the images make use of a repoussoir (framing) device?: Yes, yes it does. I chose to use this image for the natural framing that it has of the window.

Guangxi by Foureyes

http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?order=9&offset=120#/d160fi4

1.) This image shows what looks like a little village on a lake in the shadows of some mountains.

2.) In the foreground there are what I think are boats that take up the bottom third, then in the mid-ground there are the boats that gradually get farther away (that shows good scale contrast because they are the same boats as the close up ones) and in the background there are the mountains which are showing atmospheric perspective.

3.) As I mentioned, there is good scale contrast in the range of size of the boats.

4.) I like the dark objects set in a fairly light background, it gives it good contrast.

5.) Nice warm colors.

6.) I like the details of the boat windows in the mid-ground, it pulls your eye to the center of the composition.

7.) Not really, unless you consider the boats in the foreground.

Ansel Adams

http://media.photobucket.com/image/ansel%20adams/AlyshaFaye_photo/AnselAdams-rocks1.jpg

1.) The general composition is of some rocks and some mountains set against a bright sky.

2.) In the foreground we have the close up rocks, in the mid-ground we have far off rocks, and in the background we have the mountains and the sky.

3.) There is great scale contrast because you can get the since of depth as you see the rocks get smaller as things gradually get farther away.

4.) There is some good value contrast in the dark rocks and bright white clouds, but there are alot of midtones that overpower.

5.) It is black and white.

6.) The details are only really visible in the foreground.

7.) No.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Reflective Essay

When I began this project I was very excited, I thought that I would just pick up Maya right away and make beautiful 3D models, but that however was not the case. I found out quite quickly that Maya is a very complicated program with many functions, of which I figured out very few.

In my research I chose images that I thought would look good as 3D models, instantly I thought of the Lord of the Rings tower fortresses and set out to find a photo. What I found out about Maya later though when I rendered my first image is that the lighting is not the best for seeing certain kinds of detail, and that if I did make a model of the Gondor like I intended it would most likely not show all the hard work I would have to put into it.

Of the images I did choose to make into models the Metropolis sky scraper was my favorite in Maya while I was creating it, but when I rendered it the tower lost all the little details that made it look cool. So I would have to say that my favorite finished picture would be the second one because I think I got the angle of the camera just right that it looks like the research picture, as well as the placement of the buildings really gives a good sense of depth.

Thanks for reading this.

Project 1: finished

and here is my final Maya block city.

"Staple Street, Tribeca" by Andrew Prokos

Monday, January 10, 2011

block city 2

This is the second Maya block city I made, it goes to the second from the top image from my research... I cannot remember the name of it right now... will edit later.

*"Cityscape Chicago" by Ronald Saymour