Texturing

I haven't decided if yet if I should stick it out with current gargoyle sculpt or begin a new - I will decide by the end of the week for certain to stick it with it or start anew.

This week I decided to do a lot of texturing done and begin to place them in UE4, though I know it won't look amazing on my PC. But want to get some placement done.

To my own admission; I will add that I had a slight snafu with some of the UV's with the models. Some of the models I forgot with models are on which UV sets and also accidentally overlay some model UV's with other model UV's. So I had to re do these this week. Fortunately for me, I'm building a library of textures within Substance, so texturing is getting done quicker. 

Pecha what you ma call it

This week I focused on getting my Pecha Kucha presentation. I also tried to re-position parts of my gargoyle asset, however I think it may be best to restart it. I'm going to debate this and if I do scrap current gargoyle sculpt, I shall start from scratch next week.

Trying to edit current Zbrush raven gargoyle sculpt:

Also, the numpty that I am forgot to add (again) a couple of weeks ago that I decided to add a roof to my cathedral asset. Seen below with baked normals

Back to this week's post. 

Substance graph: 

I also made a roof tile base version were I don't have the normals for the tiles 

In addition to this, I redone the brick texture so the brick size is bigger. Also make a very less worn looking one. 

Texture test on back wall asset. 

Note: I am going to have a few days off next week, so I probably won't have much to post next week. But I will try to post something. 

Uvs, Baking, photogrammetry, textures and Pope Benson

Baking, UV mapping and textures 

This week was fairly straight forward with what I had to do, UV map my assets, bake them and began texturing. 

Also, with my concrete textures I began to use them for a base for brick textures. Though critique, I was told to look at the stone used for certain places. I will place this research down below. 

Substance graph: 

As you can see, I built upon the graph for my concrete textures from a few weeks back. 

I was also told that with my former window test, I need to use something similar to what I want to do, otherwise I wouldn't get the right results I was looking for. So I created a stained glass window texture - Pope Benson 

Pope Benson

The stained glass window texture was inspired by my pet dog, Benson. Inspiration photo below texture

 Influence: Benson 

Photogrammetry

The last thing I tested this week was photogrammetry. What is photogrammetry?
The best definition for it is found on photogrammetry.com
"The input to photogrammetry is photographs, and the output is typically a map, a drawing, a measurement, or a 3D model of some real-world object or scene. Many of the maps we use today are created with photogrammetry and photographs taken from aircraft."

Talking to a technician at uni, I found out there's a photogrammetry software for free and which is actually really good. It's called 3DF Zephyr.  As seen above, this is my result following a Tutorial on 3D flow website. Due to having a potato PC, this did take an entire evening to do. 

After my PC got into several hissy fits, the results (as seen above) turned out really well. I will have to look at this again in the future. This was set as a task, but I won't include it in my task submissions as I followed a tutorial for this. But, I am seeing it as an experiment. 

Screen captures whilst working with tutorial: 

Stone used for Notre Dame De Paris: 

I couldn't find too much information on what type of stone that was used for Notre Dame, but what little information I could find is that the original stone that was used was Courville stone and later Lutetian Limestone aka Paris Stone. 

https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Lutetian%20Limestone

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-stones-of-paris-403115.html

http://www.reims-cathedral.culture.fr/materials.html

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/architecture/notre-dame-paris.htm

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233535616_Stone_uses_in_Reims_Cathedral_Provenance_physical_properties_and_restoration_phases

http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/bneparistrip/2015/04/20/site-observation-notre-dame-cathedral/

Zbrush sculpt, task three and task four

This week I primarily focused on ASU2. I finally got a sculpt form I was pleased with (and didn't get into a hissy fit with). Sculpt seen below:

In addition this week, I done two more tasks - task three time limit was one day. Task four was two days.

Task three's aim: the aim for this was to model something and try to make the textures stylized. Part 1 is rendered within Designer and part 2 was using cel shading blueprints within UE4 - fortunately, I done cel shading before in UE4, so this didn't take long to do. Task three is a recreation of Bender from Futurama. This is a small scale test, to see if I can create stylized textures and use them for my main piece for both SNU and ASU2

Video of some of my work on the Bender model:

Task 4 aim: though I used Zbrush to add details on high poly models from Maya. However, I never done a Zbrush sculpt and then made it low poly in Maya. This week I also quad draw, so I wanted to try it out. I couldn't get use to it so I made up a back up plan: If I couldn't get use to quad draw before hand in, I needed another way to make the Zbrush model in game ready. So I lowered the poly count within Zbrush using Zremesher. I know I need to get use to quad draw within Maya, as it looks extremely handy to make a low poly mesh from a high poly model. But if it doesn't go well, at least I know I have a back up plan.

The texture used for mask was made using different layers of colour and smart masks

Tutorials I Looked at for Quad Draw:
Maya Tutorial - Quad Draw Tool
Create 3d Characters
Retopology for Beginners in Maya
Maya 2017 Update 3: Quad Draw / Make Live Workflow

Websites looked at for Quad Draw:
Autodesk: Quad Draw Tool
Autodesk: Retopologize a mesh with Quad Draw

Zbrush sculpts, high poly models and research

These are some gargoyle sculpts as I wanted to get started on the gargoyle. I originally wanted to do a dragon gargoyle - to keep it traditional. However, I wanted to do something different. 

I also done some research into the meanings of some animals. Will put links that I looked at at the bottom of the post. I decided to make a raven gargoyle sculpt. I will put the reason why I chose ravens down the bottom with the links.

Before I done these sculpts, I did try to make a gargoyle model within Maya - I didn't go well. But I used the head for the base of one of my gargoyle sculpts. 

Another attempt to create a gargoyle in Maya. Quickly knew this one wouldn't work: 

I also finally began to do high poly models on the cathedral asset 

In addition to this I done some tests on the window section on the asset. I keep having problems with glass materials when I try to create my own and there's no avoiding it in this project, I will have to use glass. So before I try (and fail), I wanted to see if I can use a glass material in UE4 and edit it so add my own custom made stained glass window.

I grabbed an image from google and used it for the test. I didn't want to create my own, test it and for it to fail. Fortunately for me, the test kinda work, so now I will go ahead and create my own stained glass window texture

As promised links for research into the spiritual meanings behind dragons and ravens:
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/dragon-totem.html
http://www.spiritanimal.info/dragon-spirit-animal/
https://whatismyspiritanimal.com/fantasy-mythical-creatures/dragon-symbolism-meaning/
https://www.guardian-angel-reading.com/blog-of-the-angels/spiritual-dragon/
https://exemplore.com/spirit-animals/Animal-Spirit-Guides-Meanings-Dragon-Spirit-Guide
https://whatismyspiritanimal.com/spirit-totem-power-animal-meanings/birds/raven-symbolism-meaning/
https://whatismyspiritanimal.com/spirit-totem-power-animal-meanings/birds/raven-symbolism-meaning/
http://www.spiritanimal.info/raven-spirit-animal/
http://www.shamanicjourney.com/raven-power-animal-master-magician-keeper-of-secrets
https://alltotems.com/spirit-animals/raven-symbolism-meaning/
https://www.spirit-animals.com/raven/
https://news.softpedia.com/news/10-Amazing-Facts-About-Ravens-70914.shtml
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53295/10-fascinating-facts-about-ravens
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/c/common-raven/
https://news.softpedia.com/news/10-Amazing-Facts-About-Ravens-70914.shtml
http://listverse.com/2017/11/12/10-incredible-facts-about-ravens/
https://birdeden.com/top-amazing-facts-about-ravens
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/638969/Top-10-facts-ravens


So why did I eventually chose ravens?
There's a lot of reasons, first of their characteristics. Not only can they talk - they can mimic human voices like crows and magpie; they are intelligent; amusingly they can get 'stoned' using ants; they are very adaptable. They are also known to be playful and known to be highly empathetic - two qualities I like about the ravens as I relate to that a lot

Raven's showing their playful side in the snow:

Ravens in mythology:
Most people know that ravens symbolize death, known to be a dark omen or from Edgar Allan Poe poem, they symbolize lost love. However, in other cultures they have some other mythology, I shall put these in bullet points:

•  French myths: they are seen to hold the souls of wicked priests 
• Norse myths: Odin had two which reported to him every thing they saw and heard
• Swedish myths: ghosts of murdered people
• Native American myths: are seen as tricksters or shapeshifters
• Celtic myths: they were an omen of battle and bloodshed 
• Hindu myths: souls of the deceased which represent bad or good luck

Spiritual meanings to ravens: 

• comfort
• courage
• creation
• death
• darkness
• life
• messenger 
• self-reflection
• self-knowledge
• sexuality 
• magic 
• experiences

Back to the research I done a while back on gargoyles, they are used as gargoyle sermon stones (as in the middle ages people couldn't read). These would teach people about religion or scare people to attending church. They were also used to scare away evil spirits from the church or cathedral. With the spiritual and mythological research, I think ravens would fit the former point of use for gargoyles.

Raven Moodboard:

Sketches: