I got my model checked over and asked some questions that cleared up my worries about my model to start this week. So I decided to compare the looks of my models my moving the retopo next to my sculpt.
Then I started to look at my props, I new I wanted to have some books and a pen that my model would hold. I decided to make the pen using a cube primitive that I subdivided and then used a series of adding loops and extrusions to get the shape I wanted. I really liked this but, then I got worried about how I applied my modifiers on my sculpt before checking for n-gons so I restarted using a backup and lost this, but I use this same approach for my actual pen too.
UNWRAPPING
I actually restarted my file a couple times to check for n-gons in the correct way, since my mirror clipping seems to not have worked that well I had to go through and make sure all my verts were merged and no faces were hidden behind the model. I wanted to take my time to look for these so that when it came to unwrapping I wouldn’t find any hiding. I had asked around approaching unwrapping and joining my models, since this was an area that I had some critiques about in my last assignment and so I unwrapped my objects separately, to be compiled together in the same UV unwrap file so I can texture it all together later.
During class time I was able to make a start on this, starting with the wings I just marked a seam on the edge and overlapped them so that both wings would be the same.
For the torso I started by marking seams around the sleeves, then I did the loops where my model is obscured by other parts, I then marked down the back to split this up further, I left this as is for now but I may have to adjust to fit my whole model unwrap in the UV.
To unwrap my arms I created seams around the elbow, wrists and shoulder joints as well as around the hand and sides of the arm.
I then did similar to the top set, keeping in mind what was visible on the model and what wasn’t.
Taking a look at the finger, I wasn’t liking how warped the squares were looking. So I redid them and they turned out a bit better afterwards. Instead of redoing my seams on the other set of fingers, I just copied the UV of them with CTRL+L.
The legs were pretty simple, I marked seams around the top and bottom as well as around the knee joint.
The thumb was also relatively easy, around the top bottom and then below the joint.
When it came to the face it was a bit trickier since I wanted to keep my whole mask in one piece, but break it up better at the back and around the antennae.
With this the unwrapping of my individual pieces were all done, now the real hard part began. I was a bit nervous to try and pack my islands all together, it would be quite a hard puzzle to do.
Here I tried to use just averaging my island sizes and then packing them, but it didn’t really work well for me, since some areas I want with more resolution didn’t get them and ones that I could sacrifice the resolution on ended up with more. So I decided I would have to resize my UVs by myself to get what I wanted. This was quite a daunting task, and I had to reattempt this quite a bit since I was finding myself getting quite frustrated on how to approach trying to pack this and at this point I was getting quite tired. So, I went back and watched the time-lapse of the goblin UV process
Having another look at how the Goblin was unwrapped I started to think about my own approach, I realised I was getting intimidated by all the different pieces and that I should build around my most important UVs and take it from there. At this point I also thought it would help to straighten out some of my UVs to help.
Reference:
With this I had a better understanding of how to arrange my UVs better, and I was able to clear some unnecessary seams as well like for the back of the head where I was able to remove the seams around and stitch the halves together.
This was how I laid out the torso, and the shorts, this way makes them look like clothing patterns which helped me visualise how to put them together and organise them a bit easier.
With the main body done I had a lot of scattered UVs for the arms and fingers lying around to sort.
Already you can tell that this approach was a lot neater and easier to sort than before. I have tried to keep the difference in resolution combined, but I am questioning whether I am doing it correctly and I’m sure that there isn’t necessarily a ‘correct’ way to do it since models vary. Despite my worries I can say that this is a lot better than letting the program do it automatically since I have ore control, and my instincts towards unwrapping will get better the more I practice.
As I was unwrapping I did have a couple complications, finding n-gons and, as in the screenshot below, my UVs changed by accident as I was straightening out others and I made sure to correct this as they came. I also used the minimalize stretching option in the UV menu to help with how the checkers were laying on the model.
With that, my unwrapping was complete! I still have a long way to go with this until I would consider myself good at it, and I am a bit wary on how the resolution may look on some of my parts, but I have improved sine my last assignment. I also applied my modifiers and joined together my model’s parts at this stage.
PROPS
So before starting the prop I wanted to make sure that we textured them using separate UV maps, in case I needed to rework my models UV maps to compensate and thankfully I didn’t.
So I got to working on my props, for this I wanted to make a pen and some books that my Mothman would stand on.
The pen I started with a cube primitive that I subdivided and then I started to extrude it out. I followed along with this image of a fountain pen behind, adding loops and extruding the nice rings and then using a bevel to get the nice smooth edges. Once I got to make the nib I just manipulate the verts into the shape I wanted by moving them, I then wanted the nice open bit between the points (where the ink sits to write) so I ended up deleting half the pen and bridge the edge loops at the bottom to connect them together, and when I was happy I just used a mirror modifier and applied it. Then I went ahead and stitched together the two halves, I did it this way to make sure there weren’t any issues with my quads, since I had some trouble with them during retopo, and it also allowed me to clear up any other n-gons I created along the way, then I just shaded smooth to finish.
Then I went and started on the books. I started first on the open book that the Mothman would write in, like I sketched out earlier. I started with a cube primative and started to make the cover and spine.
Then I went and dissolved the edges on the top face, inset and extruded upward to become the pages of the book. I went and made a loop in the centre and moved this new edge towards the spine to create the fold in the pages, and bevelled edges out to round them, I adjusted the height of these slightly to create the idea of bending pages that lie flat at the edge.
I wanted to break up the flat edges more so I created a cube and adjusted it to make a wedge shape. I then used the boolean modifier to cut out the edges and create the illusion of pages. I also did this to the spine area as well.
When attempting to fix my n-gons for this I was having a bit of issue where I had my Boolean on the spine. I tried deleting the verts and rebuilding this area by extruding edges, but it left behind some artifacting. So I decided to separate the pages of the book and try to remake the spine, but this wasn’t giving me the results I wanted either. So I decided to remake this book, and use the cuts I made as a guide of how to build the spine with polygons.
I found that remaking this was a good idea, I think it ended up better than the first attempt where I used the Boolean modifier too much. Here, I used the mirror modifier to make sure my sides were equal size and then applied this and dissolved edges to inset the face and extrude the spine inwards, replicating what I had in my first attempt. I then went ahead and bevelled this out to have a mixture of hard straight edges and curved ones. I went in only twice this time with the Boolean and a wedge I made to cut out some lifted pages and then fixed these cuts into quads using the knife tool. There is a bit of weird lighting where I made cuts around the pages to compensate but I can adjust these later to fix this.
The last thing I needed to make was the book, this was where I was going to have my Mothman standing in the final scene. I started with a cube primative and scaled it up, then I went in and extruded the sides to make the cover of the book. I went in and made some loop cuts so that I could bevel and then went around and fixed any n-gons.
To finish I went and applied all my transformations to my props. I then went and cloned all the books up to see how it would look in my final posing and I think it is pretty cute. The next step is to unwrap these exactly how I did for my Mothman.
