Week 1
This week I began using Maya. At first, I was nervous to begin using this software as I didn’t have previous experience with it. However, after watching Alec’s video showing how he animated a cactus, I became better adapted to using the different shortcuts and controls for modelling in Maya. During Wednesday’s class, I made a start on creating a Café scene by building a table and chairs. Here, I practiced more of what I learned from the online videos which really solidified the new skills I was learning.
I feel confident that I can use the tools which maya offers to build structures, as well as a few different shortcuts to components which I use to edit mesh such as extrude. I also understand how to edit the vertices of an object to make the model smooth.
After gaining some confidence in my ability to make simple objects in Maya, I began sketching out a few ideas for what I want my Sci-Fi radio to look like. I looked at a number of images on Pinterest which I can reference when I begin constructing the base of my model.
Some of my reference images show very futuristic, sturdy looking radios – when it came to generating my own ideas, I found I prefer old fashioned radios because they are more recognisable. It will be interesting to see the different ways I could experiment with their features – the antenna and dial might make a model more interesting. To make sure the radio looks ‘Sci-fi’ enough, I drew a few extra glowing neon wires here and there which will add a cyber punk look to the model.
Week 2
I continued with my cactus, adding colour and rigging it so that it is ready to animate.
After watching some online tutorials, I decided it was time to start modelling a sci-fi radio.
I sloped the back of the radio down and inwards to avoid it looking like a TV and to exaggerate the shape so it isn’t a simple square. This model uses lots of edges and vertices which, although complicated, rounds the model off and will hopefully make it easier for myself in the future when I start introducing new polygons and want to make more changes to the model. I removed the front face of the square so that it won’t get in the way of any indentations I want to make when adding objects to the model.
To make the antenna, I used a cylinder polygon and added lots of edges to it using the multi-cut tool. then I individually rotated each new edge loop so that the wire model looked smooth. While playing around with the options in Maya, I discovered a warping option that lets you bend an object. I bent the antenna which I think adds character to the radio because it appears slightly less uniform and rigid.
Duplicating the antenna allowed me to use the object for this neon wire inside the radio. I placed it behind a slightly transparent ‘plane’ polygon. To make the pit where the wire is placed inside, I added edges to the dark purple cylinder and pushed the faces inwards. I think this addition to the model transformed it from a regular radio to a sci-fi radio.
I discovered a really useful way to make a cable that I wish I had known when modelling my antenna – using the EP curve tool and snapping a flat cylinder face to it, extruding it and adding devisions so that the new cylinder follows along the new curve I had drawn. This allowed me to make a more natural looking cable for my sci-fi radio.
This is the dial for my radio. I used a cylinder polygon and added edges to it to make it round and so I could make it’s face concave. I later discovered that I shouldn’t have used a cylinder polygon because it made the surface uneven, which looks wrong depending on the lighting.
Week 3
UV Mapping practice
Following the class lectures and online tutorials, I practiced UV mapping models using Maya.
I used photoshop to put the wood and metal texture over the appropriate UV islands according to the the UV snapshot.
Then, I tried making a model based on a Star Wars spaceship so that I could practice UV unwrapping further and add a texture to it.
Once I had unwrapped the ball model, I brought the UV snapshot into photoshop and placed this rusted metal texture under it.
I had a few problems bringing the texture back into Maya from Photoshop, as the texture didn’t appear on the model.
I decided to move onto UV unwrapping my Sci-Fi Radio.
At first, the UV map for my model was very stretched and messy. I tried working with it and accidentally made the problem worse as the screenshot below shows.
I gave it another go and was happy with the result. I rotated the UV so that the squares were even and tried to make the seams line up.
From here, I felt ready to take the shell of my Sci-Fi radio into Substance 3D painter to make some textures for it.
week 4
When I brought the model into Substance, I decided to go for a rough metal texture as it fitted the ‘Sci-fi’ look I was going for and matched some of the reference images I was looking at a few weeks ago in terms of looking heavy and robust.
The base colour is a greyish purple, and I added some dark purple paint strokes to it. Originally, I wanted to make some graffiti art on it as that would fit into the cyberpunk subgenre of sci-fi, but I became more interested in trying out some of the different brushes in Substance. I used bright green to compliment the purple metal and added bright pink using a different blotchy brush – this really illuminated the corners of the radio. I liked the hand-print brush so I added in a few finger marks as I think they work well with the Sci-fi theme – I kept them the same bright green so they wouldn’t distract from the overall colour scheme I’m going for. Lastly, I dotted yellow arrows around because I wanted a colour to highlight the bright green.
week 5
When I first brought the model into Sketchfab, it looked very grey and washed out. I wanted to use colour, setting and lighting to really sell the “Sci-Fi” aspect of my radio to the viewer.
I used vibrant shades of pink to contrast with the darker purple colours – the neon wire behind glass is glowing and I think it’s noticeable because of the dark purple surface it sits inside. I also made the pink cylinders glow – they aren’t supposed to, but it really makes the pink colour pop and draws your attention to the face of the Sci-Fi radio. Sketchfab is very enjoyable to use and I found all of the different light settings fun to experiment with. Initially, I wanted to achieve a dreamy type of lighting, where the reflected light is very diffused and makes the model hazey to look at.
I feel like I didn’t achieve that with this yellow background colour, and I also realised that a dream like environment wouldn’t compliment a Sci-fi radio. It would make more sense to have a dark setting, especially since there are glowing parts to the model that would benefit from some extra contrast.
raadioo – 3D model by lazereyez (@lazereyez) [a235c45] (sketchfab.com)
I added a slight grain over everything to blend out the bloom lighting as it was slightly pixelated. A problem that I came across was that the texture which I made in Substance Painter looked stretched – I must have made a mistake while working on my UV’s that caused this to happen. Luckily, the irregular pattern of my texture makes this issue slightly less noticeable, but if I were to do this task again I would go back into Maya and ensure I had correctly UV unwrapped the model. Overall, I’m pleased with how my model has turned out and I look forward to using the skills I have learned from this assignment in the future.