We had a refresher on UV mapping which offered a more in depth and surprising guide to making good UV maps by practicing on a watering can. UV Mapping is usually represented by a square on a quadrant, and whatever image you give will be comvered in that quadrant. The better you retopologise your model, the better the UV Mapping will be and the easier it will be to UV unwrap it, as will the way you cut the UV map, as well.

The quadrant is cut up into Texels, which serve as the resolution for your UV Map. If the UV map is small and you increase the texture resolution to 4k in Blender, it will be taxing on the software, especially in games.

So think about the size of your UV shell, export your plane as is to substance, keeping it as a 1k texture, the default.. Bring in the resolution texture first, as it has a massive influence on how textures will behave on the rest of the model. Higher resolution textures will behave much better, and you can easily get a 2k texture that looks good without going up to 4k.

Textile resolution is very important for games, and it’s rendered in real time, so the GPU is constantly calling for those textures. This causes a lag and potentially crashes, so I have to think about how many textures I want to add and their resolution.

When it comes to UV mapping the watering can, you should keep it simple to avoid overcomplicating the UV map.

Retopology can make UV mapping very difficult and to remedy this, consider a clothes reference to look at the seams as a way to help.

When planning the UV maps. consider the following:

• Focus on the angle, making a couple of poses with your character to plan out the maps
• UV map the hair and keep the hair as separate meshes
• Keep the hair proportionate to the size of the model
• In games models have one single quadrant.

When mapping my watering can, I learned of an interesting way to create a sharp edge, marking sharp. this tells the UV map where to create a sharp edge, and I found that very useful to create parts of the map that give the illusion of being sharp.

We did an exercise in retopology today. Our teacher asked us to try to retopologise the face of a sculpted head by using polygon build. getting a plane and snapping it on to the head’s surface, we tried our best to make a low polygon version of the face. This was as far as I got with the retopology.

I also did more of my model after a lull. I realised that I was procrastinating too much and needed to continue more actual work, so I finished the blocking for my model.

We blocked out a model of a generic creature to fashion into a model of a horse. we first followed a diagram for a generic animal and used primitive cubes to block out its features.

Then, looking at the skeleton and musculature of a horse, we re- positioned the blocks and then created a low poly sculpt out of it.

I started work on blocking out my character, as well, creating a mesh out of a path for the wing bones, modifying a cylinder and using other primitives for the rest of its features.

Our first class on Character Creation introduced us to general designing a character for a given environment. We were asked to:

• Define and understand the theoretical requirements of Character design
• Explore various approaches to designing characters and creatures
• Explore various ways to visually communicate a narrative through a still character
• create a character that makes functional sense

Anatomy is important in creating a character that works in their given environment, and we were asked to think about adaptation ideas when creating our characters- what makes sense within a certain set of rules? Do they live in the oceans? if so, they will need blowholes and flippers, be more streamlined in terms of their bodies.

I struggled with figuring out a concept for my creature, so a friend of mine recommended an artist for me to look at called Sam Fennah, who specialises in a lot of fantastical creatures with animal designs. However, I noticed many flaws in his character creation, such as giving his characters too many tails, ears and useless appendages that do not serve their biology. Other characters have long winded teeth that stretch past their cheeks, biologically impossible in our Earth system.

(7) Amygdala – Book Trailer – YouTube

While they did serve inspiration to what creature I wanted to make, I had to look elsewhere to get inspiration, such as what the creature would be like in a forest.

if they lived in a forest, they would need camouflage, a prehensile tail, curved claws to climb up trees, dextrous arms and legs.

So in the next class, I looked into what functions would be well equipped to a forest environment.

I found:

• Retractable claws for climbing- Pine Marten
• Folding wings mid flight to squeeze through tree gaps- Goshawk
• Third eyelids to protect against thorns- Goshawk
• Compact size to take advantage of tree crevasses- Red Squirrel + others
• Hard, curved beak to catch insects hiding in crevasses- Tree creeper
• Strong feet and curved claws- tree creeper
• Long tails for balance- red squirrel
• Striped fur for camouflage- Boars
• Highly sensitive ears to detect low frequency sounds- deer
• Strong legs to avoid predators- deer

I used these traits to create an early version of my creature, one that embodies most of the traits required in the environment it lives in.

I also looked at certain stylised pictures of bats to get an idea of the cute but shy creature I wanted to make.