Finally!
Ive battled with numerous issues, from the project file messing up to loosing the UDK screenshot sequences and having to upgrade my laptop's HDD half way though putting together the final cinematic.
Its been a frustrating effort to get this project wrapped up.
So in summary: This is the final product of my 2nd year (1st semester) project for a digital media class at university. We had to work on an architectural visualisation and I chose to mix things up a bit and use a game engine for the rendering which lead me to UDK and to the 11 day level design tutorial. (Id never used UDK before, but Ive had several years experience using Blenders inbuilt game engine)
The building and surrounding environment is based on the Roman Ludus and terrain from the TV series 'Spartacus Blood and Sand' and 'Gods of the Arena'.
Id originally submitted a rushed version of the final cinematic for the actual assignment, but wanted to tidy it all up a bit more before uploading to youtube (thats the part thats taken so long to get around to doing)
Ive mostly used 3Dsmax for the modelling, but did a bit in Blender as well. Level blocking was done in UDK and Gimp/Photoshop for 2D texture work.
I did a lot of preproduction, including drawing up some blueprints for reference from scenes in the series and an entire design/planning document to refer to throughout the duration of the project.
And finally heres the cinematic:
Now, time to get into other projects :)
Showing posts with label Ludus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ludus. Show all posts
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Exam Fortnight (arrrghhh)
One week of exams left, Ive only had 2 exams this semester which is nice, but it still means lots of sitting around in the dark corner of my room for days on end doing last minute study.
My first (and most difficult) exam was yesterday, my final exam for the semester is this upcoming Friday, and after that I have holidays till August (Hurray!)
I have, however, continued working on polishing up the Ludus cinematic (not too much longer!)
And Ive started blocking out shots for my secret 2nd project which I hinted to in the last post. At the moment I have just over a minute of blocked out shots finished (with a couple of the shots being pretty much final - odd at this stage but theres a couple of non blender things going on here as well)
Looks like full animation will be ~4mins, not including intro and credits. Havent posted anything that long for quite some time, but its nice to have a substantial animation in the works. Also due to its nature it *shouldnt* take too long to produce. I cant say much about why that is, cause it would give a lot away. Just got a couple more characters and environments to *restore* and rig up, then some animation and Im on my way.
Ah, and I really need to get this new video series on the go as well (I think 99% of all the people who follow my work wouldnt even know about this blog yet, the first video of the series will be about news and updates etc so thatll point people here as well)
Im in the process of designing the HUD for the series currently...
-Yes this series is so serious that it requires a HUD.. D:
My first (and most difficult) exam was yesterday, my final exam for the semester is this upcoming Friday, and after that I have holidays till August (Hurray!)
I have, however, continued working on polishing up the Ludus cinematic (not too much longer!)
And Ive started blocking out shots for my secret 2nd project which I hinted to in the last post. At the moment I have just over a minute of blocked out shots finished (with a couple of the shots being pretty much final - odd at this stage but theres a couple of non blender things going on here as well)
Looks like full animation will be ~4mins, not including intro and credits. Havent posted anything that long for quite some time, but its nice to have a substantial animation in the works. Also due to its nature it *shouldnt* take too long to produce. I cant say much about why that is, cause it would give a lot away. Just got a couple more characters and environments to *restore* and rig up, then some animation and Im on my way.
Ah, and I really need to get this new video series on the go as well (I think 99% of all the people who follow my work wouldnt even know about this blog yet, the first video of the series will be about news and updates etc so thatll point people here as well)
Im in the process of designing the HUD for the series currently...
-Yes this series is so serious that it requires a HUD.. D:
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Back to Blender [finally]
With exams on the horizon I havent been too active with 3D work(s), but thats not to say I havent done anything.
The Ludus project is coming to a close (finally! Im seriously about to boot the whole thing out the door) and now Ill have time to focus on finishing my other 2 current projects, plus starting a third.
Not sure if Ive mentioned this anywhere, but Im trying to buckle down with projects at the moment. Leaving myself with 3 running at one time max, so once one of the 3 is complete I can take on a new project. This means that I cannot allow myself to get distracted with other projects (lack of productivity lately has forced me to try to rework my project and time management to try and help get more projects finished)
Any other projects I come up with get written down in my notebook and are pretty much forgotten, to be started when Ive completed some other project.
Either way, the Ludus project is finished, I completed the A2 poster for it a week ago, its pretty simple with a wide view of the cliff as the basis, the Ludus perched on the side in the lower right of the poster. The whole bottom of the poster is a 'making of' section which describes the process of designing the level and theres a few other interior shots thrown in around the place as well.
Heres a final shot of everything together:
I still havent finished the cinematic, but will continue to work on it over the next week or so before uploading.
And finally, I havent mentioned anything about my 2nd current project, the screenshot below is a sneak-peak, many people should know where its from, and what it is.
The Ludus project is coming to a close (finally! Im seriously about to boot the whole thing out the door) and now Ill have time to focus on finishing my other 2 current projects, plus starting a third.
Not sure if Ive mentioned this anywhere, but Im trying to buckle down with projects at the moment. Leaving myself with 3 running at one time max, so once one of the 3 is complete I can take on a new project. This means that I cannot allow myself to get distracted with other projects (lack of productivity lately has forced me to try to rework my project and time management to try and help get more projects finished)
Any other projects I come up with get written down in my notebook and are pretty much forgotten, to be started when Ive completed some other project.
Either way, the Ludus project is finished, I completed the A2 poster for it a week ago, its pretty simple with a wide view of the cliff as the basis, the Ludus perched on the side in the lower right of the poster. The whole bottom of the poster is a 'making of' section which describes the process of designing the level and theres a few other interior shots thrown in around the place as well.
Heres a final shot of everything together:
I still havent finished the cinematic, but will continue to work on it over the next week or so before uploading.
And finally, I havent mentioned anything about my 2nd current project, the screenshot below is a sneak-peak, many people should know where its from, and what it is.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Ludus DVD + Cinematic
The DVD design is finished, and the Cover+DVD with the cinematic on it was handed up Monday when it was due. Unfortunately I had to rush the cinematic quite a bit more than what I wanted, so its very much lacking polish. Didnt have a choice however, I had to hand it up how it was because I was out of time.
This means I wont be uploading the final cinematic for at least another week, as I need to work on it some more first.
Heres some pics of the DVD
Next up Im doing the final part of the project, an A2 poster.
Cant wait to finish this and get back to some Blender projects!
This means I wont be uploading the final cinematic for at least another week, as I need to work on it some more first.
Heres some pics of the DVD
Next up Im doing the final part of the project, an A2 poster.
Cant wait to finish this and get back to some Blender projects!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Thoughts on 3DsMax + More screenshots
First up, some more screenshots (even some interior shots) over in the thread at GameArtists.net.
I mentioned in the post how I failed at implementing most of the decals, some kind of lighting issues going on which I dont have the time to look into fixing right now, so most of the decals I made were just a waste of time. *sigh*
Onto current thoughts on 3DsMax (beware, long and drawn out):
So Ive been using 3dsMax pretty extensively the past few months and I cant help but compare it to Blender in several ways.
Its been painful getting into it, but Im slowly getting the hang of using 3DsMax to model and UV map basic objects. It bugs me however, doing anything seems to be overly 'bulky' and/or 'slow'. Ive put most of that down to me not being experienced with Max, anyone familiar with a 3D program will know that they each have their own little tricks and quirks, and once youve gotten to know the program well enough everything starts to flow better. But even telling myself this all the time, I still feel like my inexperience with Max isnt the whole problem. I have after-all been using it for months and know the in's and out's of modeling simple objects with it reasonably well. But for me it seems non-intuitive.
Nothing seems to be in the place you automatically think it should be, or even the next place you think it should be. Max seems to be the product of getting a bunch of uninspired programmers in one room to throw together a program, no consideration for the artists at all.
Sometimes even simple tasks take a whole lot of (seemingly) unnecessary steps. For example adding a new face requires you to find the correct panel, make sure your in face mode, scroll down to the panel within the panel which has a button labeled 'create', activate the button, then the viewport suddenly has verts appear (even though your in face mode) and then the user must individually click every single vert, plus the first vert again just to create the face.
In Blender you select 4 or 3 verts, then press 'F' and the face (either a tri or quad) is created. Done - easy - it makes sense and is super quick. (theres also a button in the UI which does this, but the hotkey is slightly faster)
Another example is UV-unwrapping a complicated object.
First you need to choose the correct option from the modifiers (theres about 5 different UV mapping modifiers here), then change the modifier into face mode (hidden in the modifier stack), activate 'Select by element' in selection parameters panel, press the big 'Edit' button in parameters to bring up the UV window, all going well you can then use Mapping>Flatten map to get some kind of flattened UV map. No idea about making seams for the UVs however, didnt have the time to try to work that one out properly, as it proved to be more frustrating than a simple unwrap of the object to begin with.
Blender however, select the object, tab into edit mode, select all faces, press U (or unwrap in the side toolbar), select method of unwrapping from the dropdown. You then instantly have the UV's flattened out and viewable in the UV window. Seams are as simple as selecting an edge and using the shortcut Ctrl+E to either mark or clear a seam, or again the button(s) in the tool panel.
Again, maybe its mostly a lack of practice and instruction in 3dsMax on my part. But it doesnt take much effort, after using both programs, to see which is geared more towards efficiency and less frustration for the artists.
Additionally I found that 3Dsmax sucked up ram to a point where I couldnt have it running at the same time as UDK (which is also pretty intensive on system resources). This lead me to having to import into Blender the initial Ludus model I made in 3dsMax, so I could have an interactive 3D version of the Ludus to refer to as I blocked out the level in UDK.
Along with all this, 3dsMax takes 2-3mins to boot up on my system, Blender takes 2-3 seconds.
3DsMax 2011 student version - 1.53GB, Blender 2.57 - 74MB
And I still remember the days when Blender was <20MB....
I mentioned in the post how I failed at implementing most of the decals, some kind of lighting issues going on which I dont have the time to look into fixing right now, so most of the decals I made were just a waste of time. *sigh*
Onto current thoughts on 3DsMax (beware, long and drawn out):
So Ive been using 3dsMax pretty extensively the past few months and I cant help but compare it to Blender in several ways.
Its been painful getting into it, but Im slowly getting the hang of using 3DsMax to model and UV map basic objects. It bugs me however, doing anything seems to be overly 'bulky' and/or 'slow'. Ive put most of that down to me not being experienced with Max, anyone familiar with a 3D program will know that they each have their own little tricks and quirks, and once youve gotten to know the program well enough everything starts to flow better. But even telling myself this all the time, I still feel like my inexperience with Max isnt the whole problem. I have after-all been using it for months and know the in's and out's of modeling simple objects with it reasonably well. But for me it seems non-intuitive.
Nothing seems to be in the place you automatically think it should be, or even the next place you think it should be. Max seems to be the product of getting a bunch of uninspired programmers in one room to throw together a program, no consideration for the artists at all.
Sometimes even simple tasks take a whole lot of (seemingly) unnecessary steps. For example adding a new face requires you to find the correct panel, make sure your in face mode, scroll down to the panel within the panel which has a button labeled 'create', activate the button, then the viewport suddenly has verts appear (even though your in face mode) and then the user must individually click every single vert, plus the first vert again just to create the face.
In Blender you select 4 or 3 verts, then press 'F' and the face (either a tri or quad) is created. Done - easy - it makes sense and is super quick. (theres also a button in the UI which does this, but the hotkey is slightly faster)
Another example is UV-unwrapping a complicated object.
First you need to choose the correct option from the modifiers (theres about 5 different UV mapping modifiers here), then change the modifier into face mode (hidden in the modifier stack), activate 'Select by element' in selection parameters panel, press the big 'Edit' button in parameters to bring up the UV window, all going well you can then use Mapping>Flatten map to get some kind of flattened UV map. No idea about making seams for the UVs however, didnt have the time to try to work that one out properly, as it proved to be more frustrating than a simple unwrap of the object to begin with.
Blender however, select the object, tab into edit mode, select all faces, press U (or unwrap in the side toolbar), select method of unwrapping from the dropdown. You then instantly have the UV's flattened out and viewable in the UV window. Seams are as simple as selecting an edge and using the shortcut Ctrl+E to either mark or clear a seam, or again the button(s) in the tool panel.
Again, maybe its mostly a lack of practice and instruction in 3dsMax on my part. But it doesnt take much effort, after using both programs, to see which is geared more towards efficiency and less frustration for the artists.
Additionally I found that 3Dsmax sucked up ram to a point where I couldnt have it running at the same time as UDK (which is also pretty intensive on system resources). This lead me to having to import into Blender the initial Ludus model I made in 3dsMax, so I could have an interactive 3D version of the Ludus to refer to as I blocked out the level in UDK.
Along with all this, 3dsMax takes 2-3mins to boot up on my system, Blender takes 2-3 seconds.
3DsMax 2011 student version - 1.53GB, Blender 2.57 - 74MB
And I still remember the days when Blender was <20MB....
Final week progress
Got less than a week remaining for this project to wrap up (at least the major cinematic part, theres still one part of the project to do later but thats not so much 3D related)
The ludus is coming together well, Im just about finished making assets now, and the level has been rebuilt a bit for some extra rooms and the staircase connecting the ground level with the top, plus its all pretty much furnished as best as I can with the remaining time Ive had to work on it. Im starting on the new camera angles now for the full cinematic which will be rendered using Manitee.
I also spent a bit of time yesterday making a ton of decals. They should liven up the bland walls and texturing. Soon we'll be seeing walls with damage and chipped away surface, or the occasional stains, grime and blood splatters.
Last night I also got around to making a full 360 terrain object complete with mountains, which really adds to the overall environment. The terrain was modeled in Blender in about 10mins (would have had a migraine trying to do it in 3dsmax, Ill get to that in my next post)
Then I slapped on some rocky texture, which didnt really cover it properly (lots of stretching) but it doesn't matter because all of this will be in the distance, and UDK's DOF blurs the distant mountains anyway.
(thats the Ludus in the bottom right)
The ludus is coming together well, Im just about finished making assets now, and the level has been rebuilt a bit for some extra rooms and the staircase connecting the ground level with the top, plus its all pretty much furnished as best as I can with the remaining time Ive had to work on it. Im starting on the new camera angles now for the full cinematic which will be rendered using Manitee.
I also spent a bit of time yesterday making a ton of decals. They should liven up the bland walls and texturing. Soon we'll be seeing walls with damage and chipped away surface, or the occasional stains, grime and blood splatters.
Last night I also got around to making a full 360 terrain object complete with mountains, which really adds to the overall environment. The terrain was modeled in Blender in about 10mins (would have had a migraine trying to do it in 3dsmax, Ill get to that in my next post)
Then I slapped on some rocky texture, which didnt really cover it properly (lots of stretching) but it doesn't matter because all of this will be in the distance, and UDK's DOF blurs the distant mountains anyway.
(thats the Ludus in the bottom right)
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