MDU115 - Week 6

I really thought I had created a sexy chest. Like 1970's Schwarzenegger's Chest, and I still do believe that. I've had a look at the other chests. I wasn't impressed. OK, I was impressed, but I really liked my design the best. How naive I was...

As I explained to Jody, learning how to model with Maya, while tricky at first, became quite intuitive the more that I played around with it. Unfortunately, over the last 5 weeks, I've had very little experience with UV'ing - yes I did some research and can understand the theory behind it - I know WHY we need to do it, I know WHAT it does, but because all my projects up until now have simply been concentrated around the modelling aspect, when challenged this week to UV/Wrap/Unwrap/Whatever my chest, I had no idea HOW to do it. I honestly spent 2 hours earlier this week, late at night trying to figure it out. I flailed like a dumb chimp at a typewriter, and so I gave up and decided I'd just give it a crack in class, under Jody's instruction, and instruct he did! He instructed my chest straight to to the sin bin. And so, I cried.

*sad music plays*

Look at that chest! It looks like something that'd appear in World 8 of a Mario Game!

I even made an Angel Statue, dammnit!

Majestic wings...

OK so time to reflect. The problem here was my lack of experience in 3D Modelling. Jody has been saying since day 1 that UV'ing is important, but until you actually do some modelling and make your way to this stage, they're really just words. I mean, yes I was always aware that UV'ing would be time consuming, and difficult at times, but I had no real world application of it, no real experience with it, and so during my design process I had unknowingly set the bar quite high for myself and during my modelling process, I had unwittingly created shapes without paying attention to where engons were appearing and without the foresight that I would need to manually unwrap this beast after the modelling was done.

When I discussed with Jody that I'd likely have to redo the chest, it came as a swift kick to the balls. Not so much because of the time it'd take to re do (Jodi provided assistance with this and I also see it as a chance to keep practicing with Maya) but more so because I really had my heart set of my design, and after actually bringing it to life in a 3D environment I felt that I had achieved something really cool, when in actual fact I had created a shitty doppler full of engons and UV nightmares.

Well, without crying over my spilled milky chest, here's the new one, courtesy of Jody's suggestions.

We've kept the original shape - a curved, sleek rectangular design, but we've done away with the base, wings, statue and other little details. Jody made a good point that the finer details aren't easily seen when viewed at a distance - and I guess at the end of the day, this is just one of what will be many projects.

I reused the handles and rear hinges from the original as I felt they weren't too messed up, and I quite liked the design I had come up with.

Between Jody and I, we re created the front latch and lock plates, simplifying the design (originally I had even included the welding used to affix the metal to the chest, fml -_-)

You'll also notice that there's now extruded sides running on the diagonal corners of the chest - this will likely represent a brass or other metal. I don't wish to use a material like brass as I feel it'll mess with the theme - this is meant to be a kingly, regal chest - so perhaps I'll opt for a fancier looking metal - gold perhaps? I don't know. The reason for these however, was to simplify the UVing process for me. Without them, the 'faces' of the lid and base of the chest were going to be difficult to unwrap, but by introducing these bracers, I should be able to break it up a little easier. Although in saying that, it still remains to be seen. I'm very shit at UVing atm, and I'm starting to become time poor. I really don't know what to do if I can't get the UV down pat. Thinking ahead I might just have to do my best, go ahead and texture it, and if it looks shit, well, it'll look shit but the project will be completed. I don't want to end up in a mad rush trying to perfect the UV process, delay the animation of this project and risk adversely affecting my other subject's assignments as well.

Time will tell.

- Ryan.