Project #2 - JR Week 13 Update - Final Renders

     
      These are my final renders for the final project, including my re-done building from Project #1. These are the images that I'm going to submit for my final project, including all of the necessary information, such as the textures, normal/spec maps (if applicable), polygon count, unity screenshots, etc. There weren't any drastic changes made to the objects since their original final renders, but I did improve them by adding specularity and normal maps to some of the textures, making them higher quality and giving them nicer details. They also imported into the Unity game engine without any trouble. I also have some close-up images of some of the props that will be submitted with the final project, but they were too large to fit onto this blog. Overall, I am very happy with how these turned out, and the normal and spec maps really added that final touch.

Project #2 - JR Week 12 Update - Building Redux

        For the level design/area portion of the project, I decided to expand upon the room I made in Project #1 instead of making something entirely new (the props I made were designed for this room anyway). While this was originally just a room, I decided to expand it into the entire building, including the roof and area out front (that large white plane, which I plan to texture into a parking lot with a wall of pond reeds surrounding it). Most importantly, however, is how I redesigned and remodeled the main base/walls of the building. The original walls were four rather uneven rectangle polygons, with the door and windows cut into them via booleans. In order to clean it up and to make adding windows,extra floors, and a roof much more easily, I modeled a new set of walls from scratch using box modeling (a giant cube that had the same general dimensions that the original walls covered). I was able to cut out the roof area and windows using edge loops and the interactive split tool, while filling in the holes with the extrude tool on edges and the merge tool for vertexes. One of the problems I had with my first project was lighting, and it was probably caused by the walls not being made of quads, so remodeling them from a single object should fix these problems.

Project #2 - JR Week 11 Update - Finished Burger Prop

     This is the final product for my hard prop, which is a burger on a plate. Since last week, there wasn't much modeling left to do aside from making the plate, whit was surprisingly easy to make. It was modeled from a cylinder, with pseudo edge loops on the top and bottom being warped to create that plate-like shape. I intended to make a shiny-looking texture for the plate, and I was surprised with how good it looked when I applied it in Maya. Aside from that, the rest of the work was done on making the remaining textures for the remaining pieces. While some were rather simple, I had to export the UVs of others (such as the lettuce) into Photoshop in order to model a texture around them. Overall, I'm very happy with how this turned out, even if it doesn't (yet) use any special kinds of specularity.

     For continuing to the level design portion of the project, I plan to improve upon and expand the room I made for Project #1, adding part of the exterior as well. Also, the walls weren't attached to each other and may of the objects were not made in quads, so some objects in the room will be redone with edge loops and quads to prevent lighting problems when importing into unity (along with making the models cleaner overall)

Project #2 - JR Week 10 Update - Finished Feather and In-Progress Burger

       This is the (probably) final version of the Golden Feather powerup, which is the medium-difficulty prop of the project. I like how the colors went together, and even though I didn't have time to add specularity/normal maps to the project (saving time for other props), I'm still happy with how it turned out. Though, if I have some extra time, I'll make further improvements to it.


      

          This is the current state of the hard prop, which will be a burger on a plate. I chose this to be the hard prop due to the amount of pieces it contains, and the difficulty of combining them correctly. The cheese and both buns have already been textured and have their UVs set (the simple/cartoonish textures have the upside of having less seams to fix), while the tomato has a texture applied to it (but isn't UV'd). The cheese and the lettuce were the most interesting parts to make, as they were both sculpted from a basic cube polygon. I made the angles in both (especially the bending effect in the cheese) through the rotation and movement of vertexes and faces on the corners of the object. Furthermore, I used the interactive split tool and edge extrude tool to give the lettuce a rounder base. For the burger atty, I hope to either add small sculpt indents to make it look more like ground beef, as I was unable to find a good ground beef texture to make a normal/specularity map. The top bun was another case of more complex modeling, as I modeled it from a basic sphere (chopped it in half, filled the hole that it created, and restored the edges using the interactive split tool. Afterward I bended the edges and vertexes to make it look flatter without making it wider, which resulted in some face deletion and hole-filling on the top).

Project #2 - JR Week 9 Update - Finished Spatula and Near-Finished Feather

          Here is the final render for the spatula. I finished texturing the object and smoothing some of the edges (though, the object uses a lot of greys, which makes some of the textures difficult to distinguish from Maya's default gray). I plan to try some specularity mapping on part of it later on, but for right now I'm very happy with how it turned out. The mesh is in two parts (the handle and the grill/flipper), but I'll find a way to combine them into a single mesh later on.



        

           
        This is the current state of prop #2, which is a golden feather (one of the game's power-ups). The texture was made specifically for the shape of the feather, but the texture was still fun to make. I was able to model the "stem" of the feather from a long cylinder and some well-placed edge loops. The more difficult part was making the feather itself (which it why it is the medium prop instead of the easy prop), but I was able to receive help in turning the curve into a polygon, using Maya's conversion tools, the fill hole function, and edge extrusion. I also had to use the interactive cut/division tool to turn the surface of the feather into quads, and the way the vertexes were placed on the object makes it look a bit like a cocoon when edges are visible. In order to finish this up, I plan to give a good texture to the "stem and" to add specularity and a normal/bump map to help it look much shinier and golden.

Project #2 - JR Week 8 Update - Near-Finished Spatula

    This is the current state of the first prop for Project #2, which is a spatula. For the most part, this is completely textured, aside from the main shaft of the spatula (this will have the same texture as the end of the spatula shaft behind the rubber handle) and the back of the flipper. For the most part, this is complete, but I haven't yet added the textures on the two areas mentioned earlier because I still need to connect them. I'll probably ask for some help in connecting them "properly", as booleans aren't usually the best idea for merging polygons. Aside from that, I've also started part of the model for the second prop, and everything is going smoothly.

Project #2 - JR Week 7 Update - Project #2 Plans

 

         These are the three game props I plan to create for the project, going from least complex to most complex. The spatula and burger are meant to be restaurant props while the feather is one of the game's power-ups. The burger image was used as a reference for a couple of projects in GDD 110, so I decided to re-use it for consistency in the art. Even though these objects will be cartoony-looking models, I'll be able to easily form them and upgrade the overall quality with some of the new Maya tools I have recently learned. The texture style will remain the same style as before, but I plan to implement a few normal maps onto some parts of the objects (such as a faintly scratched metal texture on the spatula to give the illusion that it has been used, or a soft feather texture on the main part of the golden feather, or even a vein texture on the burger's lettuce).

Project #1 - JR Week 5 Update - Lighting

           This is an interior view of the restaurant room with lighting added. For most of the interior, I used point lights to mimic basic room lighting, while I went for a spot light in the kitchen. I also added a couple of point lights outside to mimic sunlight, which I thought turned out well. The yellow tint of the lighting was added for a nice atmospheric touch. I originally tried to use the mental ray lighting system, but I couldn't implement it due to technical difficulties. Either way, I'm really impressed with how the lighting turned out, especially that of the kitchen, even if I couldn't use realistic light bouncing.

Project #1 - JR Week 4 Update - A Finished Kitchen

                    This is the furnished version of the kitchen room in the JR Restaurant. I didn't have a lot of room to work with, but I was able to fit in the essential furnishings (aside from the conveyor belt, which I added last week). I decided on adding cupboards with a counter top, a fryer with a vent above it (I'll probably add a vent leading outside from it later on), and the grill. The grill, despite looking the simplest, is the most interesting of the three, because it is the first object I have utilized Maya's "Smooth Mesh" function on. The only real problem with it is that the bars on the grill's surface bend near the farthest inner edge of that surface, but I'll work on finding a workaround to that. The rest of the furniture was easy to make and texture. Overall, the kitchen feels a little bit cramped, but I am satisfied with how it turned out. All that's left to do for the room is to add windows and light sources.

Project #1 - JR Week 3 Update - A filled Dining Area

           This is the current state of the JR restaurant room. Using the cartoonish texture style from my maze project, I created textures for all of the furniture and the walls + floor. I kept the same kinds of furniture from week 2 and decided to arrange the chairs and tables restaurant style. As for the desk, I thought it didn't quite fill enough of the entrance, so I decided to place a second one next to it. Also, the conveyor belt was blocking part of the kitchen entryway, so I decided to make the entryway a bit wider. The stairs don't quite reach the next floor but I plan to fix that later on. The Combine Mesh tool in Maya was a major help when placing and rotating the furniture for placement. In my previous maze project, the furniture was placed still as separate objects, which made rotation a hassle. So combining each piece of each object into a single object made the process much smoother. Finally, I was able to use Planar Mapping to give the ideal mapping to each surface texture, especially textures like tabletops and the belt on the conveyor belt.

Project #1 - JR Week 2 Update - Some Interior Items

   
            These are some of the items I have designed for the interior of JR's restaurant. With the exception of the conveyor belt, this week, I decided to concentrate on the main restaurant/dining area. These were made in a similar way as the furniture from my maze project in GDD 110, but this time around some of the more advanced tools were used. Along with that, thanks to boolean merging, I can now merge my polygons into a single object, which will make them much easier to place and rotate.

         The first couple of pieces. the tables and chairs, are among the most important, as there will be multiple instances of them in the room. I decided to keep them relatively simple, with the table looking both wood-like and modern at the same time (I've seem pictures of similar tables in actual BBQ houses and restaurants). To keep the southern feel, I went with a traditional design for the chairs (though, I might add booths in another stage of the project), with the traditional rod backings and rounded seat boards. I was originally going to make the back board and seat board simply square-shaped, but more traditional chairs have them at a more natural curve. In order to emulate that, I used the edge looping tool to create more vertices on the object for me to move around, creating a curve in the process.

     The next two notable items are those that will be used in the main room once. With some measuring, the stairs were relatively easy to make, and will serve as stairs that would lead to the second floor of the restaurant. The second item in the image is the desk/booth up near the entrance that restaurants use to greet people, keep track of reservations, and to mark down which tables are available and which are occupied. I was able to create an indent (used for leg room for the person at the desk) with the difference boolean tool, similar to how I created the windows in last week's update.

   The final piece that I prepared is the conveyor belt that brings food to the divider wall's window for the waiters and waitresses to pick up. If you take a look at my GDD110 blog, this is the same conveyor belt that is shown in the animation of my title screen. I was able to give curved sides to both ends of the belt using the edge looping tool, similar to the chairs.

Project #1 - JR 3D Building - Model Base

      
          This is the general base of the 3D model for JR's restaurant, following the general format of the blueprint I posted earlier. I decided to go with relatively few windows r\to keep the feel of the restaurant (if the customers want a view of the lake/swamp behind the restaurant, they can take the stairs to the balcony or second floor, both of which I may add in one of the upcoming projects). I do plan to add stairs going up in the upper right corner of the main room. The window in the separate wall between the dining area and the kitchen is where food is handed through from the kitchen to the waiters/waitresses. Also, in order to keep the format, I decided to change the door position to be closer to the lower left corner instead of centered on the closest wall.

Project #1 - JR 3D Building - Blueprint Idea

              I have decided on this blueprint to use as a base for my first project. My plan is to make an interior to JR's BBQ restaurant in order to compliment the exterior I designed in GDD 110. This blueprint was chosen due to it coming from a similar kind of restaurant, and it had a similar layout to the one I imagined the restaurant having. Though, I may make some modifications to it regarding appliance and furniture placement, but the general layout of the blueprint fits the ideas I have for it.

           In terms of interior design style, it will be the same cartoonish texture style as the Maze that I made for my previous final project. Also, if you take a look at the game's title screen (another project), it gives you a preview of the interior wall style of the restaurant (which is a sort of redwood board style). I can also re-use some of the furniture models from this maze in the new project, along with making some new ones in the same style (restaurant chairs, tables, a counter, appliances, etc).