Maya Wine Glass tutorial/ Egg cup tutorial with Simon Holland

For Maya Monday, we were required to create a wine glass object, along with several other objects that were similar to alcohol bottles and glasses using NURBS.  We then later learned how to create an extrude within our created wine glasses in order to make our objects look more realistic. It was interesting to learn the different shortcuts and keys in Maya and it was also interesting to learn how to manage the difficult tasks involved with modelling objects and forms.

1

At first I found it challenging to keep my created objects intact due to struggling with the different perspectives with the nerve tools, but through using a different technique, I managed to create models from previously created templates which became much easier to understand. One of the problems included accidentally creating holes in my first wine glass made due to rendering it in the wrong viewing panel, but with this in mind, I managed to later have another go at recreating and correctly rendering other objects later on with help from Alan Postings.

1st Maya class session with Simon Holland

After our first real modelling session with Maya in class, I wanted to try and redo some of the activities that we did in class to see whether my skills with using the program would improve with practice. Through following the first initial Maya tutorial on the Computer Animation Arts 1st year blog for Maya tutorials, I managed to vastly improve my knowledge of Maya along with gain a higher level of confidence in which to use the program correctly.

Maya practice from home 

Maya practice from home

Maya Wine Glass tutorial/ Egg cup tutorial with Simon Holland

Photoshop planning techniques for Invisible Cities

In our photoshop class we learnt learned about the importance of planning in terms of creating digital artworks for our chosen cities. We watched a series of short films and animations that portrayed the approaches of using techniques such as:

• Value perspective and tonal range
• Balance and stability
• Symmetry
• Composition and framing
• Points of interest using rule of thirds 
• Leading lines

Our task was to first to create a note page based on our task to create more thumbnails for one chosen city. The city that I chose to use was Anastasia, as due to still being unsure of my final chosen city, I wanted to see whether the city of Anastasia would allow me to come up with more ideas and variety than the other cities available.

Anastasia city description

Visual Library research page

Drawings based around the concrete description of Anastasia 

Thumbnails based on the environment 

We first had to create a word stack, which meant that we had to write down the initial key words that provided key details about the city. We then had to find imagery as a source for hand drawing and digitally drawing our thumbnails to create a visual library, along with create a selection of digital thumbnails as a form of practice.

Sketches 25 - 45

I think that this set of sketches looks the most original out of the other ones that I created. This is due to the fact that I didn't try to use any other sources for inspiration. In the end I tried to combine different elements of our given objects together to try and work on simply using my imagination. Overall, I unfortunately think that this is my weakest set of sketches due to the fact that I think you can't tell whether most of the sketches are life forms, structures or machines. I would want to improve these sketches by being more selective and conscientious on what elements of the objects to combine with one another, as I think that approach would enable the final designs to look more valid.

3 Final Designs

Life forms Front

Life forms Back

Life forms Side 

This is the first of the three final designs to conclude the Summer Project. It is a life form of an Octopus and I took inspiration from the round vase-like object. Overall, I am very pleased with the result as I like the variations in the different tones and details. I am also happy with the over exaggerated features as they make the design more complex. I am also satisfied with the fact that the design is able to look like an exact life form - which is the octopus.

Structure Side, Front & Back

Machine Side, Front & Back