Feeling: Busy
Music: Hall and Oates - Maneater

Oh man! Been hard at work, doing a few local jobs in addition to my own work. Posted two new images in the gallery, four-panel sketches and color keys of environment concepts, and I'm in the middle of getting a new model constructed - it's my first non-character mesh, pretty exciting!


As I'm working on my next model as well as conversing with people I'm working on a project remotely with, I've come across time and again the concept of a polycount, which I understand in the way of optimization for games, but never a definite answer as to what is the proper way to count said polys. Some people say you count by quads, but just as many others say to count tris. Rather confusing!

In my head, I think it's more proper to count triangles, as a quad can be split into two triangles, and those triangles are the simplest primitive plane while working in a 3D package. Game engines break down quads into tris anyway, so it seems to me the only reason to count polys by quads is because a person models largely in quads. Movies may be a different matter, where you have a much larger count and quads make a generally smoother mesh.

When modeling in Maya I have both counts, so it makes little difference which someone says to go by, but in a technical sense, it seems not only proper, but better for a workflow to count in tris. Either way it's a small matter, but it seems rather odd since parties are clearly divided on what the "polycount" really is.

Feeling: Productive
Music: Earth, Wind & Fire - Boogie Wonderland



Updated my gallery with samples of what I've been working on the past few months, and the keyword for this time was Maya. Up until this past November, my knowledge of working with 3D modeling packages was severely limited; I didn't have any real structure for learning anything at SIUC, barring one limited 3DSMax class. But, I got determined this past year that it was something I was going to train myself on, and so I did.

I threw myself wholeheartedly into the endeavour, and man did I pick things up! My first attempts are rudimentary for sure, but in comparing them to other artists' models, I think they show great promise. It wasn't about creating a perfect model anyway, but of touching on multiple subjects, to touch on any subject I could grasp and pick up on a workflow for working in 3D. It was long and arduous, but tons of fun, picking up on varied topics:

• Modeling
• UV Layout
  
• Texturing/Skinning
• Rigging
  
• Facial Blendshaping

Quite impressed with myself, really. Rigging was insane, I was working from guides and instruction for bipedal models, and the Iorek model is quadrapedal. Mostly similar, but at the same time I had to figure things out for myself. All in all, it made the adventure all the more fun, and by the end I could manage a lot on the fly.

I didn't get into animation, simply for the fact that I think everything I worked on up to that point was enough for my poor little brain, and animation more than the rest of the process seems like a beast unto itself. Definitely something I want to pick up knowledge on, but I think it more important to hone the skills I've sown seeds in with these projects.

In the middle of an environment model now, to break out of the character mold, as well as some 2D work to complement it! More to come!