BA2 - Body Iterations 2D

Up next I decided to create some 2D Concept Art for my Mermaid. I got influenced by my moodboards when creating these body iterations. Even though not much of them ended up in my final piece it was still very useful. They did give me the idea to have hands with sharp nails and tissue between the fingers, it also gave me a better idea about how narrow the body would be.

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BA2 - Physically Based Rendering

What is Physically Based Rendering?

To describe what Physically Based Rendering (PBR) is I could go on for ages, instead I decided to make a short summary and bring up the most important parts.

What PBR does it that it uses measured surface values to create realistic shading/lighting to give a more realistic look of the specific material. This is technology that has excited in the film industry for some time and now implemented in game engines.

To put it very briefly, PBR makes it possible for artists to use real world measured surface values to define the different materials, and so achieve more realistic results.

The largest difference between traditional texturing and PBR is a more detailed and accurate behaviour of light and surfaces. What this does is that it allows an object to under different lighting conditions still look like the material the artist intended it to be. For example, it allow the players to still see that an object is meant to be metal even tho there is no light source close to the object to show this.

For PBR to achieve it’s realistic look it uses a lot of different information, such as: Diffusion, Reflection, Albedo, Energy Conservation etc. Here is a brief description of some of them.

Diffusion

The diffusion is what defines the colours of a surface. This happens when light hits a surface and within that surface, scatters the light around which results in the light reflecting in different angles. The light that get’s diffused generates heat and that is why wearing black clothes during a hot summer day generates more heat than white clothing. The light that reflects back after the diffusion is called Albedo (Whiteness).

(Image from: http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory)

Reflection:

Reflection happens when none of the light that hits the surface get’s diffused and instead reflects into a single outgoing direction. The colour of the reflection is generally based on the colour of the light. When it comes to various materials such as metal the reflection colour can get tint, gold is a good example of this since the reflection has a orange tint when light bounces of the material.

(Image from: http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory)

BA2 - Physically Based Shaders

Since I will be creating one of my textures in Substance Painter, I decided to research in Physically Based Rendering. When I researched it I come upon Physically Based Shaders as well and was interested to see the difference between the two, so I ended up researching both. First off is Physics Based Shaders. I found an hour long presentation by Naughty Dog where they presented how they use PBS in Uncharted 4. It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdUxLsNfLls

Since my main focus was PBR and not PBS i decided to mainly just take notes, most of the pictures used in my notes comes from the Presentation itself.

What is a Shader?

Shaders could be described as a more technically approach to Texturing. As an example, instead of painting in the detail in Photoshop you can by the help of a shader, generate a specific pattern onto a texture by the help of code.

Why is Physically Based Shading important?

Your brain can tell what’s real or not, usually by changes in light and angles. If the light does not react the way you think it would from a angle then we can tell it’s fake.

What is Physically Based Shading?

PBS is built upon these pillars: Reflection, Refraction, Fresnel, Microfacet, Subsurface.

To achieve movie look:

• Reproduce all the shading features in an engine to look as close to real-life as possible.
• Define the different materials using different rendering/shading techniques.

Shader Package

With this, if they want to add details such as sand, blood, sweat etc to their character/assets all they have to do is adjust the agent’s (Connect the box which have the feature they want to their asset) and from there adjust settings. This way they can add this very smooth and easy for artists.

Examples of shader packages and their uses: 

Clothing/Assets/Materials: Fabric Texture, fabric aging, stitches, blood, dirt, mud, etc.

Ground: Wetness, leaves, mud, water, etc.

Skin: pores, wrinkles, blood, sweat, scars, etc.

Eyes: Pupils, Reflection of lashes, reflection, etc. 

References:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdUxLsNfLls

NOTE!: Those pictures are all taken from the Youtube video above, some I have modified to improve on the presentation.

BA2 - Zbrush Practice - Anotomy, Female Face.

For my second Zbrush practice, my goal was to create a Female face all from scratch. Since in my earlier experience with character modelling I have taken the easy way out and started off with a base mesh, I now wanted to create it all from scratch. In the industry you normally use base meshes to speed up the process but for me it's important that you know how to make it from scratch before you start taking such approaches. Since last time I sculpted a character I have learnt a lot when it comes to anatomy. Much of this is thanks to that I have been practising 2D Art, specificity portraits which have forced me into studying anatomy. It have helped a lot tho and now instead of just seeing it as a "Face" I now think more about the inside of the skin. Where the skull is, how the muscles inside look and moves. It have resulted in my faces looking a lot more realistic and accurate.

The most difficult thing I find with sculpting human faces rather than let's say a monster, is that since we are among people everyday we can a lot easier spot when something is anatomical incorrect on a human sculpt. Monsters doesn't need to be anatomically accurate at all and still look god, but if a human face is slightly incorrect it doesn't feel right. There for I noticed that when it comes to creating human faces there is a TON of polishing involved.

This time I did not make the same mistake as with my first practice and took a lot of screenshots during my process. I will now describe how I approached this Practice.

To start off with I looked up various reference pictures of female faces. I decided to base my sculpt on one of the pictures that really stuck with me when I created the Moodboard for Medusa. I didn't want to create a exact copy of the image since the point were to create a realistic looking face, but I did like the mood it was going for and used it more as a inspirational image.

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Medusa art by Zhao Jialin

To start off with what I did was to create the very basic shapes with Zspheres, when I was satisfied with the shapes I turned it into a Polymesh 3D and started sculpting. 

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When it got the silhouette right I gradually added more polygons and started refine the shapes more and more.  I added facial features such as nose, mouth and eye sockets to make it easier to sculpt these in with higher detail at a later state.

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Continuing to polish, it starts to look a bit more like a female shape. I make 2nd and 3rd passes to the facial features and for every pass it starts to look a bit better. When it comes to realistic faces every slight change makes it look more and more realistic. By step 7 the face looks very incorrect but after just a few slight changes and revamps it looks a ton better already by step 9.

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After a lot of polishing and adjusting I am quiet pleased with the result. You can definitely tell by the result how much I have learnt about anatomy in such a short amount of time and it was a very rewarding practice sculpt. I did learn a lot, especially about creating lips and noses. The hair I ended up not spending too much time on since the deadline of BA2 started to approach and I had to start on my final sculpt. Here is the final outcome.

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BA2 - Mermaid Anotomy

Mermaid Anatomy

When studying the anatomy of a mermaid I noticed that they are very similar to a human in many ways. The only difference between the two are mostly just the tail and the addition of fins. I did found some different anatomy studies tho that showed some interesting ideas. 

This one added some more fishlike anatomy to the mermaid by adding gills to her lounges etc.

BA2 - Topology Research

Topology Research

Topology can be described as the layout of a model, how the vertices and edges are placed to create the mesh surface. Having a good topology is both important performance wise and also very important to prevent rendering issues. Since the Topology is  what tells the game engine where the surface is on your model, if you have a bad topology you will encounter lighting and rendering issues.

Here is a good example of good and bad topology:

The reason why the lower ones are really bad is because the polygons are disturbed very badly. The artists have not taken in consideration to add more polygons where the face will move when being animated and the extremely bad one you cant even open the mouth. The good ones as you can see have polygons distributed so when the animators will animate the face it will not stretch. 

Most people learn to master topology by trial and error. You can read and study a lot but doing the mistakes yourself is the way most people learn. Topology does take time to master and once you understand it, it will make both the artists and the animators life easier. 

How high your polycount should be, totally depends on your situation. Are you creating a simple prop in the game world that won't be intractable then try to keep the polycount as low as possible. Is it the main character, then you will probably add a bit more extra detail to him/her. With new technology and improved hardware the polycount increases for every year.

References: 

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Category:Topology
http://www.thundercloud-studio.com/content/tutorial/ModelingTutorial/headModeling/article_graphic//08_bad_good_topo.jpg
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/008/d/c/evolution_of_tomb_raider_by_larreks-d71dpwz.jpg

BA2 - Moodboards

After doing some research it was time to create some moodboards. What I was looking for while creating my moodboards were ideas I could use in my final Iterations. I looked up various kinds of mermaids and also creatures that resembles them in one way or another. I also decided to look up different kinds of materials to see what kinds I found interesting/could potentially use.

For my first moodboard, I decided to look up how artists portray their mermaids when doing sculpts/statues of them. Also to see which materials were generally used. One picture that really stood out to me on this one is the green where she has her tail upwards. The pose really lends itself to the way gravity moves the water downwards, which is perfect for a water spout.

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For my second Moodboard I took at look at more traditional beautiful Mermaids. This will help me get the main shapes and also a understanding how the traditional ones look.

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Then I looked at how monster-like mermaids were portrayed. I found several pictures which had details I was very interested in using for my final iteration. I like how you can very much see the beauty left in them while others went a completely different route to make them look quite sinister.

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Now I had to start thinking outside of the box and find other kind of creatures that look similar to mermaids, and those I can get ideas from. The first that came to mind was the Naga, famously known from World of Warcraft where they are a race which live underwater. They have a very similar shape to Mermaids, but are more beastly in looks, and normally wear armour of some sort.

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Another creature that I thought of was Medusa, a gorgon from Greek mythology. She also has a similar body shape, but more of a snake like tail than a fishtail.

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I also looked up Dreanei's from World of Warcraft. I liked the idea of my character having some kind of horns on her head so I will probably end up using dreanei as a reference there.

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 I thought about different ways of making my character more interesting, and another way was adding vegetation to her. I'm slightly uncertain about this though, because it could also mean her design becoming too cluttered and draw the attention off her form instead.

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Material wise I started off my looking at more traditional materials used for statues. I will probably use something like this for the upper body but for the scales I will play around with a bit more interesting materials.

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When looking up a bit more interesting materials I found some sculpts were made using wood. I really like the idea of having her scales in carved wood so I will maybe go for that.

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BA2 - Zbrush Practice - Gargoyle

Since it was a few months ago I used Zbrush I decided to start working on a practice sculpt. I'm also new to the concept of Dynamesh since my normal workflow was to create the base mesh in 3DSMax and from there add it to Zbrush and just add details. So with this practice my main goal was to get used to Dynamesh and also get back into Zbrush.

I started off by searching for a interesting Gargoyle on Pinterest, since it was just a practice sculpt I just grabbed the first one that I found slightly amusing. I got pretty far with it and I quickly got back into using Zbrush again. After working on it for a while I decided to leave it there because I had to continue with the project at hand and not focusing too much on just a practice sculpt.

I unfortunately did not record my progress on this piece, but my workflow on this sculpt was that I started off with a simple sphere. From there I made out the basics shape of his head and started polishing down details.

This practice served it's purpose well and I learnt a lot about Dynamesh and got back into organic sculpting.

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BA2 - Mermaid Research

Mermaid Research

Mermaids are one of the most popular figures in folklore. They are often portrayed with the upper body of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a fish. It is believed that the first ever mention of a mermaid appeared in ancient Assyria, where the goddess Atargatis transformed herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally killing her loved one.

A Classic representation of a Mermaid

Mermaids do have many similar figures throughout history and they are often associated with the Sirens who come from the mythological Greek.

There are many reported encounters with mermaids, even now in the 21st century we have reported sightings from Canada, Israel and Zimbabwe. One of the more famous reported sightings is from Christopher Columbus, who reported that he saw Mermaids while exploring the Caribbean.

Mermaids have many similar figures throughout history and are often associated with Sirens, who lure sailors to their deaths in Greek Mythology with their voices. Some also believed that mermaids could raise and calm storms at will. 

The modern view of mermaids was shaped by Hans Christian Andersen 1836 by his fairytale “The Little Mermaid” which later became a famously animated movie by Disney.

Ariel in My Little Mermaid by Disney.

References: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaid 
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Mermaids.aspx

Images:
http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/72/70/72027072/photos/Waiahuaka-Mermaids/mermaid%20(1).jpg
https://grantstevens.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ariel-the-little-mermaid-14629313-1280-1024.jpg

BA2 - Mermaid Idea

I decided to choose 'the mermaid' for my final idea. This was because I liked how it fit with the theme of water, and also gave me a chance to be creative with extending my knowledge in design. Since mermaids throughout history are mostly portrayed as beautiful women, I thought it would be a contrasting idea to re-imagine how one would look being evil/monstrous (especially as one of the gargoyles main purposes is to scare away evil spirits ). This idea also lends itself very well to using Zbrush, which is the main goal of this project.

To reach a final design of the Mermaid I will take these steps:

Research: I will start off by researching about Mermaids.
Moodboards: After the research I plan to create several Moodboards, which will represent different kinds of Mermaids and similar creatures. This will hopefully give me ideas for the iterative process

Iterations: I will create iterations by using specific parts I like within the different moodboards. I will create both 2D And 3D Iterations.
Final Sculpt: When my Iterations are done I will hopefully have a clear design in mind and start with my final sculpt.
Baking and Texturing: When the sculpt is done I will UVW wrap the low poly version and bake the information from the high poly version into it. After that I will texture my Mermaid using Substance Painter. By request from the teachers I will also make a Poly paint texture in Zbrush.

BA2 - Gargoyle Ideas

BA2 - Gargoyle Ideas

After researching Gargoyles, it was time to explore my own ideas and decide what I wanted to create for this project. Since we are allowed to make the gargoyle fit into any style we want, I started by figuring out which styles I liked. This also gave me the opportunity to create something I haven't worked on before. Here are the ideas which came to mind, as well as some pros and cons to make the decision between picking them easier.  

Steampunk Gargoyle 

My first idea when receiving this project was that I wanted to make something different. I have always liked the idea of Steampunk and how it allows for very creative designs. Since the gargoyle needs to have a water spout, I came up with an idea that the water that goes into the gargoyle could come out as steam instead. With this steam I could do a lot of different things such as the smoke out of a shotgun barrel, or from a gentleman’s smoking pipe.

Pros

• Make water go in -> Steam out.
• Makes for interesting materials, such as Copper, Wood, Metal, etc.
• Steam could be used for something interesting, such as smoke from a rifle, a pipe, dragons breath, etc.

 Cons

• Most 3D Modelling will be made in Maya while the project is about Zbrush.
• Can easily end up looking messy.

Steampunk Moodboard

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Stylized Gargoyle

Another idea I am interested in is Stylised. When I mention Stylized, what I think about is World of Warcraft, and how they make everything very low poly. They also add interesting shapes to later make and texture using Zbrush.

Pros

• Stylized is a good way to make rock textures appear more aesthetically pleasing.
• Allows for a more chisselled look
• Most, if not all of it can be done in Zbrush.

 Cons

• Restricts me from doing PBR (Physics Based Rendering)
• Will not use neither Specular or Normal map in final render.

 Stylized Moodboard

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Mermaid Gargoyle

The final idea I have is to create a Mermaid. Since the purpose of a gargoyle is to push away water, I thought this theme would fit quite well. Considering I'm used to working from a concept, it would be more of a challenge to come up with a creative design, however I think the pros make up for it and I would learn a lot in the process.

Pros

• Allows for a variation of different materials.
• Will have good use of both Zbrush and Maya.
• Fits with the water theme.
• Will have to use many different sculpting techniques.

 Cons

• A bit more difficult to come up with a creative design.

 Mermaid Moodboard

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BA2 - Gargoyle Research

BA2 - Gargoyle Research

Gargoyles have existed for a long time throughout History, even found upon Ancient Egyptian architecture. The form of a Gargoyle has changed a lot in between the different time periods but it’s purpose have always stayed the same, to diverse water from eroding building walls. They do this by having a spout designed to convey the water from a roof and away from the side of a building, preventing masonry walls and the mortar between getting ruined by the rain water.

 Basic function of a Gargoyle

Picture from: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?247007-Gargoyle-asset-final

The term “Gargoyle” itself comes from the old French word “Gargouille” and the Latin word “Gugulio” which both mean throat. It’s also believed that the word is connected to the gurgling sound it makes when the water is pouring through the spout. 

Nobody is completely sure where the idea behind “Gargoyles” themselves originate from. One theory believes that they come from an old French legend, where St.Romanus saved his country from a monster by the name of Goji (Gargouille). The monster was supposed to look so scary that it frightened off evil spirits, this is the reason why Gargoyles are often portrayed as monsters or beasts. 

Gargoyles started to become a popular first around the 1200’s but strong evidence suggests that they were purely used for architectural purposes instead of decorative. We know this since most were made out of wood or stone, and were usually undecorated. As history progressed, Gargoyles became more and more decorative. They started to appear in different kinds of materials and usually found in the shape of people, animals and grotesques.

We also improved our architectural design and the Gargoyles became more of an ornament than to actually serve its purpose.  From the 19^th century and onward, gargoyles act more as a decoration than anything else. 

Gargoyle Moodboard
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Sources: 

http://www.authenticireland.com/gargoyles/ 

http://www.stratis.demon.co.uk/gargoyles/gg-ety-hist-myth.htm 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gargoyle