Maps done

Pretty much finished the texture maps. The specular and normal maps need some tweaking around the wood and brass parts. I'm not going to play around with the reflectivity in Maya because I'll have to do that for the shader in Unreal. Next comes the rigging which shouldn't be too hard then a few animations and I'm done.

Progress inch by inch

I've been toying around with a mockup vehicle in Unreal and have obtained some nice videos that give a good break-down of importing and creating a vehicle that seem to work so far. So that cuts out a good chunk of work and I can spend some more time on textures. Progress pictures of it coming tomorrow.

On to Texturing

I wave good bye to UVing...hopefully. Here are some references that I'll base my color template on while texturing. Now its time to enjoy Halloween!

All aboard the rainbow Mechanical Spider thing Choo Choo!

I officially hate UVing. Starting to fall behind some on schedule thanks to that pesky TD class and the crappy UV editor, but here's the almost done UVed version of the model (I think I'm on save instance 90 somethingish). There shouldn't be a stretched face in there. Thanks Ethan for showing me the marvels of the smooth UV tool it has saved me a lot of time and brain capacity. I also tweaked the model by adding some more geometry and enlarging the cow catcher. Hopefully if I don't hit my snooze button a million times I plan on adding some more detail to the legs and UVing them before class. Laterz...

milestone done

Modeling is done! The total poly-count is a little over 13,000 tris so I have room for some extra detail if I have the time. The layout needs some slight tweaks such as moving the leg platform down because currently the legs move through the fly wheels. Also going to turn the top section downward at a slight angle so the cowcatcher more resembles its position in the mock-ups. Then its on to UVing...oh boy.

Sorry Haven't posted in awhile. (I should probably make this my homepage so I remember). Anyways I have been doing work though. The above render is the top portion of my steam walker. I've done away with the original idea of making it a heavily armored thing and decided to open it up some. Working on the large "people catcher" grill now. After that I should be around 9,000 tris so that still gives me about 5-6,000 to spend on the legs. Deciding whether if I want the legs to be in positions like the mock ups or to have the back legs higher up like a grasshopper and the fronts to be splayed out more. I imagine this would allow the walker to kinda of shuttle around faster and utilize its grill and gatling gun more appropriately. I'll have some quick concept sketches up tomorrow of the legs to see which would feel the best. Till then its back to work got a milestone coming up soon.

More Mock-ups

Here's the second set of mock-ups. I will base my final of this design but add elements of the first that I like like the boiler. The cube is a size comparison to a human. Working on some more detailed sketches now then its time to get down and dirty with Maya.

Starting to come together

Created several quick sketch up of potential models. Most include some sort of mechanical legs that support a steam train-like vehicle. I'm leaning towards either number one or number five. I have also been looking up lots of reference photos especially real steam functioning vehicles such as trains, tanks, and cranes. I also have to look up a tutorial on importing and making a vehicle work in the Unreal Engine.
Below is a3D mock up of sketch one to compare to sketch five which I will be mocking up shortly.

Pitched my projects and it looks like I'm going to do the vehicle/mech but the critique from the class was that that it was to generic of an idea. I've been thinking of making a vehicle based off of natural materials like wood and stone instead of metal and steel to make a more unique piece.

I also still plan on working on the group project because I have models already done for it.

In the beginning...

First day of class and have been brain storming some ideas for a project this quarter. They are:

• model rig and animate a vehicle then import it into the Unreal Engine
• group environment for a the Unearthly competition
• individual environment brought into the Unreal Engine and then turned into a level

Right now it looks like I'm leaning towards the vehicle project and working on the group environment on the side.