Revision of Chinese architecture

Been looking more into Chinese architecture and traditional methods as to how they layout their buildings and how they work. Turns out it is much more complicated than previously imagined, while the basic look of Chinese architecture can be replicated, a person looking at the improvised model for the first time will ultimately know that the replica is not 100% Chinese architecture. there is a very basic, yet complicated reason to this. Chinese architecture has very complicated layout rules, the first, and most obviously noticeable is the integration between "Garden and Architecture", this is inspired by the "Yin and Yan" approach. for example, a section of the basic Chinese house will be pure Architecture with partial organic decoration while another section will be pure Garden with bits of Architecture such as a pavilion and so on.

What is more interesting is the balancing between Garden and Architecture where the carpenters have put much thought into keeping the architecture in line with the nature that surrounds the building. Western building tent to be overpowering toward nature with the Garden treated as an inferior, while Chinese architecture treats it as an equal force to be reasoned with. Pretty much everything needs to be in a perfect balance in order for the Chinese architecture look to be fully achieved. however, for a village scene within a wall will be fairly challenging as the restriction which where initially supposed to he helpful (to keep within bounds and not to go overboard) may turn out to be harmful against the Chinese architecture look and therefore will need to be revised yet again and re-designed in order to fit the Chinese look and not work against the basic Yin and Yan approach that the architecture will have to accommodate.

However since the Village was ideally supposed to be tightly spaced and intended to be partly claustrophobic, it might be interesting to look into a "All in one" approach. By this, meaning that instead of the houses being an individual from one another, it might be interesting to design a "Shared" environment, where the villagers share the entire complexity of the village is one, sort of a giant "Garden and Architecture" balance as one.

More information on the way.

3D stuff coming along

so far switching between models but so far hear is the Gateway that i created quikly, making it tilable and deliting some arias that wount be seen. i will be updating this post with more stuff that are work in prosess. at the moment i am also creating a tilable texture in ZBrush, this is so that my work is more original in sime places, however this may be the only one i do since this is taking a long time to do and i symply dont have much time to devote to creating these texturs from scratch, however this will pribably come in handy in the future.

Gateway textured and bump-maped. made the texturs symetrical so i could get better detail in the modle at a resolution of 1024.

Created some basic lanturns for scenery. also add more culture with the writing on them which creats a better apmosphear which i am looking for. When the scene is more refined it should look better.

Gateway retextured so that the texture becomes more scemeless, this makes it better for tilaling for other parts of "The Wall". It also removes the Symetrical line in the midle of the object which was very obvios on closer inspection. At the moment this is being rendered in real-time in Maya.

Concept art part 2

Had some minor setbacks (doing concept art that turned out to be a complete waist of time and looked awful a few times) so I have going straight into experimenting with 3D modelling and how I am to tile an object. So far the roofing I plan on using for "The Wall" and some of the houses has been a success in my opinion in keeping with a low poly count and being tillable for use in the game. not to mention the low texture detail looking higher that it rely is (512 by 512). I also plan on creating seamless textures through ZBrush. however the only "nic" I see with it is having a texture to put detail on, Poly-paint probably serves best in this filed but for accurate textures that I want to see is another challenge. So far looking at the deviant artist "Nobiax" and having some minor contact with him he uses a program called "XNormals" for normal maps/hight maps and so on, which he clams to be a powerful tool. having vewed a video of his as to how he creates his Normal maps and specular maps it is without a doubt that XNormal rely is a powerful tool. again the "nic" is lurning the seemingly uncomplicated program ( probably is a-lot more complicated that preceved is what I'm trying to say). So far progress has been made, I will have to change the layout of my "Village" idea as the current layout does not accommodate the idea of having a museum in it. So far I have a small Graybox of the idea I have in mind, but the adjustment I have decided to make should accommodate the Museum/Gallery better.

Work so far (more will be added just need to gather the files between home and uni)

Concept Art Part 1

For this week I plan on creating Concepts for Assets for the game environment I have in mind. At the moment I have decided on a more Sci-Fi/Fantasy (no Dwarfs or Elves or Magic) much like what you would see in the film Thor but without the over the top structures.

 

The idea is to create a small space colony settlement where the population has only just settled recently on the planet. The people are partly self-sufficient and rely on the mother ship for tools so that the colony can create their own food and resources so that they can survive. Scientists are also present on the site relaying their research and discovery’s back to the Colony ship and then onward to the inner planets.

 

 

At the moment I am creating tillable asset concepts in order to solidify my ideas and then by the end of the week have a list of things I would like to create and then start to work on them.

 

Solo work!

At the moment im headed in the Solo Enviomental Direction as i find that the most intoresting of the filds i would like to work on, in particuler the organic direction as i have taken a likeing to the program ZBrush which has produiced fantastic results for organic modlels. The only problem i have run into is creating adiqet Topolagy while maintaing detail as well as creating good Normal/Bump Maps for the objects created in ZBrush as as far my results have been farly unsucsesful.

The Geniral plan is to create a basic villige scene contaning all the 3D assets i have created, and then within that villige a Musium type building contaning the assets i have created on pedastools.

Charicters are also on my listof things i would like ot atempt to create and finish, however this is more based on how much time i spend on the game assets and envioments and on how complexed the charictes will become.

First off hear is my 2D work i have don over the year.

 

 

3D consepts

 

 

 

Lower imiges are the Normal maps for the two rocks above exported by ZBrush.

 

 

 

Sea Creacher Consept

Moon Bord for Sea Creacher

my idea is pritty much a large scail hunter sea creacher. the mood bord reflects what has intorested me so far in turms of look, wether it would be in 3D or not ill have to deside later.

when i started modeling my ideas quickly changes, at first i was going to do a four finned wail but then the idea of a fish with wings poped in my head so i decided to head down that route, then i decided that a fish that can jump out of the warter for a few moments of flight probably is not too underwater like. So i desided to make a sort of stingray flying fish underwarter with a shark like head.

a low poly mesh indeed, unffortunetly due to the most recent essay and dissertation proposal i have not spent as much time as i would like in the assingment since i was enjoying it, but non the less hear is what i call the "Dragon Fish"/

and now the renders.

Night Crawler

unfinished unfoirtunetly but i do beleve i have mostly nailed low poly typolagy...

hear are the imiges so far.

i do plan on expanding on my practise with 3D charicter modeling over the summer, parhaps using ZBrush as practise as well, but we will have to wait and see.

Box Modeling

while i have lurnt probably a more effitiant way of modeling from a box, unfortunately i am unable to fully complete such a task of following the tutorial of Box modeling, mainly due to the fact that the essay deadline is rather close and i have found myself more concerned with it by each passing day. in a nutshell, ive been working on my essay more than this Box modeling tutorial.

anyway, onto the progress photos

 the legs are more formed so its a good start.

quck low poly charicter mesh guy

quick, low pily body mesh, mucked up lafway through and had to do some aultering which took up alot of time, non the less hear it is.

3D Charicter

well, first time modeling a human in Maya, or any 3D modeling program for that matter, we got slightly rushed, so there are no reforence texturs, but im having problems uploading them anyway.

Reforences im having trouble getting into Maya.

spent alot of time on the hands, the thumb still looks slightly too deformed when smothed, but its roughtly in the right place.