Learning is fun

I've learned a lot from this project. Firstly that problems at the beginning of a project can have major consequences on the entire project dynamic. Nat has been more of a producer than me for this project.

Secondly things always take more time than you think they will. We've had to cut back on our ideas a lot to get this project done. I suppose that's the issue when you try to plan something before actually knowing how to do it. We've been learning as we go along, and so our plan has changed along the way to reflect that.

Obviously I've learned that I have to work a lot more on modelling and texturing. Especially texturing. I feel like if the project were to be started again I could do the models again I would be able to improve on them a lot. Gotta keep practicing and getting better until I can do it to an industry standard. And without horrible distortion like on my gas canister.

I've learned that I quite enjoy lighting and how light acts on a scene, I'm definitely thinking about specializing in lights and shaders. I spoke a bit about how I could improve my lighting for the scene in the last post. I'm going to look in to lots of different methods for lighting and how they work.

The other possibility for my specialist pathway is modelling. I've got a bit of a feel for it now and it's very satisfying. I think the more I do the more I'll figure out whether it's what I want to do or not, but for now I feel like it would be a good way to go.

Lighting the scene

After will applied the globe for the sky I set about putting my experimentation into practice within the scene proper. The directional got caught by the sky so it wasn't lighting properly. What I should have done here was set the geometry of the sky so that the light ignored it, but I did not realize this was an option so I used an alternative method, seeing as we were on a tight deadline. I used a gentle ambient like before, with a subtle yellow glow, and then I used a spot and manually directed it so it did not shine on the sky. Not the most efficient way of lighting for sure, but it does the job. Next time I'll use point lighting instead of spots I think. Also I'll set the sky geometry to ignore the lighting. I used area lighting to illuminate the billboard. I'm also going to look in to shadow mapping so I can get softer more natural shadows next time.

Lighting

I've been doing some experiments with lighting. I like to use a gentle ambient light with a slight colour and a stronger directional that is a white light. That way you get subtle control over the mood of lighting and you take out the strength of the shadows whilst still having everything illuminated properly. It's all still experimentation at this point though. Have to see what it's like implementing it to the main scene.

Issues that need tissues

I'm having so many stupid problems with these booleans that it's just not funny anymore.

If I try to cut any more of these out it'll mess up the faces, like what happened with the panel in the rear. See the issue with that is...

This. Looks a bit funny right? Why can't you see through the holes? What's up with the bottom hole?

I don't even... Why has it... Oh gosh.


It just streches the face over the whole thing. I can't figure it out... If I move where I'm punching the hole it'll work, but I'm working to exact reference here...

We're just going to have to use the most complete panel I've made so far and duplicate, otherwise we'll miss the deadline.

Hot damn.

Brilliant!

I'm loving this window cutting business, it all goes so smoothly and easily. Oh wait! What has it just done?

Yeah, that's the effect I was going for. Wicked.

Keep trying...

Facade

The plain facade is modeled, need to cut out the windows next

Further progress

OK, so things aren't getting too bad, got two models finished and textured. Not as nicely as I would like, but not bad. I'm still having the same issues with the gas canister as before but you can't tell from a distance now that it's textured.