UV Problems

At present, this blog's turning into a large amount of 'watch this space' as I struggle to put anything together for it. I'm trying desperately to get the models UVed and ready to be textured so I can make some headway on the animation side of things, but my maps are about as messy as the average teenager's bedroom and I'm finding the Edit UVWs tool about as useful as instructions to any piece of IKEA furniture - just only available in Japanese.

As it stands, I've discovered a UVing tool called RoadKill, which someone has offered to teach me to learn. I'm hoping that that opens some doors for me, before I fall well and truly too far behind.

YT-1000 - In all its Glory - and the Storyboard

With the freighter now finished (the engine sheath in the right place and shape) I can finally move on to the last part of this first assignment - the storyboard. I'm quite happy with the freighter model; it's quite complex compared with the other two models, and I think I've done it justice.

Anyway, the storyboard is also finished, so I'll include that here:

I've sharpened the image in Photoshop to make it a little easier to read, though I know some of it is a little illegible. Most of this is an expansion of the October post, however.

I'm aware of the difficulty of the story I've drafted here - there are a lot of blaster bolts and explosions to contend with, but hey - it is a chase scene after all. The difficult one will be the cockpit scene, but I have ideas on how to do that.

Still, everything is pretty much done and so I'm probably going waste playing Dragon Age or DCSS.

The Final Model is Complete!

The last and final model is complete! This was a few short hours work, and in truth was a very basic model; I'm just sad that the lack of an orthographic image has made scaling everything correctly very difficult. Something still isn't quite right about it, it seems to large at the front...

Anyway. There's not much left to do at this point, I've got a storyboard to finish and some final touches to the YT-1000 model - mostly the engine cover, which is a very awkward shape. All of this should be done by this evening without too much difficulty, so this project will be finished on time after all!

Cutting it fine, but the Gauntlet is finished

I'm proud to announce that the Gauntlet-class Starfighter is finished!

This was a particularly difficult design, and one I am certainly glad I found an orthographic design for (here on Wookiepedia) as the heavily curved design was very difficult to model. It's still not perfect; the wings are extremely thin and there is much surface detail that can still be added - the gun pods, sensor pods and vents on the engines - but I'm proud of the model overall. Just a shame the mesh is going to be a right pain to unwrap when it comes to texturing - and much of the detail will come down to good texturing and possibly bump mapping (if I get the chance).

Most of the detail on this model was achieved with careful use of Extrude and Soft Selection tools, and the Bridge tool which I've newly discovered. Very useful, as it allows you to create an instant face between two edges, though it can be difficult to ensure the normals are matched correctly.

Still to do are the Storyboarding - which will be an extension of the description given in the first entry - and the LAF-250 I decided on, which will be a very simple model but also a very difficult task, as I stated last time - no orthographic image will make the full design quite difficult overall. Still, my hopes are up - I may well be able to get this finished in time.

I should really start making sure I don't 'remember' deadlines just a week before.

Lots of problems and a few design ideas

Talking with my girlfriend over the YT-1000 so far, she's pointed out how difficult the UVs for the frieghter - as it exists now - are going to be to map properly, due to the fact it's riddled with polys with a rather large number of edges. So, I'm being left with little choice really but to use what I have, combine it later and hope for the best; but the more I look at it the more I think it won't work, and I'll just wind up re-doing it later. Not that I'm too pleased with the idea.

I've had a look through at potential candidates for the other two models, but things aren't looking too hopeful. Sadly, the era of the Star Wars timeline I've focused on is distinctly without Lore, which makes things difficult - no ship designs, no orthographic views... nothing. As such, I've found only a few that could work, but they're not exactly 'modeller friendly' designs.

First up is the Gauntlet, which is noted as a 'widely used' design amongst pirates of the Galaxy. While an ideal design, it's also extremely complex and could well take a while to design. There's also the LAF-250, which is a simpler design, though lacking an orthographic image anywhere, which will also make it a pain to model.

I guess I'm just going to have to cope, ultimately, and hope that I can actually pour out enough models to be ready by the end of the week, though I'm doubting it. I hold by the fact that I came here to do this course as a programmer, not a modeller; and given the chance I would much rather stick by my logical blocks of code than modelling; my perfectionism will never be happy with the arty side of games design.

YT-1000 takes shape!

Slowly, the YT-1000 model takes shape. Although a little basic at present, it is starting to look like the original source images.

I'm quite proud of the cockpit, though it's still not quite the right shape; it's supposed to be a rectangular prism that slopes into a circular face at the front - a very difficult shape to model! It was created from a box, with the front edges smoothed to a circular shape and then turbo-smoothed to a more rounded shape. It looks too organic against the rest of the ship, but it's certainly a lot better than the old cone shaped design I had been using. Admittedly, there haven't been any screenshots before this point.

I've still got a while to go, but I did find a very useful resource for this ship during this little modelling session: available here. The site is another blog, but of a guy who is building a miniature model of the YT-1000 freighter, using the same source images as myself. Should give me a much more solid idea of the 3d image of the craft.

In the meanwhile, I've still got a lot of detail to go - the front prongs are still missing some bits, the central saucer needs trimming down, and there's a lot of surface detail yet to apply. I'm beginning to wonder if I can use an asteroid for one of my other ship designs - the final animation will need them...

Quick update (and an apology)

Well, I'll be honest - I should really make sure to update this weekly. But, between me being ill, and then Steve being ill, and then me being ill again... Well, we never do quite get rid of Fresher's Flu, do we?

Anyway, I'm starting to steam ahead with the YT-1000 design, seen on Wookiepedia here. I started work on a Dora last week (That's a FW-190 D9 from WW2) but sadly propeller planes are quite complex, so that's a project that will likely go ahead on indefinate hold. In the meanwhile, I'm still struggling to find ship designs for pre-Clone Wars civillian starfighters. I'm sure some exist, and if nothing else I'll have to apply some artistic licencing to some Old Republic ships. They may be ~1000 years old, but even a relic could fly if kept well enough.

I've also discovered the Soft Editing tool, which is the equivalent of Maya's Falloff tool; it allows you to shape or scale a face or selection organically, with a percentile variation between the vertices within the falloff range. While nothing like as easy to use as the Maya version I've often seen Cally using, it's still a useful tool to consider for modelling in the future - or just to aide with those slightly trickier lines along the edges of shapes now.

I'll need to really steam ahead with these models in the coming week to ensure everything's ready, so I'll probably need to make a few more blog entries next week. Lesson learned for the future, don't get ill during university semesters.

Early thoughts on the Assignment(s)

It's the second week of this module now, so it's really high-time that I got this blog started up and started charting the wild creative process that are bound to pour into this project.

Star Wars: The Animated Project

The Story

An early idea that the thought of doing a 30-second animation from Star Wars conjured up was a simple one - last year I ran a Star Wars tabletop campaign, using the Savage Worlds engine, from which a rather memorable chase scene involving the party chasing the Big Bad Evil Guy through an asteroid belt, resulting in him impacting an asteroid and getting himself captured. With a pretty strong story already to work from, the main challenge of this project is instead going to be the actual animation - and of course, getting it to a standard that my perfectionism can stand. Possibly double that standard, since the girlfriend is obsessed with Star Wars and a little peeved that she can't do this in her own course. So I almost feel obligated to make this good.

A Chase in Space: The Basic Story Idea

Although sorely tempting, the classic Star Wars 'scrolling wall' is probably best avoided here. Since the sequence would take 30 seconds by itself, it would probably spoil the entire point of the animation. Still, could be fun just to make one for the sake of it?

The first scene would feature the Villain, the Red Hawk, fleeing from the destruction of his station in a fighter into a nearby asteroid belt. The party, in a YT-1000 freighter (like the Millennium Falcon, just earlier) follow, in turn being tailed by 2 other fighters. Each fighter would probably be unique, so the animation will feature 4 prominent models. 

The freighter follows the first fighter into the asteroid belt, but struggles to fly as quickly due to its size. One of the fighters that follows failed a roll, and so impacted an asteroid; the other closes quickly on the freighter, glancing a few hits off the shield. The freighter's turret turns and fires at the second follower, but misses; he eventually flies into an asteroid as well.

The chase then focuses on the Freighter and the far more agile fighter, with the Freighter scraping a little close to a few asteroids. Finally, the fighter strikes a debris field and is flung out of control, impacting an asteroid. The Freighter speeds past, but quickly turns about to land. The party disembark, and take the now-stranded villain hostage.

Since the animation isn't going to feature character models, then this story could easily be finished with the freighter simply landing on the asteroid, with the wreck in the foreground and visible. Otherwise, the animation could simply end with the last of the three fighters crashing into the asteroids around.

The other problem is going to be using the asteroids; since all of the assets need to be modelled, the asteroids are included in that. A single asteroid duplicated many times would look repetitive and boring; multiple models would be needed to make the chase interesting. Still, the use of otherwise 'static' assets would be good for creating a sense of pace in an otherwise empty environment. 

The Models

Of course, the most prominent (and probably the most difficult) model will be the Party's freighter, which would constitute the 'main ship' and the only 'good guy'. The party had a YT-1000 freighter at this point, featured here; though not featured in any of the movies, the YT-1000 is the predecessor of the YT-1300, which was the base model for the Millennium Falcon featured in the original trilogy. With the campaign I was running being set about 20 years before the earliest film, A Phantom Menace, the ships were instead based on those featured in the much wider Star Wars universe. Fortunately, due to the popularity of the Star Wars universe, most of these 'early' ships have images available from books, particularly the original sourcebooks for the Star Wars d20 conversion (another Tabletop ruleset).

As of the fighters, none of them were specific ship models, though the Star Wars universe features a great many fighter-sized designs that were not necessarily featured in the movies; a quick look deeper onto the vast archive available on Wookiepedia may well turn up some potentially useful ideas for the other models.