After the Week 7 Progress Review I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about my design. During assignments I have a terrible habit of getting stuck in my own head and convincing myself that I’m doing everything wrong. The progress review was a chance to get the reassurance I needed.
Model Progress
As far as the model is concerned, this week has mainly been about tidying up all existing elements before adding more to the design. This has meant going through each object and ensuring each piece lines up correctly and that there’s no graphical errors occurring due to bad placement.
I have also been playing around with Skydomes in Maya to try and create a natural light source for my final model. This has been a lot of trial and error so far and apart from an empty Skydome, nothing has been saved.
Above is one of my attempts with Skydomes using an HDRI I found on Google Images. When it comes to finalizing a Skydome, I will need to make sure the image visable through the kitchen windows, makes sense to the overall model. I have been debating the idea of creating my own image to use in the Skydome. This would involve learning to correctly create an image with a 360 perspective. I have taken a quick look at some tutorials and I’m now debating if I have enough time left to do this and also will this add to my overall design or will it look out of place and pull focus because of a bad design.
Side Projects
This week I have also taken on a side project. My reason for this is that I feel like my skills as an artist are lacking. Art School is a project set up by Marc Brunet, an artist who used to work for Blizzard Entertainment creating character art for their games as well as other art work.
I have previously followed Marc’s YouTube channel which is where I taught myself art skills and focused mainly on digital art. After finding out about Art School and taking a look at what it is and the focus of the course, I signed up.
I’m planning to incorporate the Art School sessions in to my current studies with the aim of improving my skills as an artist.
Needless to say, my university work will take priority. My current plan is to use at least 1 hour a day on Art School and the rest on my university work.
Planning for the weeks ahead
With the end quickly approaching, my focus for the Foundation Project should be on finishing my model which includes texturing. Week 9 will be the final Progress Review and it is important that by this point, I’m not falling behind as it will be difficult to catch up.