My Ingame Asset

I started my model in maya, with a cube that had been smoothed twice,I then created a curve for the tentacles and extruded a square across, i also hid the curve in the layers,and made it unselectable.These were then duplicated several times to make them all., i then used planes to create a small salior hat, i was going to try and go for a similar look as Davy Jones,but more cartoon.

Once i had the base mesh done, I then went to go create the UV's i managed to get several pieces put together, but I would end up doing one piece or click wrong and i wouldn't be able to move them off so I could arrange them.So i thought i could make the uv's within zbrush using UV master, but thought i would keep this within maya and came across http://www.unwrella.com/, i used the demo version, which automates the uv's and lays them out, probably not how people would want them, but the full version, you can draw on the edges, where you would prefer to have the UV islands, and unwraps , which you can then layout.

Once the UV's were done, i then planned to create the textures within zbrush,as i planned to have bump mapped "suckers" on the otherside,but whenever i linked up the map it would cause problems and didn't work, so i just polypainted the texture, using different alpha's to build texture.I was then recommended a program called crazybump, which produces bump/specular/occlusion/displacement. and also a tool to remove highlights and shadows from the map.I also tried to make a displacement map work within maya so I could have a high res image  to put on my deviantart,but no matter what i tried it still seemed to have erratic results.

So I stayed with bump/specular and diffuse, and use these maps on my squid, sand and water to set the scene, animated the squid as if it was out of water and scurrying along the sand.

As this is the end of the first year, ive bought myself two large bibles, on 3dsmax and ZBrush, as these seem to be the most common workflow, 3dsmax seems to be used more for highdetail images and movies, for cgi and film work, which i want to get into.So hopefull over the holidays i'l be able to work out the displacement problems and create some very details works such as the batman below.

Texturing and Rendering

To texture an object, you haveto create UV's for them, this creates a skin for them, like wrapping paper on a present,these are made within the uv editor and have various tools for creating them,planar mapping, which is for flat side objects, for a wall.Cyndrical mapping which is often used on organic shapes or surfaces which resemble cylinders.Spherical mapping,for spheres and automatic mapping.These turn the 3d object into a 2d image which is then processed, in photoshop to create the normal(bump),Specular,Displacement(although not in this case),Ambience and Diffuse(colour).

These textures are then applied to the object within the Hypergraph ,these have several different options and materials to choose how you want the object to look.Lights can be made to set the scene and can be manipulated and keyframed to move.Once the scene is finally ready, it can then be rendered,which what Maya then calculates all the info to display the scene, the more complicated the scene the more time and power it takes to render, it's also dependent on the system.

Modeling In Maya

Modeling in maya, well polygon modeling, is the process into which to create an 3d object by using planes, or primitives (premade shapes such as square,sphere,cylinder),they also have some options which other shape's do not have.Polyplanes consist of 4 vertices, which are joined together to form the shape,these vertice's and edges can be extruded and shaped for the needs of the user.For somethings this not the best way to go, for straight edges and hard surface's such as a building.Polygons with their edges extruded are the best way to create organic structures/parts,they also offer more control.To create a good model, the pieces of geometry(polygons), should stay formed as quads,triangles are most avoided , as these cause rendering problems.Their are many tools, to edit the shapes, merge vertices to create one whole mesh , and other things such as bridges,and curves which can make organic shapes dependent on how many divisions their are.

As our project is to model an sphere shaped character,the sphere primitive isn't suitable to use as it has a very distorting  geometry, a way around this is to use a cube with 1 division each side and smooth mesh 3 times, to create a sphere , which is made of quads with equalish proportions,which is more suitable for extruding and modeling.

The Rotation Problem

Rotations are made along the length of the joint,in world order, sometimes you have to use the "orient joint" tool to move the axes and have them the same direction, so you do not get problems with joints going one way, and another going differently.Eular rotations are the most common,it requires an rotation order to work, but also can experience problems, such as Gimbal lock, which is when two axes align, and it cannot be moved, eular rotations are often referred to gimbal rotations because of this. 

Another rotation is Quaternion , which uses another axis, "t", which is it's roll value.
In Eular rotations their is an order (x, y and z) that the computer calculates the rotation of an object. There are six combinations which each , place the object in complete different areas in the world space.
xyz, xzy, yzx, yxz, zyx, zxy

If Rotation orders are incorrect these can break the rig, and cause gimbal problems while animating.
Various constraints and ik handles can be applied to joints to create more life like movements, and not requiring to move every joint, controllers can be made to move an whole leg for example,in the reverse foot lock case.

Rigging In Maya 1.0

 Hierarchies are the order in which geometry is organized together, they are parented together, there is always an child and a parent, the parent moves with the child , but the child can move abit but not to far from the parent, like a dog on a lead.Children are always added to the parent , if connecting to another piece the parent would then be a child also , the parent would move , and the two children follow, but the lower parent can still move around the parent and the child can move around that parent.Hierarchies are displayed in the "Outliner".Parented objects can be animated, for example an cylinder can be made to rotate around a sphere, it would need the pivot of the cylinder moved into the centre of the sphere and would enable it to be rotated around 360".

For are first series of lessons we learnt Rigging, which is the art of creating a skeleton structure to create animations , the skeletons are placed within geometry of models , and binded to the "Skin" similar to how muscles/bones and the skin are joined.Other elements such as muscle weights to create a lifelike realism to the movements, such as having a stopper on the rotation , so it can't rotate all the way around, for a neck joint , as an example.

Joints are the main piece of creating a skeleton, they are used from the main joint such as a wrist, then towards the fingers to the smaller finger pieces.

Joints are made of two sphere shapes and a arrow in between, this has no meaning , apart from to show the direction the joint is going.