Bruno Estevez
Statement of intent
In the start of my course the first program I started using was Sculptris that is used for modelling characters maybe even weapons and I really enjoyed it. Later on in the course Maya and Mud box was introduced.
I used Maya a lot for modelling maps and objects for example weapons or a lamp. As for Mud box I used it to design characters I also used Maya and Mud box for my final major project in the first year of my course.
I did not get any help from videos I simply learnt while using both programs I eventual got used to using the tools, it wasn’t difficult for me to make my designs looking Semi good since I’ve always been more into art than another topic so my artistic past helped me a lot. During my 2 years doing Animation and games design I didn’t enjoy much of other tasks as mush as I liked modelling using Maya and Mud box.
So I want to make my final major project involving modelling.
What I am going for is an architectural visualisation. My final major project idea is to model a kingdom in the sky like Sword art online anime (2012) using Maya. My main idea was to design a kingdom however I though it would be too doll so I decided to make it in the sky with small floating islands floating all around this giant spire that looks very futuristic looking. Inspired by Halo 4 game (2012) I was also thinking about adding a few plants and moss on the spire to give my audience the expression that is been there for a long time. I will also have light beans of energy flowing around the walls of the spire.
I will also model a small city that will be inside the spire like Bioshock infinite (2013) my plans is to make an ancient city inside the twist is that I would mix a Japanese culture with a western cutler if this doesn’t work I will create my city out of fiction.
Ideas that I have in my head are from the anime series Naruto anime created by Masahi Kisimoto (1997).
I am looking to give out a colourful bright feel as well as very natural I am planning to make it look like there is a lot of while life around it maybe even include a waterfall. The colour scheme would be grey and blue for the spire mixed with a bit of green for the moss forever my city will be a mix of colours, my aim is to use a lot of bright colours.
For my final major project I will mostly be using a program called Maya to model both my tower and city I will also use sun base lighting for my light source, however I will need to use Photoshop in order to create my own textures for my walls or flags for example.
Another program I will be using is after effects to edit the sky and have it moving in my scene of my spire I will do this to make it more realistic. However I will have to be careful with rendering my work out as it could take a while. I will also be using UV mappings to apply my own textures.
change about my work that why I will know what works and what doesn’t then I can go back and change it if need be. I will also ask them to write 3 points/things they like about my work and at the end I will ask them to write if they liked my project overall or not that way I will know if my project was successful.
At the end of my project I will ask family and friends to write there dislikes and likes I will count the dislikes and likes and whatever has more In the end I will know if my project was a success or a failure.
I got my idea off a game called Halo 4 made for the Xbox platform and created by 343 industry (2012) in the game they have giant spire floating in the sky so I wanted to do one similar to it but make in kingdom inside I also got the idea from the floating kingdom from the anime Sword art online (2012) where they having a floating castle. As for my city I wanted to do something mixed from Naruto anime (1997) but also a mixed of Dishonored (2012) and Bioschock infinite (2013).
Naruto anime created by Masahi Kisimoto (1997)
Arkane studios 2012, Dishonored, video game, multiplatform, Bethesda Softworks, America.
343 industry 2012 Halo 4, video game, Xbox exclusive, America.
Irrational Games 2013 Bioshock Infinite, multiplatform.
Sword art online anime created by Reki Kawahara (2012)
FMP
My idea is to create a city/kingdom floating in the sky however the city will be on top of a spire which is the reason why the city is floating.
Bioshock infinit. Video Game.
Bioshock infinite is hands down my biggest inspiration the game has many different city’s and towns all floating in the sky this has been my biggest inspiration since its pretty similar to mine however my city is being help up by a spire.
Bioshock infinite also has stunning visuals and bright colours, which i will try to add to my final project.
A mix of bright colours and floating in the sky is what am going for and it is what Bioshock has.
Also the buildings and models remind me of a more bright and clean version of America back in the 18th century something games such as assassins creed unity was able to capture perfectly.
In Bioshock infinite they use clouds to blur out the background or anything in the background which forces you to focus on what they want/ The city design.
Bioshock also use flags and birds to establish the size of there environments also another way they establish size of the map is using blimps, they use blimps on the background of different bigger environment’s giving viewer’s and impression of the size of the city’s.
I also noticed that using blimps is also a good idea to show floating objects and really relates to how the whole city is also floating in the sky.
Another thing iv noticed on the Bioshock images are how they are shot as they have other bigger or smaller city’s floating in the background but in a higher point meaning you can see the bottom of the city which also allows them to show how the city are floating.
Bioshock infinite-game,2013
Naruto leaf village. anime/manga.
In my city i wanted to mix a Morden culture but also have some fantasy Japanese mix into it, which is why i went with naruto because i really like the design of the buildings and the pipes that run on them. i will use a lot of reference from naruto and them to my modelling because i want to mix a European and Japanese feel to my model i think it will look vey odd and different however that’s what i trying to achieve something new that stands out.
The village in Naruto is called the hidden leaf village also know as the village hidden in the leaf which is just that behind the village walls is a forest and mountain’s which is also a good way to establish the size of the walls around the village and the size of both the city and buildings.
As the village is on the ground ad surrounded by forests anther good way I may use to blur out sections of the city that I don’t need to show are the use of tress in Naruto free roam game places you are not allowed to go to are blocked by tress and it also matches the setting which the city is located in.
Halo 4, Video Game.
the floating spires on halo 4 is also a big inspiration for my work since the thing that’s holding my city up in the mysterious spire. I also want to take a few ideas of how they modelled the spire.
On the halo spire scene I noticed the background lighting is very bright and blurred I think this was done to blur out the spires in the background this allows the artists to spend less time on detail on the background spire which the viewer shouldn’t be focusing on.
Halo also use a lot of clouds for there scenes clouds are a good use to hide things that are not needed in the scene and also give the illusion of height.
I also noticed how the clouds curve around the spire I think this gives it really good effects giving the spire a really mysterious higher power feel to it.
Dishonored Video Game
Dishonored has a unique models to its environment some buildings look like they are from the Victorian times and others looks completely out of this world which is something that i want to use because my FMP is a fantasy world/city floating in the sky, i believe dishonoured models would fit really well in my fantasy world.
Concept Art
Here are a few concept arts i made myself for these drawings i mostly took inspirations from halo my purpose for this was to set the scene and to help me get a clearer picture of what i want and what i don’t so not everything i draw or make is something i will want its simple a form of testing things out and finding the right match.
One thing i really want to model is the spire itself and for it not to look too much like halos i wanted to add my own ideas to it such as a power source a giant sphere of energy giving it endless power to fly and to keep the city fully functional for many life times.
The background is not my favourite piece of work since its not too detailed. however the point of the back ground is to be blurry so it puts more focus on the spire which will be what I want everyone to focus on.
Here is the spire I had in mind however I want to add more like source around it.
I made this model to test out how the energy sphere would look on the sphere and I really like how it fit.
The strangest model i made is the main building as you can see it looks like a mix of a America 18th century building with a ancient Japanese mix to it which is something i really wanted to do and i personally believe it looks good although i still need to finish texturing i think once its complete it will match the idea i had from the start.
The other buildings are pretty different i tried to mix some of the Naruto buildings you find in the leaf village (naruto,anime), As well as a few ideas i got for designs once looking at bioshock infinite.
What I plan to do next is to try mix and match colours of the building and try make them fit since the Japanese tower, the base colour is meant to be red and the building that its mixed with is a doll white.
What I did to try and blend it together more is make some of the tiles and design of the building using a red brick texture in order to fit with the tower.
After class crit.
After the class crit i was able to get a good idea of what worked and what didnt.
i was given good feedback and bad feed back which isnt bad because it helps me develope my work to a higher standerd
I started to look at different themes that would match my 18th century america with a similar building design and colour scheme.
People were really confused of what theme I was going for which gave me an idea that my models weren’t fitting as well as I hoped so.
At the start I was going for and 18th century America and a Japanese eddo era however my models didn’t reflect it as well as I thought it did which is when I decided to change a bit of the theme I was going for.
Problems..
While doing some more research for my city i stumbled on a anime called Attack on titan(2009) where the buildings matched what i was going for and it reminding me of a Victorian time and it also fit very well my 18 century America.
While looking into attack on titan i realized that the house had similar colour pattern and made it look more fitting to each other which was something i didn’t really take into consideration.
The building had a lot of dark old red tiles and the building were mostly white, grey and grimy yellow mostly all brick texture.
After looking at fiction I decided I needed something real to use as source image so I went with Victorian time London which i would fit my other models really well so i started mixing London building with American building which were very similar but my problem was trying to make people notice what the themes I had mixed together.
After I looked at Attack on Titan, I started looking at a game Assassins creed syndicate based in London Victorian time which gave me a idea of what the colour scheme of the buildings since most of the images i found of the Victorian time was all black and white so I used Assassins creed syndicate as a souse image.
On Assassins creed syndicate there are allot of different colour schemes such as bright red, blue and orange used for the houses however what i noticed that the big building are all mostly a dirty white colour or a creamy colour which is something I’m going to take into consideration.
Another thing i realized was that since the building where quite dark and dirty they used bright colourful flags and banners to make it look less grimy.
most of the colours used on the banners and flags are red, blue and white, which are colours used on there national flag.
This japanese temple base model is something i decided to remove from my city since it got both good feedback and bad however people where really confused since other building styls didnt quite suit and link together so as a end result it looked beyond odd so i took it off and remodeled something more fitting and believable
Colour scheme
After setting a theme i thought would fit i decided to look into what short of base colours my texture would be.
What i wanted to do is not have too many mix of colour but instead I wanted to have about 5 or 4 different colours used in my city so everything would look more fitting however i would use assassins creed and bioschock as reference for the colour scheme one colour I will definitely be using a lot is red since bricks are red and Victorian times they used if not in all then in most building’s and houses they used bricks.
If able to i will..
Once I put all my buildings in place if able to i will try go back and model a eddo time Japanese temple or buildings simply because it was the main idea I had imaged in my head so red pricks would also fit in very nicely with red paint as allot of Japanese temples had allot of red used.
Before...
After...
After removing the Japanese temple from the joint house this is the small Victorian style model I created as you can see i used red bricks and a darkish grey stone so it really stands out from the building it is joint with this helps it stand put and makes you see its two different buildings but joint together and I had a lot of positive feedback and people started understand the theme and they said it fit really well.
The front building also fit really well with the new buildings, as I was able to make the textures and base colour match.
Before...
After...
When designing my city I had 2 major problems. My buildings didn’t match and i since I only designed a small area of the city I was left thinking on how I would only show this small area without the viewers noticing that there isn’t other buildings. As I only modelled what I was going to show and have an animation of the camera zooming out of the city I was left with the problem of showing the rest of the city that I wont model.
So I started looking at Attack on titan again and got an idea of creating a giant stonewall around the city so when the camera zooms past the wall you cant see the real size of the city. Also I found it would make sense to have a wall or something bigger than a fence to keep people who live there from falling of or any dangers.
Somthing i didnt like about my work was the background buildings since i was told by a friend of mine that the buildings didnt seem to have a theme so i made a few adjusments and re-textured and added some chimneys and it looked like something straight of the vitorian time.
I also noticed that the wall was made of stone and with a similar colour of the houses inside the city which is something i tend to reflect on my model.
However I am not sure if the textures will match the same texture that I used for my spire and I cant and don’t want to change the texture on my spire as its how I imagined it to look like so in any case I might have to might a texture that match’s my theme.
I really like the design of my spire however I think the textures of my giant stone wall and the spire didn’t feel and match to well together so I decided that i will change it to a darker colour or maybe a future looking wall to match the spire. After having a classmate of mine have a look at my work I asked him for his opinion and he told me that the cylinder shape of the base and walls of the city seems odd, and after looking at it carefully I agreed.
So I plan to change both the texture into something more matching of the spire and also have the walls the same shape of the spire.
My next steps.
I will change the shape of the wall to match the shape of my spire and I will also change the texture into something more matching and once I am done modelling I will make a quite animation showing off the city and add it to after effects and have the city in the sky with moving clouds.
I will also use other spires floating in the background and birds flying near the castle to give a sense of scale.
To further develop my work I will look more in depth into 18th century buildings and how they came to be and why they are designed the way they are.
This will help me get a better understanding of everything and I will be able to compare my building models to the original thing.
Before..
This is a before and after of my working as you can see after the class crit I was able to get a clearer idea of what I wanted and to do which I personally think looks better now. As I was messing around with the positioning of the building I came to an idea to and levels to the map by adding stairs, which made it, look allot more fitting than just a narrow empty road.
After..
In Depth Analysis.
The giant walls in attack on titian are meant to keep out giant monsters so they are meant to be bigger than the city and the monsters.
Also the wall is really wide/thick and made out of concrete, which makes it very strong in order to keep the monsters.
The difference..
The difference between my wall and attack on titans great wall of Maria is that mine is a lot less thick than attack on titans as in my world there are not monsters therefor there is not need for it however something that I decided to add was the thicker and larger sections that there are in the wall of Maria.
The wall in the anime attack on titan is called Wall Maria and has thicker layer of concrete splitting the main walls making it stronger.
Each section of the wall isn’t equal either each section adapts to the ground level meaning making one each section different size.
Promblem solving..
When i first tired to render i found myself rendering over night and haveing found that it crashed during render meaning i had to re-render my models however i was left with the question of why was it taking so long to render for such basic modle while trying to find out what was cousing the render to take so long i found two problems which were some building modles that i had designed duplicated on top of eachother adding to the polly count, and for my second problem i realized that some of my textures were 51GB which is extrememly big for an image file. So what i did in order to help my render was delete duplicated models and add my lage textures into photoshop and re-save them as a smaller file allowing me to render my work much faster.
Reflection..
At the start of the project I was going for a mix of Japanese and 1980s American style and switched to a 1980s America mix Victorian London style.
What I wish I had done was added more detail however i think this would only add more problems as to rendering.
I also wasn’t completely able to keep up with the time table i set myself at the start of this project and got help back on settling on a final model of the city however what caused me to be delayed more than anything was in fact getting the render done in time.
For future notes and projects I will give my self two-week render time and a extra 2-week to edit whatever needs to be refined
This is the final out come of my work I added my render to after effects and began editing I added an animated cloud a in the background and as planned also I added animated birds coming flying near the spire to add a sense of scale all in all I really like my project however if I were to go back and change a few things that’s happened during the project I would have tired to finish my modelling before 3 weeks from the due date in order to give me more time to render out my work in different ways which would allow me to experiment rendering in different angles and so.
Although in the end I am happy with it, its what I planned to do and its what I got done however I believe it needs more editing.
final outcome...
After looking in depth to the wall on attack on titan and using all the advise I got from the class crits I re- made the walls with a similar shape as the spire and I also created thicker layers on the wall as they did on attack on titan but in a different way as mine are located on each edge.
In the attack on titan walls they are used to keep monsters out however in my world there are no monsters so the use for them in my walls are for extra strength in case of a crash so the city would get damage.
Final Evaluation...
Intentions:
The aim for my project was to model a city floating in the sky, at the start I wanted to mix two different cultural architectural building and add them into one city and then model a mythical futuristic spire that the city is placed on, which is the reason on why the city is floating.
After I would have finished modelling my buildings I was going to add them to after effects and have a small animation showing of my city and the spire as it floats in the sky I was also planing to use birds in the background in order to add the sense of size to my spire.
Research:
For my research I looked into a wide range of concept arts, games and anime that helped me get the idea of how I wanted to model my city to look like, For this I looked at games such as Bioshock Infinite which was the game the helped me the most and other games like Halo creating by 343 industry and Dishonored which related to a sort of theme I was going for.
I also looked at anime for reference, I looked at Naruto a ninja anime which also inspired me and gave me a lot of ideas.
After sometime into my project I also looked at another game called Assassin's creed syndicate which was a great help for both modelling and texturing.
Design Development:
My design changes and developed a lot from what it was in the start and also my intentions changed during the project. After some help from class critics I realised that the theme I was first going for got people really confused which was a late 1980's mixed with edo era Japan theme.
So I picked a new theme just a 1980's America mixed with Victorian time London which for me personally was a great fit as very similar so building wouldn't look odd together.
After re modelling my city building I also had a problem with the way the city and the building were layed out in a row so I personally got the idea to and levels to my city by the use of stairs and placed the building in each-side of the road that stands in the middle. After I had done that I began to get great feed back from my work which I was personally happy with aswell. After that I used Halo 4 as a great source of inspiration to model my floating spire I had no problem doing this and it did not take me long.
I ran into a few problems when I started rendering my work render took longer than it should and even crashed and I was running out of time after some help from my teacher I found out that my textures were to high in file size and had to put it into Photoshop and re save it in order for it to have less MB which helped but I also found that some of my building had been duplicated on top of each other adding to my poly count which also made my render slower after fixing all these issues I was able to render it well and I was happy that I was able to over come this problem.
For future note I will try and give myself 2 weeks to render just in case.
After that I added it into after effects in order to make it look as if it was floating in the sky.
I had some problem matching my spire and the way it turned to match the movements of the cloud but after editing I got it to work and I added both music and birds to it as I wanted to, to add sense if size.
Method of working:
I planed out my time to do modelling or any practical work in college and any website or writing work at home this worked really well for me but if I was given the chance to work at home I would have as it would have boosted my level of work and I would have done everything much quicker giving me time to look back and edit or change things I thought would need to be changed or edited.
Final outcome:
My final outcome came out quite well I was able to complete my intentional work by modelling the city making and modelling a really good futuristic spire and then putting moving clouds in the background in order to make it look as if it was flying I was also able to add bird to it as intended to add the illusion of size to my spire and city I believe it worked really well and I came out with a good outcome however I don't believe it was perfect as the I rendered my spire to turn looked a little odd from the clouds in the background I tried to fix it to the best of my ability and I was able to make it look better but I was unable to make it perfect however I think it worked out really well I like how I looked and how I played out.
If I was to go back:
If I was to go back and change things I have done during this project is I would have changed my theme much sooner and finished modelling quicker in order yo have more time to render more than once and also have more time to edit my work a lot more than I have had I would have all so changed a few textures that I have put on in my city as some from far don't look seamless I recognise this and I know what I would have done differently if able to start over also I would have tired to come up with my storyboard much sooner so I would spend time modelling things that I dint need giving me more time to spend on the rest of my project. However over all I found my project to be successful as I was able to complete everything I set out to done and I personally like it.