End of my Masters Journey

As i have came to the end of my masters degree, i have learnt allot about believablity and immersion in environments. I feel i have definitely achieved my goal that i set out to do 12 months ago :)

I have learnt that believablity is achieved through anyone's eyes if the correct amount of environmental realism is present and with this immersion will take place. 

I will try and keep up to date with this blog to show what journeys i go on next :) 

Adding the Tilt Shift Magic!!

With both models complete, it was now time to add the magic of the tilt shift filter to make them look like real life miniatures!! As i did the test from the start with the rocket, i new what i had to do to achieve the tilt shift miniature look.

Here is the results

From the images, i feel i have definitely achieved the miniature feel and tricked the viewers eyes! i am very happy with the results :)

Steampunk Truck Complete!

Here is the Truck all textured and looking pretty :)

SteamPunk Truck 02!

After i completed my tank, i then went on to modelling a truck! I kept it similar to the tank so they looked like they belonged together. This way i can always add to this and complete a set. 

Steampunk Tank Completed

Aftr making my tank look all pretty, here is the final outcome of it :)

Steampunk Tank 01!

Over the last few days i have been modelling out a steampunk tank. I have tried to keep the shapes chunky so it has that charming feel aswell as trying to add as much detail as i can as i dont want it to be over complex like some things in the steampunk universe. Here is some screenshots!

I will now UV map it and start the texturing process!

Vehicles!

From doing my art test, I thought for my first diorama i will model a steampunk vehicle! or more along the lines of a tank. The shape of them are very chunky and solid so this way i can get some solid textures going on. Also tanks are big! and i believe i can get a good feel and look when i turn it into miniature with the tilt shift photography :)

I gathered a handful of images of tanks and vehicles to start me off and i put them into a mood board.

Art Test with the Coin!

In my previous post, I talked about how i was having a little trouble capturing the "miniature" feel so i found this company who places a coin next to real life individual objects as this helps with the sense of scale.

I tired this out myself and this is what it turned out like.

From this, i feel i have definitely achieved the "miniature" feel from the coin being there. I also think because i have taken the edge of the wooden table out, this helps keep the object compact and helps with the scale.

I emailed this work off to my tutor and we both agreed that i needed to change a few things in order to get it more believable and real looking. My tutor also mentioned that i didn't really need the coin as he thought i also captured the "miniature" feel in my first 2 tests so maybe it could of been the wooden table that was off setting the scale and distorting the miniature look.

With this test done then, i learned that

• Use more polys in the models - as this is believably and not something that is going in a game.
• Work on the textures - Make the brass and the cast iron textures more believable. 
• Don't show the tables edges
• Get rid of the coin!
• Work on the lighting a bit more
• Keep my Steam Punk dioramas the same as things from the Steam Punk universe - Don't change to much - keep the shapes chunky! 

From this i have my list of what i need to follow so i will now gather a hand full of different things from Steam Punk and decide what will be best to model for my dioramas :) 

Art Testing!

I needed to do a art test first to see if i could get the miniature tilt shift affect digitally. I decided to model a Steam Punk rocket which is placed upon some gears. This could be a trophy of some kind or could even well be a monument. I placed it on top of a wooden table so it didn't look like it was floating in mid air. Here is what it looked like once it was complete.

Once i finished modelling and rendering the model in Marmoset Toolbag 2, I had to start testing out different camera angles for when i apply the tilt shift to the image. To start me off i used the image i had above, applied the tilt shift image and increased the saturation. For me i didnt quite capture the "miniature" feel as i felt it was the wooden table that was making it still look large and i also wasn't happy with the camera angle.

With the next test, i decided to zoom the camera out a bit more and make the table larger, but again i just couldn't quite capture that "miniature" look and feel. I then decided to do more research into tilt shift and see how other photographers done it. I also believed that my main factor of why i couldn't capture the miniature feel was because of it was only one object. Normally tilt shift is done of towns and city's were there is allot going on but as i am modelling dioramas, this is were i felt my challenge was.

I then came across a company called Skrekkogle and they do individual objects such as a car, and to get the "miniture" feel, they place a large coin next to it and then do the tilt shift process. I thought i would give this a try with my dioramas and see if it could help me get that small look. 






With this, I decided to model a 50p coin and do a test with this.

Lots of Books!

Now that I had my theme, I went out and bought some books based on Steam Punk. I already had lots of images from the Internet but having a book at hand is always best!

The books show tons of steam punk creations from weapons to clothing so I thought with my dioramas, I could create a collection of different steam punk objects.

I loved some of the characters that were shown, some were very simple and charming and others were very complex. That's another reason why i have chosen to do Steam Punk as i could make it as simple or as complex as i wanted to. 

Research!

As I have my basic idea of what i want to do for my final project, I needed a theme for my dioramas, something i could take lots of ideas and make them my own and maybe something i could then keep adding to if i wanted to in the future, this way my final project could never be broken.

I wanted something that had big, bold brash shapes, not overly complex but that had some level of detail.

I started looking at sci fi themes as that has what i was looking for, I can across a couple of things, one of those was an Artist called Simon Stalenhag, he is a Swedish sci-fi concept artist and he creates vivid, semi- dystopian worlds where realistic robotic designs blend in with classic cars, playing children and woodland creatures. I really liked the robot designs and how believable they looked in its surroundings.







I also came across Cosmic Motors and these are futuristic sci-fi vehicles that look believable and they look even more believable because there is a person standing in front of them.







From looking at both of these, Both deliver the complexity that i was looking for as a theme for my dioramas and by looking at them, they instantly pointed me towards the Steam Punk era.
Steam Punk has a massive collection of bold and brash vehicles, air ships and robots for me to look at.

Semester 3 Final Project!!

Well it certainly has been a while since i updated this blog. I finished my semester 2 work and over the past few weeks i have just been having a think on what i would like to do for my final project.

Through the course of my MA, i have been looking at believability within 3D environments and how do they immerse people. I have done a selection of different projects from picking out real world locations and re-creating them digitally to a low poly modular training simulation for a nuclear regulations company. I sat down with my tutors and wrote everything down that i have done and out of each project, i then wrote down everything i learnt from that project in terms of believability. 

Out of all the projects,

• Believability in low poly and low texture resolution
• Believabilty fantasy place
• Believable training environment 
• Believability from a 2D world.

From this i learnt that believability can be captured through low poly environments and so environments don't have to be super high detailed, By doing the 2D world to 3D also confirmed this fact as that to was a low poly environment. I also know that having a certain charm to an environment also helps the believabilty.

With this, i thought about taking all this knowledge and creating my own believable, fantasy and charming world but then i thought i didn't really want to create one big environment so i opted to create a series of dioramas that each have a narrative to tell. I will create them in a charming art style that will capture the viewer as well as the believabilty. 

As i really like this idea, i felt like i needed something else for the project to stand out that bit more so having spoken with my tutors, i decided that once i have my dioramas completed, i will add a thing called "Tilt Shift Photography" onto them. This will create the illusion of my digital 3D dioramas look like real life places but viewed as miniatures because of the tilt shift filter. This will incorporate more believability into the project as viewers will think they are real and that i have just taken photographs.

Here is some tilt shift photographs. 

The Scythian-Main Character 3D Model

As I have completed my scene, I had some spare time to model the main character in the game called The Scythian ☺
It was very simple to do and I really enjoyed doing this. It was completely out of my comfort zone as I have hardly done characters or hand painting. I will put this into my scene and take some screen shots ☺

I think this character is adorable! Am really happy I have got it spot on to the original concept ☺

Superbrothers in 3D!!

After some modelling and researching Superbrothers, I have now created the 2D game Superbrothers in 3D!! I absolutely love how this has turned out 😀