3D Digital Literacy (Assignment 1-Pre Production Week 4)

This week from what I gathered is the time that we are instructed to start finalising our ideas and begin creating them within Maya. This week I couldn’t get to university due to the two hours of travel and the fact it was snowing, so to make up for this I went onto Trello where my tutor has included all our work to date. This week was working with Maya and Substance, so that we could create a paint or texture on substance designer and give our 3D creations on Maya a little more design.

I tried to practice at home and worked on the tutorials with my friend, trying to test the saying of two heads are better than one and, in this case, understanding Maya. My friend was able to help me in explain the tutorials and I have found now that I am able to create and add basic paints and textures onto my project. With further work and completion onto my project, I hopefully with more practice will be able to improve my knowledge of substance designer and will be in class next time to get some advice and help.

This image is of my first rough draft and drawing of the idea of what I wanted to design for my wizarding staff 3D model. I included some reference photos onto the page for close viewing, while I used them for inspiration. In relation to the other drafts which then became my final creation, the most striking difference was that I had changed the top of the flower from a closed tulip (which I believed was too top heavy) to instead include a flower anther and lily skirt. I was happy to see, how although my drawings and initial idea may look similar to the final draft, you can clearly see the slight, yet effective changes that I made with my design and how it became much more polished throughout.

Some of the references included my first-hand photography of some tulips, lily’s and an arrangement of flowers and also inspiration from the models within my favourite game, ‘The Legend of Zelda’.

This week I decided to start drawing out, working through and finalising the idea which I had only thought of within my head. I knew that I wanted a stick/thick wooden centre with curves and ridges at each end. I also knew I wanted a weighted but well-suited opened flower centre, almost to act as a hand rest for the holder. So, with this in mind I mapped out my idea in a blue colour pencil on procreate and had originally pictured a lily based middle and a tulip top to the staff.

I quickly realised that the combination of the two flowers were not going to work or look atheistically pleasing together so I opted for a simpler top finish. I still was liking the look of the lily centre so messed around with the placement of the petals. The top I changed to resemble the flowers anthers and was happy to see it fitted well and wasn’t too bulky. I also tried the idea of a sharper taper towards the top but deemed it too short and sudden and a characteristic that would inhabit the entire staff layout. The blue was the initial idea, the red pencil was the changes I had made along the way and the black was the so, far final design I had drawn. Next was the proportion of the staff and how it would look within 3D modelling.

In this drawing, on either side of my page. I copy and pasted the same drawing but made one slightly longer and the other I made slight larger sideways. I wanted a view of what style of would want to draw my wizard staff, so I played around with some styles and views, following the same routine of blue as my first draft, red pencil for changes and then black for the final design I will most likely be creating. On each drawing I liked the longer and thinner staff, I just thought everything proportioned out better and was a more realistic fit. I also flattened and rounded out the bottom of the wizard staff to apply a weight like attribute, that would help the staff stay upright without much force. Also, for an aesthetically pleasing view to the flower skirt of the staff, I included diagrams and notes to stagger the positions of the petal to some above and some below and also with different proportions and flows to their bodies.

This is the final design of my wizard staff, I had copied and pasted the last approved drawing and re-drew the final output from the template and made the changes I wanted to make. I was really happy with this design as I feel it captures what I imagined and hoped for the wizard staff to resemble. Upon completion I had added a few changes such as three added rings for characteristics, two on top and one on bottom and also the material of my staff and how the inclusion of smaller petals mixed throughout the large petals and would give depth to the design.

Once I was happy with my final design, I then gathered one of my favourite reference photos of a lily, that I had captured and used the colour match tool on procreate for its exact colour palette. I layered the different shades of brown for the wooden centre, shades of white and pink for the flower skirt and finally hints of green and black lines for definition.

I was happy with the end product with colour added and was ready to move onto creating my model on Maya. Although I used these specific colour palettes for the drawing, I wasn’t too sure on what textures or colours I would be able to use within substance designer and I was eager to continue within Maya and find out what I can create.