Day: December 13, 2017

 

 

 

For my modelling  I chose to do the right side of the Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X. I chose this as it would provide a challenge to model the complex shape of the stick itself as well as the small details required in the texture

Here is the video showing my modelling process

During the duration of the video, I realised very quickly how many ways there is to design this model. I attempted to design it all in one go Extruding from my original base onwards. While worked for the basic poly model, the smoothed version started having clipping problems as I began to bevel the edges to smooth them out.

I continued on and attempted to use the sculpting tools to create the indents into my model as seen on the base. After watching some tutorials briefly to try and get it to work, I found that my model was not high poly enough and when subdivided reacted poorly to the inverted lift tool. This left my mesh in an unusable state so  I backtracked and attempted to continue with my original method.

After finishing the base, I wanted to see how it would texture, so I performed a quick UV unwrap and exported it as a .obj for Substance Painter. During my time in substance, i began to have trouble with the texturing process and the use of masks. I will need to watch some tutorials as a refresher to understand where I was going wrong

I continued on with the models and quickly learned how awkward the stick was to model. As the grip is designed to be held comfortably so is shaped like the inside of a hand that was extremely difficult to replicate with Maya.

When reaching the top of the stick the sudden transition from smooth the straight edge became extremely confusing for myself to get right in the smoothed view. So I decided to rethink my plan to model this

 

Reflection

To build this model I need to rethink my approach to building it. Building it all as one solid object means the smoothed view does not look natural and attempting bevels on surfaces that change begins to create  clipping issues meaning an overall tougher job.

It has been a while since I used Substance Painter and I’m in need of a quick refresher to get myself up to speed, I should also look into how I can affect the normal’s to create the seamed areas of the flight stick without modelling them to save on clipping errors.

Sculpting in Maya is completely new to me. And something that I would like the research in the future and it potential uses. Otherwise for this project i don’t think it will be necessary to get the final product I want.

To Do

-Attempt to model the flight stick in individual sections and combine them together when finished.

– look into more tutorials on hard surface modelling to potentially pick up some tips

-Watch some tutorials on Substance painter to get back to grips with

-Research how to affect normal maps within substance painter.

From my last development, I decided that I should model a bin to add to the scene.

The model is a cylinder with a hole inside modelled in Maya and textured in substance painter.

Here is the creation of the bin

I tried around with different shapes until I found one that I liked.

Here is a simple render of the bin.

 

The bin is a simple grey steel with a slight amount of dirt gathered mainly at the bottom. I felt the bin was a good choice to fit in the scene as it is something that can exist in the scene without diverting the attention from whatever the shot could be about.

The bin sat in the track well when placed, but the lighting was the key problem I was having. What I attempted at first was the use of 2 area lights. A strong backlight to match the shadows in the scene and give light wrap and front light to stop the front of the bin from being dark.

This method completely washed out my shadows and made the bin stand out in the footage due to its lack of place in the scene.

My next attempt was angle the light so it wouldn’t hit the ground and destroy the shadows, This, however, did not work at all and just made the bin bland as seen in the video below

With some help from Jon, i found that a lot of my settings were wrong. I had imported my textures through the nodes as colour channels when they should have been non-colour data as well as this, I had not set up my metallic texture, meaning the bin was not taking in the colour reflection for the floor.

Here is  the correct setup  for the node

This allowed my model to look as good as it could for the scene.

The next thing was the introduction of world lighting, instead of relying on area lights and reflections off the ground.

Adding the area light brightened up the bin to a light level, but did have the adverse effect of damaging the shadows in the scene

 

This was fixed by adding a larger area light to mimic the sunlight. Next came lining up the shadows to match the scene and that led me to the final render