Jewellery

 I knew that I wanted some necklaces and jewellery pieces on my table and therefor some matching and non matching sets.

My fake diamond and jewel stone process:
These were quite easy and simple to create as they are hard surface designs.

This is the beginning of a diamond stone:

 

I then created the boarder:

I indented the front of each 'diamond' surrounding the stone and turned it into a ring.

This is the final UV'd model.

As I wanted it to be a set I also created a necklace to go with it:

The other necklace is a simple mirror on fake pearls:

Again halving the model so I don't do twice as much work. I also have constraints on these pearls so they flow and flow just like a necklace like this would in real time.

cannedmushrooms (2010) 0806 Maya 2011 (necklaces).mov [YouTube video] Available at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJh2rJytFmw> Accessed 12th November 2012

 I decided the mirror was too simple and I modified this before continuing with my UVs.

I was then able to texture my necklace

And here is a short video of it 'rigged' and falling.

and my final jewels collected.

Unicorn Toy

The toy on my dressing table is going to be a unicorn and this is done using a series of software and techniques.

My ZBrush model after moving it around and getting a nice enough shape to work with:

  

More detail and form added:

  

After I'd finished most of the form I could add on the seams and toy detail on:

 More detail on the plastic aspects to the model and fabric and stitching when needed.

 

 This material shows my models imperfections and detail textures off further. So it helps me check and refine my model.

I finally, without symmetry I sculpted and textured my unicorn's horn.

I drew my topology to re-topologies it later. Following lines of an actual horse.

 

Using images like these.

http://invertednormal.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/horsewireframewordpress00.png

I have Issues with my retopology. It takes at least a day to create the new mesh and i keep having problems with it (holes and part missing) , so i may have to skip this step considering i am not animating my model. But I will try if I feel I have the time to try it a third time (three days is long enough spent).

This helped me with my fur.

Bystedt, Daniel (2012) Tutorial: Create fur with FiberMesh 3D World Available at <http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/08/16/create-fur-with-fibermesh/> Accessed 12th November 2012

Although I know Fibermesh fur cannot be taken into UDK I knew I wanted to try it out. And so here is a turn table and a simple fur coverage that I have loosely groomed and played around with, unfortunately it would take too long for me cover (hence the patches of odd fur) the model using grooming techniques and as i can't use it later it's almost pointless spending the time on it.
But I have it here to show what I have learnt on the way.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CreatingHairUsingAlpha.html

Now I went on to create the hair, using Zsketch and making each strand look like a string of wool.
This is a difficult step when Zbrush keeps crashing and therefore took me 3 times longer so do this simple step.

I then added wool texture for each strand using the clay build up tool.

This is the final tail and mane.

Close up of the mane.

I coloured the mane in pinks and purples.

 And added dark and lighter strands to the wool as it would look in real life.

From here I was able to then go on and colour the rest of my unicorn. I started off with a gold horn and covered the whole of this piece. I then chose a darker colour and ran it along the seams using a cross stitch brush. I then used this same dark colour to create a leathery pattern using a cow styled print.

Using the same technique I used 2 shades of pink on the ears, nostrils and hooves.

I coloured in simple eyes, which will be changed later in Maya to create hopefully a shiny material.

Here you can see the colours and tones I put on my unicorn's body, using a grey and yellow hue concentrated around the seams.

These are the pink hooves I coloured.

Here is a turntable of my high poly unicorn model.

I placed the maps on the low poly, learning about tangent space normals.This turntable is from Maya, and is done without the tangent space setting.

Dressing Table

I know that I must create all of my models simply in Maya before transferring them to zbrush for detail. This will help sort out what will work and what needs to be changed before being too deep into the detailing.

I started off with the base of my model which in my case would be the dressing table it's self.
These are the first front and side images that will help me model my table:

I created planes in Maya to place these images on using a Lambert material file.

Unfortunately this caused a problem with the plane and the image couldn't be fixed. Therefore to solve the problem I changed my initial image by 'squishing' it. I later realised I had to sort out my UV's.

And thus I have my plane sides to start modelling on. (the front one being a later version that I shall explain how it came about further in my modeling process.)

I then started out blocking using the front view and using cubes and arranging their vertices.

I also used extrude to help define other parts of the table, like the mirror round the back.

I then remembered to half my model so I only had to focus on side.

I then changed the topology and cleaned up my frame around the mirror.

I then extruded this frame out.

I followed this by starting on the draws, making sure I have the correct topology for them and the crowns on them.

I extruded this out on top of the crowns.

I extruded what I wished to be the curtain.

This is the final idea for my first table model. However after looking at this I realised that the table looked too clunky and needed legs.

And therefore I redesigned my model

And once again I halved my model.

I created legs that I duplicated so that they would be identical.

I then added an extra frame, and checked for hidden faces.

I then started to bevel my edges as they seemed too sharp and would fold in ZBrush. I also, on the other edges that needed to be kept sharp, added an extra line to allow the correct collapse.

After bevelling I had to clean up the topology.

I then had to make sure my new smaller curtain was a separate object to help change its material.

I was then able to change the shape to emulate a curtain.

And this is the first final Maya dressing table.

I again didn't like my model again. It wasn't elegant or ornate enough for my use. Which is why I went back the a mood board and started to redesign it.

I took photos of a table I found in House or Fraser.

From this I started to create my table:

 The detail at the start in my simple curves and leg pieces:

I finished one quarter and mirrored it to the other side.

 This is the side of my piece:

 I had a problem with some of my normals and therefor had to go through and harden/soften edges.

I was then able to move on and start building my piece upwards.

To UV I didn't do this throughout unfortunately. So i had to work out how to do each section to a good enough quality. This is when I separated each section that I felt needed time to accomplish and using Roadkill, I separated my UV's out.

And this is my final textured half table.

I've mirrored and combined the table.

I then created a mirror material for the specific sections needed. Using this tutorial:

"If so create a phong or blinn, change the colour to black, up the reflectivity to 1 and assign it to the object that you want, make sure that you have an environment for the mirror to reflect either by connecting an image to the reflected colour or by putting the object inside an environment and enabling raytracing, otherwise you wont get any reflections (since there wont be anything to reflect)."

from: http://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24087&highlight=Mirror+reflect

I placed a wooden texture on my model, but the map was too harsh. I also managed to get a wooden a colour on my table.

This is the corrected version of my map which looks significantly better.

Ontop of the Diffuse and normal map I managed to get a nice specular map on the table, which shows really well on the mirror. I tried to create a lived in look.