A bamboo shoot

Single mesh bamboo shoot with no overlapping poly. Pretty simple little thing that took a whole day a a night to figure out... . So haven't gotten around to texture anything yet. My laptop is bleeping dead(unable to boot) so had to find alternative to easy(-er) UV-ing option than UV-ing straight in SoftImage/Maya, because I'm told it's a royal pain. So far it seems that Roadkill will be my answer for now. Or classmate's laptop with Headus UV, which I was using, and is better than Roadkill.

Modelling.

Having no more than a sample .45 colt and a couple of windows under my modelling belt, I set out to conquest organic modelling of a fungi forest. It turned out to be a long, slow trip through mud, monsoon, and mosquito of Vietnam, crawling face-down. Just when I thought I finally got the base mesh right, I had to face down ZBrush with no prior training. Just when I thought I finally finished the normal map sculpt, I found out my second UV set (for light map) vanished from all my .obj's. Just when I thought I knew what to do with the phantom lightmap (re-make, period), I found a GAPING HOLE has somehow, at some point, opened up in the mesh. And I didn't notice until I have OVER-SAVED every obj and ztool there were. *face-twitch*

A Mushroom, is in UDK! And glowing!

So the low res, one and only done, lantern mushroom is successfully imported into UDK with 100 emission value of yellow constant. And it's just a glowing mushroom without any color or texture. BUT, it's visible progress. Makes everybody happy...er. At least I feel better seeing something happen.

Full Group Project with sound and credits

Now here's the full clip of Term 2's group project! It was the hardest, and best time of this whole program. I'll remember this fondly...

Tentacles of Terror from Anne Rufin on Vimeo.

Model 01

Remade this one model 2 times, but forgot special merge option and lost all copied UV. Now reUV-ing the entire mesh as single mesh. Learning experience, learning experience. LEVEL UP!!! ... I've lost it.

Note to self

It's too easy to panic and be taken over by fear that due to my lack of skills I will fall behind in production and not get things done on time. That panic sends me into pretending I'm making some work while in fact I'm just throwing myself into a quicksand of unfamiliar programs and tools while hoping for the best. That did not work in Term 1, nor Term 2, and certainly won't start working ever. It is like being in the water - panic, and drown. It's all wasting time. The only thing to do is ignore the fear, ignore what other, more skilled people are doing around you (for now), and calm down and do the right thing - dedicate time to get familiar and educated about the process and tools you need for this particular step in this particular project (via tutorial video or text), and THEN start trying things out. Yes, learning and innovating comes from just trying and failing, but it doesn't hurt to charge into the jungle with a compass or a map. It only increase survival rate. In this world, nobody has unlimited HP for unlimited damage-taking from failing all the time at trying to do things. And I'm not even a tank!

In other, normal day, words, finish watching a tutorial, follow the exercise, and stop making shit base mesh.

Finally starting production stage

Finally not researching and Harvard referencing, or drawing concept art anymore.  Just started doing a couple of ground texture tile, and now just starting trying to model one of the fungi unit that will populate the environment.  Trying to do things modularly, but I don't really know what that means, so I'm going to pause modeling now and try to read up at polycount and watch some tutorial vids.  Don't have enough energy or time to type details here.  I've already gave up on recapping Personal inquiry.  And CAPT is just all the research and concept art designing for this project.

Hand-painted game texture tile

I'm going to ignore the vaccum of record regarding Personal Inquiry and hope to fill them in later. Time is scarce now. This entry is just to note that I just realized I should paint the texture FIRST, then offset and make it tile-able LATER. Not the other way around. *sweatdrop* Also, painting stylized game texture that looks nice is hard.

My first ever texture tile! And it's rather crappy! Woo!

TT_TT

I've had enough researching stuff, documenting my researched stuff, watching tutorials, documenting the tutorials I watched. Any further requirement of any kind of research is going to get a flat NO from me. I'm starting modeling and texturing. I don't care.

Group Project up

Group project from Yen S. Liao on Vimeo.

This is actually the soundless version with tags of my parts in this project. The credit list at the end was also cut out. This is meant to be used for portfolio.

.....

<p>"...used only online resource..." There are ONLY online resources for game environment lighting that doesn't cost even more money and time to order you phantom tutors!  There are no practicals because 1.) was told this unit doesn't require practicals, and 2.) school studio computers managing ITs are SLOTH at getting UDK installed, and there were only 3 weeks for this unit AS WELL AS the other one.  All in all, thanks for nothing, incomprehensible, useless tutor.  If masters degree means doing everything on my own only to get judged and marked by so called 'tutor' who's only job seems to pass down final judgement and not guide or teach, it's the same as a job.  BUT jobs pay, Masters cost.</p>