FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB TURNTABLE

This post is going to be going over our very last dedicated Fantastical Creatures session. I got two main things accomplished this session: brought Skollcrabb's textures back into Maya from Substance Painter, and made Skollcrabb's turntable.

First, I'll start with the texture reapplication. This was a kind of fiddly process, involving a lot of different nodes in the material pop-up menu. I applied each relevant texture file to where they needed to be, following the tutorial Jon had written. It all seemed like it wasn't working as I went further in, but when I pressed render, Skollcrabb's textures were applied! I'm so glad this worked, as I was worried it would all go wrong.

Once I had a fully textured and renderable Skollcrabb, it was time to make him a turntable. We were given a turntable template file, which had a spinning disk that spun 1 full rotation for exactly 5 seconds. I had to reference the Skollcrabb into the file, and then parent it to the spinning disk. By doing this, whenever the disk moves, the Skollcrabb would move too.

I rendered the turnaround and put the .EXR file sequence into After Effects, and ended up with a nice looking turnaround!



All in all, I'm glad to have finished my model entirely! All I really have left is to composite Skollcrabb onto some still photos, which I'm really looking forward to! It'll be fun to make Skollcrabb seem that little bit realer! This session was an all around success the entire way through; nothing went wrong, and the two things I did within 3 hours were tasks I imagined would take me all week! So I'm very happy with today's work!

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - TEXTURING SKOLLCRABB

In this post, I'm going to go over how I textured my Skollcrabb creature.

After getting feedback yesterday on how to bring my model into Substance Painter properly, I started to work on getting my Skollcrabb model finished.

The main feedback I got was on how the seams worked on my model's UVs. Before when I brought it into Substance Painter, all the seams were auto-generated. That meant there were a LOT of faces created from the seams, and drawing on one of them copied it to every face.

So I took each object and worked on each UV again from scratch. I made sure to create enough seams so that when I added a texture onto the shapes, the images wouldn't be stretched out. It was a quick enough process, and finding out about the Layout function made rearranging the UV shells a lot quicker and easier than I thought.

I then applied different lamberts to each object that would have a certain texture on it; the skull & jaw would have one, the head, arms, claws & legs have one, and the eyes have one. That way, when I bring it into Substance Painter, each group of objects under one lambert would be grouped together.

And that's exactly what happened! I had three layers set up at the start, which I nicknamed "BO0O0O0O0ONE!!!", "eyes" and "shell". I tested dragging textures onto different areas of the Skollcrabb, and sure enough, only certain areas got affected; the ones grouped together!

From there, it was a process of finding the right look. I messed about with two main textures for the skull & jaw; a preset for bone that looked like bone but didn't give off the exact effect I wanted, and a matte porcelain preset with a cracked texture. I ended up going with the porcelain one, since the cracks looked a lot closer to what I wanted. I was also able to change the base colours, so it'd look more like off-white, signifying the age of the shell.

The actual shell body underneath the skull was textured using a rust preset. It gave off a battered, layered look, which looked really nice when I changed the base colour to a dark purple.

Finally, the eyes. These were by far the easiest to texture; white gloss with drawn on pupils. While I was drawing on the model, I also added 2D looking eye holes, nose hole and teeth.

And in the end, the Skollcrabb model looks like this:

I'm REALLY happy with how it turned out! This is exactly what I envisioned Skollcrabb looking like in 3D with textures, and it's the first time I've taken one of my characters and made it 3D, so it's a big deal for me! I'm glad that after so much trial and error, I have a textured Skollcrabb that looks as good as it does! Next step from here is bringing the textures back into Maya and creating a turnaround, as well as some composited images.

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING #2

This was the first session back after Easter, bringing me back to the Fantastical Creature modelling! 

Over Easter, I thought I'd finished my Skollcrabb model, filling all the necessary gaps and fixing anything that didn't work so well. But the key word there is "thought". As it turns out, when I imported my Skollcrabb into another program, it came up with a LIST of errors. 

I got Jon to give me feedback on the model, hoping he could point out what was wrong. His main feedback was to do the skull again, since that seemed to be causing me the most problems. The skull had gaps in the mesh, vertices & edges weren't meeting, but my biggest downfall was my polygons. I'd forgotten that these models had to made from 4 sided polygons, but my inclusion of polygons with sides ranging from 3 to 20 was my biggest issue.

Instead of starting the skull again from scratch, Jon advised that I retopologise it. Retopology is the process of creating a new poly-model using another poly-model as reference; it's essentially tracing in 3D. You place 4 points down to create the basis of a polygon and then fill the gaps, adding to your new shape.

So I got started on retopologising the skull! I also plan on doing this for the bottom jaw as well, since that also seems to be a problem area for the model. But I got about halfway through the skull by the end of this session, so I'm definitely coming back to work on it more.

WEEK 15 SUMMARY

WEEK BEGINNING - 1st of April, 2019

WEEK ENDING - 7th of April, 2019

MONDAY - Fantastical Creatures Modelling workshop

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/fantastical-creatures-skollcrabb.html

WEDNESDAY - Showreel Premiere Pro Induction

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/showreel-premiere-pro-induction.html

"Since this was just a practice with the program, I had some fun with the titles and put in whatever just made me laugh! This little session taught me a couple of new basic techniques that're going to make the actual showreel's production a lot easier. All in all, this was a nice little session that was calm and I enjoyed it!"

THURSDAY - Lip-Sync

Original post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2019/04/lip-sync-colours-and-feedback.html

"So now I have this feedback, I'm gonna work on making the head look better and more consistent! Honestly, I'm glad I got more to work on, because I feel like I worked a bit too quickly on this task. That's not to say it's rushed, just that made it in a very short amount of time. But now I have something to do with the extra sessions we have on lip-sync!"

SUMMARY
The work on the Fantastical Creatures project has essentially just been working on the model of Skollcrabb. I'm trying to make it look like an amalgamation of my original design and my maquette, taking my favourite elements from each one. Most notably, I took the legs and eyes from my maquette, and the bottom jaw and claws from my original design. I think from here, I just need to keep working on it and making sure it's finished. I've also got to texture it, but I'm still a ways out from there yet.

For the showreel, I've got most of my clips all together in one folder, so that I can move it all around in one place, instead of constantly having to relocate files that are scattered all over the place. I've also found a nice font to use for my titles, called Back Issues. It's meant to replicate comic book speech bubble text, which fits with the kinds of things I make. These showreels are meant to be personal and reflect our style of work, and given how much influence I have from comic books and cartoons, it seems appropriate.

With the lip-sync task, I'm glad to be getting more to do on it! The feedback I got from Helen has been really great to recieve, since it means I can keep working on making 2D animations like I want to. Plus, I felt like I was going really fast and was worried that I had eventually done something wrong... and I kind of wanted something to be (unintentionally) wrong so I could keep working. But now I have more to work on once I get back after Easter!

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING 1

This session was modelling my Skollcrabb creature in Maya.

When starting to model the Skollcrabb, I already had an idea of how it works in a 3D space, thanks to the maquette. But now came the part where it actually had to exist in a 3D digital space.

After our session learning how to start modelling characters last week, I felt like making my Skollcrabb would be a lot easier than if I hadn't had that session. Each part was made up of different poly shapes; the skull, body & eyes were made from spheres that I had edited to resemble the shapes I wanted more, the bottom half of the legs were made of cones, the top half of the legs were made of cylinders, and the bottom jaw.

The most complex shape by far was the skull shell; where other parts of the Skollcrabb didn't require too much modification, the skull needed constant changes and modelling techniques to make it resemble what I wanted.

I also tried closing off as many gaps as I could with the skull, but it's going to prove difficult in later sessions, just due to how I made it. By the end of the session, the Skollcrabb was in pieces:

The only real next step is to just carry on modelling. I still need to add the arms and claws, and then bring it into texturing software to make him colourful and textured!

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - FINISHED MAQUETTE

This post is a quick little post showing my finished Skollcrabb maquette!

I took some time out of sessions to work on my third Skollcrabb iteration, but with more thought, patience and time put into it. And I managed to get there!

This iteration was a lot less fiddly, and involved me changing a few things about the character's design. The biggest one is the placement of the legs. This model would become a lot more fragile if I went with my original vision of having the legs at the side. Now, they're placed on the bottom of the Skollcrabb. I also closed the claws in this maquette, just so if the bottom half wouldn't fall off if the claw was open.

I underestimated just how much Super Sculpey I'd need, since I completely forgot I needed to cover the inside of the shell and body as well as the outside. So that made the process a little longer, but ultimately it's worth it for a proper, correct maquette!

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - MAQUETTE WORKSHOP

In this session, we started creating maquettes of our chosen Fantastical Creature (as seen in this post). We would be making them out of wire, tinfoil and a material called Super Sculpey. Super Sculpey is an industry standard material, used by professional studios to create their character models.

We were given a block of wood with 6 holes in it, the holes intended to act as a holder for pegs which the model would be supported by; presumably from the legs / feet. We were then told what the proper order was for constructing the maquette:

1. Create the base of the character with wire
2. Flesh out the design with tin foil
3. Overlay with Super Sculpey

And that was pretty much it for what we were told, and the rest of the session was up to us!

I won't lie, I REALLY struggled making my Skollcrabb into a tangible maquette in this session. The bulk of the Skollcrabb is it's skull shell, which is essentially a half of a sphere. THAT was the biggest issue with modelling. Making the half-sphere wasn't something I accomplished this session, despite trying again from scratch.

I feel like I could've gotten there in this session had their been enough supplies to go around the entire class. Constantly there were moments where I'd turn around to get wire cutters or masking tape only to realise they were gone. Supplies were low, so people kept taking them from other groups. This meant some groups progressed faster than others because they kept taking the tools.

This meant me and my group progressed slower, since we didn't have immediate access to what we needed. This, in correlation, meant I had less chance to use a trial-and-error approach to get my maquette looking good.

At the end of the session, my maquette looked pretty... miserable.

(A discarded wireframe)

(Wireframe iteration 2 with tinfoil)

(Iteration 2 with some Super Sculpey)

I'm overall not very happy with how this session went. Not due to the actual session's content, but more so with my own work. I produced something that wasn't up to my own personal standard, and that's something I don't want to put up with. So I'm going to be taking time out of lessons to work on the maquette, maybe even starting from scratch again. I don't want to have a "that'll do" attitude about this, I want to make something I'm happy with and is an accurate representation of what I want my Skollcrabb to look like.

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB (with influences and lore)

In this post, I'm going to be going over my chosen creature design, which I have dubbed the Skollcrabb. I'll also go over it's fictional lore & backstory, as well as what inspired the creature from reality and fiction.

BIOGRAPHY

Species name: Skollcrabb
Subphylum: Crustacean
Average life expectancy: 150-200 years
Habitat: Deep ocean trenches
Diet: Herbivore (eats mostly seaweed)
Characteristics: Purple exoskeleton with black legs & "cuffs", naturally formed shell resembling a human skull
Gender differences: Males have round heads and consistently shaped shell teeth, females have pointed heads with larger shell fangs
Life-cycle: Start as small shrimp-like creatures, always born two at a time. Babies are carried around by the father, who supports them in his shell's eye sockets. Baby life usually lasts about 6 months. Babies are recognised as adults once their eye stalks retract and their shell develops. Adult life usually lasts about 125 years. As they approach old age, their shell's teeth start turning gold, large seaweed beards form, and their legs and shell's bottom jaw grow out, creating a much taller stature. Older Skollcrabbs usually keep their claws inside their shells. Elderly life usually lasts 50 years.
Predators: Unknown
Evolutionary advantages: Skull shells designed to be retracted into, with a look warding off potential predators into thinking a bigger fish is around. 

INFLUENCES

REAL CREATURES

Two main creatures influenced the Skollcrabb; the hermit crab and the coconut crab.

Hermit crabs are decapod crustaceans with the trait of adopting shells of their own to live in by, effectively, stealing it. Shells become more in demand as the crabs grow, and fights can occur between hermit crabs who want the same shell. The strong correlation between crab and shell was my main draw from the hermit crab, especially given how much they mean to them.

The coconut crab was my other main source of inspiration, mostly for the colour scheme and for the Skollcrabb's elderly form. Coconut crabs are the largest arthropods on the planet, measuring up to 1 meter from leg to leg. They're also known as robber crabs, often known to steal objects from humans living near coasts of Australia. The huge size is what inspired the much taller stature of the elderly Skollcrabb, and it's black, purple and red colour scheme was the main inspiration for the Skollcrabb's "real" colours.

FICTIONAL

Their were a few fictional creatures that inspired the Skollcrabb, most notably Tamatoa from 2016's Moana and some of the crab inspired Pokemon from the Pokemon series.

Tamatoa is a giant coconut crab from Disney's 2016 animated film Moana. He acts as a deutagonist, acting as a mini-boss of sorts to get Maui's magical fish hook back. Tamatoa is a fan of gold and shiny objects (evidenced by his collection on his shell, as well as a David Bowie inspired song about it.), referencing the hoarder-like qualities the real coconut crab has. This colour scheme is more close to what inspired the Skollcrabb's colours




Some Pokemon from the Pokemon video game series also inspired the Skollcrabbs. Most notable are (from left to right, top to bottom) Dwebble, Crustle, Paras and Parasect. They all feature very bug-eyed with very large, characterised shells (bar Paras). The claws and legs for the Skollcrabb were inspired by these pokemon as well, having quite thin legs with VERY large claws, which are somewhat rounded.