My environment animations

Well animating this was surprisingly easy, Maya said no to me when I tried to upload the sky dome coloured environment file, so I had to open one of my earlier files and rotate the propellors to where they are now currently facing. I had the farmes spaced out so that it would rotate slowly, which I'm proud of. The same principle is with the doors, I also tried to provide a little alteration in movement with them. One more thing about this, there was a issue with rotating the doors. When I rotated it first time the door moved as though it wasn't on any hinges, I realised that this is because the pivot of the rotate tool was placed in the middle, so I moved the pivot point (by pressing insert on the keyboard) and moving it to the middle but where the hinges would be placed. This worked successfully, thank God.

Booyashacka

Well here I am, Sam's background turned out pretty well. Anyways now I'm gonna tackle Maya, whish me luck ^_^!

So many me's....

Jeeze I hate photos my, nose is like a brick....thanks a lot Dad! Anyways let me know which one looks good for the final shot. Just imagine my pic being shot and my name pops up. Damn my nose is big -_-.

WANTED (No not the movie)

Well guys, since we are considering putting our pictures as an opening or credits as wanted posters, I did a little experiment tutorial, so here we go. First here's my picture. Make sure you double click on the background layer to unlock it, call whatever you like.

Cut around your pic then, delete it. Next you colour the cut out selection, MAKE SURE YOU CREATE A NEW LAYER for the colouring, if you want to change the colour. Next use the rectangular marquee tool to cut the edges.

Alright to get this, go to filter at the top, then go to artistic, then cut-out. Mess around with the edge simplicity, edge fidelity and number of levels. I only touched number of levels and put it on number 5 because It brings out those highlights and I plan to cut them out.

Alright to get this, I used the magic wand tool to select all those highlights, including some on my jumper. MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON YOUR LAYER PICTURE. Afterwards go to image-adjustments-Hue/Saturation. Slide the Saturation all the way to -100. Use the magic wand tool to select the dark areas and the colour them black. It's optional though. Which you think looks better?

Finishing touches to maya

Well gents I've added some final touches to the refinery building and to the generator. I first took some of Sam's planks to fit on the edges of the building but the rotate tool was jerking with me. So I made my own and put some on the edges, after that I made a little table inside so that people can store stuff in there. I'm wandering if I have to create a plane inside the conveyor to make it look as though things can move along in there? Anyways I did the windows aswell and I mad some minor flashy improvements to the gerenator by using half cut spheres, let me no what you think. Damn! the supports...ah I'll do it tomorrow when I test out lighting and colouring.

New Updates!!

Things have been a bit hectic, as I'm sure you all know we have gone through trial & error, losing hope, gaining hope, trial & error, panicking (me anyways) maya problems, and back to gaining hope again. But anyways enough of my complaints, let me show y'all what I've done. ^_^

For the first pick I've finally done my windmill, it took me ages to do while using the reference. However I encountered something cool by accident while creating the body, earlier today. I accidentally created someting that looks like where the fire comes out of a rocket, don't know the name, but it served its purpose well.

The second pic, well I though I'd try and find and import my original refinery building but considering the problems we encountered with with my model before, I mad a few modifications to the building, Sam placed next to his storage building. I actually like it more than my previous one.

The third pic, I looked at the refernce I had of the coal refinery I have and based the shape off that. I deleted the block I had next to it, figured that the overall design and shape made more sense. Hopefully if we get through this we can add some ligt in the conveyor belt, to give it some idea of heat. Just remembered, forgot to add some supports.

Finally the fourth pic, the tracks. Not much to say the pic is self explanatory, but I'll just say that I created eoungh space for both tracks to pass through and two other entrances on the left side of the building.

That's all for now, peace.

Right now I'm in the process of creating a windmill. This is the reference that I'm using, however I don't know if it should be all bent up like metal or breaking apart like wood. Leave a comment or two to let me know.

Function of the refinery

Ok guys I had a thought and that thought was we haven't really looked into what happens within the refinery, so with two plans up above here's my idea on it. On Josh's sketch we see tracks leading in and out of the refinery and into Dead Man's Quarry, however we don't know where the tracks acutually start. Could it be that the tracks start at the entrance, but goes through on the outside of the town area, not through the middle? If you look at Josh's pic the tracks could start on the left side, at the back of the two buildings, right? The buildings could be shacks, sherfiff building, saloon or whatever, the point is the tracks can lead to where they where originally drawn before.

Next, is what happens within the refinery so here's what I think happens.

1. The mine cart goes in the main building on the right track, and within the main building the track curves leading outside again, but instead of the cart coming out it stops in the middle of the curve.

2. Whatever the cart was carrying, it will be unloaded to the back where a huge coneyor belt is, that goes over the canyon. If you think about the luggage in the Airport, the conveyor belt moves in the same fashion.

3. Eventually the product will reach the edge of the conveyor belt, and the product will go into the boiler. Based on the plan above Josh's pic, this could be the process of how the town is powered, that little circle next to the boiler I imagined being the smoke tower. If you remember that little tunnel I built connecting the tower, that's where the smoke goes.

4. Afterwards, what's left of the product goes back on the conveyor belt and gets put back in the mine cart which then takes it to Dead Man's Quarry. Kinda makes me think they are burning humans or something, but anyways the process starts all over again. That's my idea anyways, SO BRING ON YOUR CRITICISM! Ahem...I mean let me know what you think.

Refinery Pictures

Alright here is my version of the refinery, which is almost done. I haven't done the passagway that connects to the back of the refinery because I don't have the enviroment Lewis has done, so I'll create it once I do. Ok here's what's going on, if you look at picture 5 (the one just above) we have the main building of where the mine carts passes through. To its right we have a storage building which looks a bit like a big shed, there's also a passage that connects the two. To the left of the main building is these 4 cylinder type things. Not sure what they are exactly, but if you look at my Team Fortress pic I got the idea from that, which I persnoally think looks pretty good (let me know if you want it taken out). Now if you look in the distance you'll see this huge smoke tower, and another block called the boiler, if you look closely in pictures 2 & 3 you'll see a little rectangle attached to the big tower, which will be attached to the boiler.

This is what I've done so far so let me know what you think. If you look at my previous post on my personal blog or maybe the group blog, you'll see that I posted a question about where the tracks go. I'll elaborate more on this even further on my next post.

Where the tracks go?

Hey guys I was looking at josh's rough plan of our environment, and I wandered where do the tracks go? I know they lead in and out of the refinery but, where exactly does go, I know that one of them leads to Dead Man's Quarry but is the track in a loop? Where does it start from?

Refinery Inspiration!

This big building is what I'm gonna base my idea on I'll do some basic sketches of it. I really like the towers and I always had in mind that the place would be overall metallic, but the wood has a great touch it, but I'm definitely gonna use this.

Saloon Model

Here it is finally my very first building model in Maya. Afetr looking at some western saloons on google images and the film A Fist Full Of Dollars. I decided to base my buildings on these ideas, which I think turned out overall pretty well. I first started with a cube for the bottom half of the building, then I cut in a door way (doh, that's right I forgot to add the swinging doors!) Anyway, I did the same thing for the top. The thing with the top is that I wanted to creat an actual roof with a short wall so I lowerd, it by using the faces option and adding some line with the split line tool to give the wall some depth. Next I made the canopy, I used a cube measured it in realtion to the building using the grid, then I made it thick slight slightly and I put it into position. Then I created the bottom, because no saloon is built on the dirt ground itself there's usaully a wooeden floor underneath, afterwards the poles came next, simple stuff. Oh yeah the windows were created in the same fashion as the door.
Well that's how I built it, I think it looks pretty good considering it was my first attempt, I personally like the canopy and the poles, a very nice touch. Well let me know what you guys think, peace!

Coffin Maker

Well here he is the zombie coffin maker. Now this, I'm very happy about espescially the glowing eyes and the shading. I really like this character, after seeing A Fist Full Of Dollars I had to colour this bad boy in, let me know what you think. In case you're wandering I used inner and outer glow to get that glowing effect, just makes sure the layer you're doing it on is on top of your line art.

Suspension Bridge

I found this while doing a search on suspesnion bridges on google. I found this on scouts.lamb-thielen.com. I just thought that it would be an interesting to design to put into our project, though it seems like it's a bit too complicated, we aren't Maya masters here.

13. The camera then takes a ride on the cart and follows the rails.

14. It then takes a sharp turn to the right and then ends up in.

15. Dead Man's Quarry.

I personally think that with this storyboard the section of the town where the saloon is, has not been explored enough. I personally like the camera ride thing but, I can't help but feel as though that it's been used in the wrong way, the only bit where I think it has been used effectively is when it sits it the mine cart. But I put it in anyways to see how it would play out, anyways let me know what you think, peace!

Storyboard1

This is my version of the story board, I will explain what goes on in each panel from left to right. Feel free to say what should and what souldn't be there.

1. This shot shows the whole of the town.

2. The camera rotates ccw then zooms into the sign.

3. The camera zooms even closer into the sign.

4. Then it rotaes right showing a 3/4 worm view of the sign.

5. The camera then rotates right again to show the town, Saloon bar etc. Then it takes a right in between the buildings.

6. The camera moves towards the suspension bridge.

7. Since the bridge is not straight and curves downwards, the camera follows it's motion.

8. Afterwards the camera enters the grave yard and zig zags past the tombstones.

9. As it passes through, we see the refinery in sight.

10. The camera then takes a birds eye view of the reifnery.

11. Then zooms in through the back door.

12. We go through the door and we see a mine cart riding on the rails.

Coffin Maker

This was a design of a zombie coffin maker that I did 2 days ago, I thought well everyone else has done a zombie so might as well do one too. This was inspired by the film A Fist Full Of Dolllars, Josh-kun's favorite western. I was thinking that maybe we could have him dragging a coffin as the enviroment is being explored, but that that's if he gets excepted into design.

Refinery

It's simple but here is my concept of part of the mine. A bit simple but an interesting setting if I do say so myself...man I really need to get back into practice with photoshop. -_-

An old Rail Switch

This is an old rail switch captured near the old railway station in leuenberg (germany / brandenburg)

Pumpkin Hill SA 2

This stage is from SA 2 (Sonic Adventure 2). I thought, that this would make a great reference to make a horror or a strange feel for our environment. Yay I spelled it Right! ^__^

OMV's Schwechat refinery in Vienna, Austria

Here's a reference of a refinery in Vienna Austria.

Dead Mans Quarry

I was trying to get a scary haunted feel with this, though I don't think it worked too well. -__-

I really like the beginning of this opening, like the camera movement through the city for instance. This is the opening of Soul Eater found on youtube. We could show our enviroment by putting the camera on the cart and let it the camera show what's going on as it moves through town.

The art look

I like the look of this, the visual is very comical and interesting. This was done by Lewis's brother Daryl Taylor. This clip was found on youtube, by typing in Taydar.

Shack Drawing

A shack drawing.

My own concept

This is just one of the concepts, I'm doing.

Concept Bridge

I thought this would be good.

Another area

Here's another one for Inspiration. Astur Belga de Minas S.A. An abandoned mercury mine in the middle of the mining area of Asturias, Spain; decommissioned in the 70's.

Wooden Bridge

Maybe these bridges can be used to connect some of the shacks together or for trasnporting stuff. This can act like an overpass.

Jak&Daxter

I should keep this in mind, but bust it up, make it mooden and bruck up. However it doesn't have to be all wooden, perhaps it could reinfoced with tiles, and metal for the roof?

Another watermill

This makes a good prop to consider.

Another house possiblity

I like this, especially the watermill on the side.

Wooden house

I can use this as a basis for a shack, in the mine village. Think RE4 and you'll get the point.

This pic I found on google, I like the layers effect of the layout. Makes me think that if the surface area of those layers were big enough, could have little shacks on them.