Week1 Coffee cup

Week1

Coffee Cup

This is my first time ever to use Maya, so bear in mind all mistakes are necessary for me to learn. I forgot to take screen grabs as I was going along so I could show my progress, so I had to start from scratch.  This was hard for me as this is my first time using Maya and I'm still not familiar with all the buttons.  I also forgot to get the reference image from the resource drive so I grabbed one of the net.

Figure1: Coffee cup. Retrieved from: http://www.coffeehunter.org/flat-white-coffee-origins/white-coffee-cup/

Figure2: Base of cup

I placed my coffee cup picture onto a plane and moved this to one side of my workspace. I then created a box in the middle of the workspace which when using the extrude tool will become the base for my cup.

Figure3: The cup in box mode

 Using the extrude tool I added more layers to my cup till it reached the top of the reference image. I went five boxes high, this meant that I had a good equal spot when creating the handle. I selected the top face of my cup and using the scale tool created a lip and extruded it down inside the cup.

Figure4: Extruding the handle

 Switching between 1 and 3, box and round modes respectively I knew that i had to add more curve into my handle to get a better round one.  To do this I used the edge loop tool to create more geometry for me to manipulate.

Figure5: Handle progress

After creating a better, rounder my natural looking handle I used the edge loop tool again to ground my cup.  This helps making it appear as though it is not floating in thin air.

Figure6: Final cup

 In figures 6 and 7 Is my final coffee cup, rendered with a matte plastic material

Figure7: Final cup

 I'm still not happy with the slightly not round handle may fix this at a later point.

Figure8: Cup play

 Just playing around with different materials on the cup. Eg: Thin glass.

Figure9: Cup play

 The night club coffee cup, great for your Irish coffees.

Figure10: Steel cup

My favourite coffee cup is the one in Figure10. I think that the simple steel cup is more believable in a its structure and material than the rest of the cups I created. Its slightly stained look gives it more appeal.

Week2 Candle Holder

Week2

Candlestick holder

Yesterday we created a candlestick holder in Maya.  We used the same principles as the previous two classes but started the base with a cylinder instead.

Figure1: Candlestick image from resource drive.

Figure2: Base work done

I wont go too much into the creation of my candlestick as i am still not 100% satisfied with the finished outcome and will do some more experiments at a later date.

Figure3: Orthographic view

 The orthographic view was very useful in making sure that my proportions were correct.

Figure4: Edge loop tool

 I added more edge loops to the bottom of my candlestick holder. This helped to stabilize it giving it a more solid feel.

Figure5: Adding candle

My candlestick holder looked very lonely so I created a basic candle from a cylinder. I think this helped sell the object a lot more than when it was alone. I may later take this image and play with flames and wax drips in Photoshop.

Figure6: Basic setting.

 In Figure 6, I had been playing around with giving my candle holder a setting, but because by no means I am an expert I created some basic shapes to represent objects such as a green ball which could be an apple and a blue box, (which is not a Tardis) a book.  We added a copper material to the work to match the reference image.

Figure7: Personal Plays

In Figure 7, I played around with using glass and copper. I made another sort of copper object, which looks more like a trophy or relic to show scale of the glass globe.

Figure8: Narrative behind objects

 In Figure 8, I was thinking more about the story behind the objects and made a couple of examples where i thought they could be viewed. Here one can imagine a small Indiana Jones prop for a table (the blueish pillars being carved wood or something of the sort), with the glass globe or even the copper trophy being the object of desire.

Week2 Wine glass

Week 2

Wine glass in Maya

My second go at using Maya.  We created a wine glass from an image sourced from the resources drive.

Figure1: Wine glass Reference image

The idea behind this project was to get the final product as close as possible to the original and to go over the skills we learnt last week during our coffee cup project.  This was good as I had already forgotten the shortcuts for Maya, W, E, & R (move, rotate & scale respectively).

Figure2: The glass in box form

For this project we started with a box as a base and using the extrude tool created the cup from there.

Figure3: Preparing the top for extrusion.

Using the number keys 1 & 3 were very useful in creating this piece, these helped make sure that when I was extruding everything was as it was meant to be.  I created a larger lip on the top of my glass so that when I extruded in down it created a nice solid lip, and didn't fall in upon itself, which is what happened when I didn't do this step.

Figure4: Inside of glass

        I used the edge loop tool to create some extra planes to give my glass more stability and to flatten/ smooth out some of my edges.

Figure5: Playing with multiples

Once I had finished playing with my overall shape of my wine glass, I played with using composition and multiples.  Now that I look back on this, I think I also should have played with perspective a little and scale.  You can see how easily one could create an impressive dinner/ reception set with a few fully rendered glasses.

Figure6: Final renders of wine glass

In Figure 6 you can see 4 different images. The first image (top left) is when I had assigned a thick glass material to the object.  It looks OK, but feels fake still being on a plain white background.The second image (top left) has been assigned a frosted material to the object, this further defines it from the plain background but still not quite what I want. The bottom two images in Figure 6 show a contrast in reflectivity and bounce light.  These are my favorite images in this project.

Animation reviews Homework Week1

Akame Ga Kill: Review

The plot of this anime  focuses on Tatsumi who is a boy from a poor village traveling to the capital to earn money to save his home-town. He has learned to fight as a kid and traveled to the city with two friends, who get brutally tortured and die, being the causal factor for Tatsumi to join a group of assassins who protect those being abused by the power of the city.  It is a very well told story of betrayal, love and loss and fighting for those who cannot defend themselves.

The theme of the series is assassination, heroism and social values (good and evil especially and love of course). It is the value-part and how it is conveyed that makes this anime into something special. This anime shows really good character development but it also cuts the character down , as in kills them off, just when you learn more about them and start to know them better.

This creates a tension between the viewer and the anime making the viewer want to see more and find out if they really are dead or not.

The genres of this anime include : Animation, Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Romance and thriller.  This makes it well worth watching with something for everyone, keeping in mind that this would not be suitable for younger viewers and it does get very gory.



Some info about this anime.
Year: 2014-
General runtime: 20-24min per episode
Director: Kobayashi Tomoki
Producer: Square Enix & White Fox
Nominations: N/A
Original Artwork by: Takahiro & Tashiro Tetsuya
Scriptwriter: Uezu Makoto
Character design/Animation chief: Nakamura Kazuhisa

IMDB,(2015). Akame Ga Kill. Retrieved from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3742982/