Rebecca Meilak: Character and Environment Design: Week 5: Maya Modelling

Final Concept:

Fia Mór which means Big Deer in Irish. A creature of the highlands and the moors, the colour of dried grass and sunsets, Fia Mór is a ethereal creature. Featuring in the folk lore of the neighbouring human tribes, he is feared and revered by the people as the Keeper of the Highlands.

Scans:

Having finished my plasticine model i took it to be scanned by the 3D scanner. being a complex model the scans were in desperate need of re-topologies. Because of the antlers and the fur I made at the front, the scans produced geometry bridging between the antlers and the neck and the tail and the body.

This first image is form a Rotational Scan where the geometry was a mess and much of the neck was missing. The second image however was done with the Planar scanner which scanned one side at a time and knitted them together. This produced a far much better scan.

The scans produced however cannot be incorporated into my pipeline. there is a lot of clean up needed and the creature is a pose which will be problematic when it comes to most of the pipeline as it is not mirrored and will result in twice as much work.

If I were to use this method in a modelling process I would have modelled in a pose which can be easily worked with and then rigged. I would not add such intricate details and work on the muscle and bone structure detail as this will easily scan in and provide a good mesh platform to be taken into maya and or ZBrush.

Rotational 3d Scan:

Planar 3D Scan:

Model sheets:

Rough Sketch of Fia Mór muscle and bone structure:

Maya Modelling:

Base Mesh

I followed the methodology of the dinosaur tutorial, starting off with a cube is smooth shader mode I blocked out the shape of the body and extruded the legs, neck and head. The mouth I made it so that it can be rigged to open and close and that the tongue is made so that it can be rigged too.

Maya UV:

Before I can take this mesh into ZBrush or mud box it have to uv it. I followed the dinsosure tutorial and made the UVs in a simlar way using the planar projection and straticgically cutting the UVs at the leg, feet, ears and inside of the mouth.