Portfolio
Aim
For my final major project, I am looking to create a sci-fi inspired scene. Similar to that of an architectural visualisation, I will have several renders of the inside of a space station/ship showing off the interior of the building and possibly the exterior if I have time to model it in its entirety. I plan to use a mixture of programs due to realising from my experience, I create better models when using different programs for various parts of my project. Therefore, I will be using a mixture of Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush, blender and 3dsmax. I will most likely create more box-like models in Maya and 3dsmax, anything more spherical turns out better in Mudbox and blender and finally, for smaller details, I will use ZBrush to hopefully perfect the scenes. As well as some high quality renders, I hope to use the Maya camera to move around the space station/ship in a short video to have a closer look at the design. To ensure that I keep up with time management, I will model at home on my laptop and write on the website at college. This is due to the Macs being very slow and crashing when models have a higher polygon count.
I will take inspiration from 3% (Brazilian dystopian thriller series), Star Trek Voyager (5th series of Star Trek - a science fiction television series), Red Dwarf (British science fiction comedy franchise) and Doctor Who, as well as its spinoff series Torchwood (British science-fiction television programme produced by the BBC since 1963 and Torchwood - a spin-off from the 2005 revival of long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who).
I am hoping to bring across an atmosphere where I will be showing a version of humanities future, in which we have to abandon earth. My project is to create the space station/ship that we use to escape earth and what we have done to it. As a bonus, if I have time to model the exterior of the spacecraft, I will also model an earth to put in the background to emphasise that it is getting left behind.
FMP statement of intent
FMP Progress Timetable
The above attachment is a powerpoint presentation that I presented in from of my class. The presentation was filmed as I talked alongside my slides.
Research
The first step of my research was to look up 3D references for my space station/ship design. This led me to remember a few sci-fi shows I have watched, and I decided to research them further to get an outline I could sketch out. Next, I looked at the Nasa 3D resource site, which has a large collection of 3D models of Nasa's space hardware. This would give me an idea of how actual scientific engineers create rockets and such for one of the worlds leading pioneers in space exploration.
After using the Nasa resource site as a basis to understand a general idea of what my space station would look like, I then moved onto looking at a Brazilian TV show known as 3%. This show is an enticing psychological thriller, a "higher up" or government society select small groups of people to go through trying challenges to reach the "better side". These challenges can be mentally damaging, but the people known as the 3% are determined to get through them as the world they live in is plagued in poverty, crime and disaster. I gathered inspiration from this show by taking away the idea that they are escaping from a disastrous world by entering into this modern/futuristic and scientifically advanced society. I decided to apply the idea of escape into my project. By this, I mean that I will have it based on a possible future where humanity has to escape from the impacts of our actions that have caused the earth to become uninhabitable.
An Explanation of the show:
ep1
Far in the future, the majority of the population lives in poverty (the Inland), while those in the Offshore live in virtual paradise. Every year, each 20 year old has a chance of getting to the Offshore through a series of tests called "the Process", but only 3% make it. Michele is one of them, entering with her best friend Bruna. The head of the Process, Ezequiel, is observed by an Offshore woman named Aline. The first test is an interview, after which one candidate commits suicide out of frustration for failing. Fernando wonders if he will pass because he is in a wheelchair, but he does. After being placed into groups, a candidate named Joana notices another candidate, Rafael, has faked his registration. The second test is for each person to assemble nine cubes out of a collection of complex blocks. Rafael cheats, stealing a cube from another, but Ezequiel allows him to pass. Michele only has eight, but Fernando puts them all together to make a ninth, allowing them both to pass. Joana makes eleven cubes. Later Michele and Bruna are lead to the back, as the Offshore suspects one of them is an infiltrated mole for a revolutionary group known as "the Cause". Michele convinces Bruna to attack the interrogator and Bruna is killed. The testers then assume that Bruna was the mole, although in fact it was Michele, who breaks down in tears for having caused her friend's death.
ep4
The candidates begin trapped in the dorms still. While looking for a way out, Marco reflects on his family history, as each of them have successfully passed the Process and made it to the Offshore. He organizes everyone to get food and pass the test, and the group succeeds with ease. Ezequiel is displeased that they all have passed, and he decides to modify the test, no longer sending food to see how the candidates react. Eventually, Marco and some other men fashion weapons out of the beds to pry open the gate, and when they realize that there's no way out, they (notably Marco) assume that the test will be a survival of the fittest type with limited supplies. The group of men then attack the others who sat around rather than trying to pry the gate, stealing their food and taking them prisoner. Marco loses it as the candidates try to hide food, killing a girl. Meanwhile Michele and friends build a barricade to keep Marco's group out, while Joana escapes from the test by climbing a vent. Ezequiel meets her and explains that only she can stop the test, as he will not. Joana returns, freeing the people whom Marco subjected. Everyone violently attacks Marco's group, beating and presumably killing a few. The gates open and the prisoners escape, minus everyone in Marco's group. Marco attempts to flee, but the door catches him, presumably killing him or seriously maiming him; either way, he is eliminated. Meanwhile, Aline is caught snooping through Ezequiel's things, and it is revealed that Rafael attempted the Process last year and failed, before stealing the registry of his unconscious brother to take the Process for a second time. He also reveals to Michele that he is a mole for the Cause as well.
Now that I have explained the overall plot of the show, I will explain how it's design inspired me for parts of my space station. To begin, 3% has a very industrial outlook, there are a lot of cement corridors, pipes, just generally dirty, plain and grey. Now this gave me the idea for the more simplistic corridors that I designed. They are grey, simplistic and thought they aren't exactly grimy looking they do have that cement style for both the walls and floor. The industrial scheme for 3% also slightly influenced the basic first idea for my space station, hence the use of the colour grey again.
For further explanations of the show and reference, I have included this link.
The following part of my researh is a show called Red Dwarf, one of my childhood favourites.
An Explanation of the show:
The main setting of the series is the eponymous mining spaceship Red Dwarf. In the first episode, set sometime in the late 22nd century, an on-board radiation leak kills everyone except lowest-ranking technician Dave Lister, who is in suspended animation at the time, and his pregnant cat, Frankenstein, who is safe in the cargo hold. Following the accident, the ship's computer Holly keeps Lister in stasis until the radiation levels return to normal – a process that takes three million years. Lister therefore emerges as the last human being in the universe – but not alone on-board the ship. His former bunkmate and immediate superior Arnold Judas Rimmer (a character plagued by failure) is resurrected by Holly as a hologram to keep Lister sane. They are joined by a creature known only as Cat, the last member of a race of humanoid felines that evolved in the ship's hold from Lister's pregnant cat during the 3 million years that Lister was in stasis.
The series revolves around Lister being the last human alive, 3 million years from Earth, with his companions (initially Rimmer, Cat and Holly). The crew encounters phenomena such as time distortions, faster-than-light travel, mutant diseases and strange lifeforms (all evolved from Earth, because the series has no aliens) that had developed in the intervening millions of years. Though it has a science fiction setting, much of the humour comes from the interactions of the characters, particularly the laid-back Lister and the stuck-up Rimmer.
In Series III, the computer Holly changes from male (Norman Lovett) to female (Hattie Hayridge), and the mechanoid Kryten (who had appeared in one episode in Series II joins the crew and becomes a regular character.
In Series VI, a story arc is introduced where Red Dwarf has been stolen, and the crew pursues it in the smaller Starbug craft, with the side-effect that the character Holly disappears.
Series VII is also set in Starbug. Early in series VII, Rimmer departs (due to actor Chris Barrie's commitments) and is replaced by Kristine Kochanski, Lister's long-term love interest, from an alternate universe. Kochanski becomes a regular character for Series VII and VIII.
At the end of Series VII, we learn that Kryten's service nanobots, which had abandoned him years earlier, were behind the theft of the Red Dwarf at the end of series five. At the beginning of the eighth series, Kryten's nanobots reconstruct the Red Dwarf, which they had broken down into its constituent atoms.
As a consequence, Series VIII features the entire original crew of Red Dwarf resurrected (except for the already-alive Lister and Kochanski), including a pre-accident Rimmer; and the original male Holly. The series ends with a metal-eating virus loose on Red Dwarf. The entire crew evacuates save the main cast (Lister, Rimmer, Cat, Kryten and Kochanski), whose fate is unresolved in a cliffhanger ending.
Series IX onwards revert to the same four main characters of Series 3-6 (Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten), on Red Dwarf and without Kochanski or Holly; and Rimmer is again a hologram. It has not been confirmed whether the Rimmer onboard ship is the one who originally left, the revived version, or a third incarnation entirely; however, episodes have alluded to him remembering events from both previous incarnations' lives.
The British television comedy Red Dwarf prominently features many different spaceships. The three principal ships are the Red Dwarf ship itself and its two main types of shuttlecraft, known as Starbug and Blue Midget. Several other ships have appeared for one or two episodes only but are nonetheless important to Red Dwarf continuity. Several spaceships have been seen only in one episode, and a few ships have also been mentioned but not seen. The red dwarf itself has 3 separate designs throughout the show, the current Red Dwarf introduced in Series X, is the design for my main inspiration within Red Dwarf. Now, the Red Dwarf ship itself was a mining ship, shoddily put together and there was no sleekness to it's design at all. I like the idea of the ship being created in a short amount of time and so the design is tawdry, yet functional. The lack of sleek and chique design inspired me to make my space station not entirely sleek as I wanted to keep along with that industrial look. However I didn't want the ship to exactly look like it was a last minute escape, and that's where my other research comes in.
Next is a very well known show called Star Trek, it also has movies, comics and various merchandise.
An Explanation of the show:
Initial work on Star Trek: Voyager began in 1993, when the seventh and final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the second season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were in production. Seeds for Voyager's backstory, including the development of the Maquis, were placed in several The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine episodes. Voyager was shot on the stages The Next Generation had used, and where the Voyager pilot "Caretaker" was shot in September 1994. Costume designer Robert Blackman decided that the uniforms of Voyager's crew would be the same as those on Deep Space Nine.
Star Trek: Voyager was the first Star Trek series to use computer-generated imagery (CGI), rather than models, for exterior space shots. Babylon 5 and seaQuest DSV had previously used CGI to avoid the expense of models, but the Star Trek television department continued using models because they felt they were more realistic. Amblin Imaging won an Emmy for Voyager's opening CGI title visuals, but the weekly episode exteriors were captured with hand-built miniatures of Voyager, its shuttlecraft, and other ships. This changed when Voyager went fully CGI for certain types of shots midway through season three (late 1996). Foundation Imaging was the studio responsible for special effects during Babylon 5's first three seasons. Season three's "The Swarm" was the first episode to use Foundation's effects exclusively. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine began using Foundation Imaging in conjunction with Digital Muse in season six. In its later seasons, Voyager featured visual effects from Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse. The digital effects were produced at television resolution and some have speculated that it can't be re-released in HD format without re-creating the special effects. However, Enterprise has been released in HD, but the special effects were rendered in 480p and then upscaled.
Because of the nature of the science fiction universe depicted by Star Trek, there is not always a strict linear plot in the traditional sense due to time travel causing changes. In addition to depicting the future, Earth's present is also altered in the Star Trek universe. Some episodes of Star Trek fill in parts of real or fictional accounts of Earth history. Voyager was not an exception to this and in the episode "11:59" a fictional Millennium tower is built in Indiana starting in the year 2000. One of Janeway's ancestors is depicted in the episode while Captain Janeway studies historical records of the same person in attempt to understand the person that inspired her.
Some other altered timelines include the reduction of the journey to seven years in the season finale, as well as various alternate timelines exposed in various episodes over the course of the television series' run.
Voyager's journey home was essentially a trek across a large fraction of the Milky Way. The estimated ~75-year-long duration of the voyage was reduced by several large jumps in distance that occurred in several episodes. A number of alternative timelines were explored due to the introduction of races possessing the ability to time travel such as in Timeless (S5E6). One such timeline involves the death of the entire crew with only Chakotay, Harry and The Doctor surviving. Only by altering the past does Voyager continue. Its tele-theater and the flexibility of the science fiction universe created by generations of Star Trek writers and production staff accommodate this and more, with the theatrical devices forming a palette of plot tools. The use of Borg technology in the final episode allowed Voyager to return home after a journey of only seven years.
All the main "human" Star Trek ships are very sleek and modern/futuristic in design. I wanted to only apply this slightly to my design, as I did not want it to look like it was in the present times however I did not want the design to be too "graceful" or "trim". I wanted a mix of futuristic and industrial. The corridors in star trek are very simple and I wanted to also apply this to my ship. I decided to interpret the idea of enterprises thrusters and voyagers reactor into the blueprint of my ship.
Following this popular series is another long running "binge worthy" show that goes by the name of Doctor who.
An Explanation of the show:
Doctor Who follows the adventures of the primary character, a rogue Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, who goes by the name "the Doctor". He fled Gallifrey in a stolen TARDIS – "Time and Relative Dimension in Space" – a time machine that travels by materialising into and dematerialising out of the time vortex. The TARDIS has a vast interior but appears smaller on the outside, and is equipped with a "chameleon circuit" intended to make the machine take on the appearance of local objects as a disguise; due to a malfunction, the Doctor's TARDIS remains fixed as a blue British police box.
The Doctor often finds events that pique his curiosity as he tries to prevent evil forces from harming innocent people or changing history, using only his ingenuity and minimal resources, such as his versatile sonic screwdriver. He rarely travels alone and often brings one or more companions to share these adventures. His companions are usually humans, as he has found a fascination with planet Earth, and he frequently collaborates with the international military task force UNIT when the Earth itself is threatened. As a Time Lord, the Doctor is centuries-old and has the ability to regenerate when his body is mortally damaged, taking on a new appearance and personality. The Doctor has gained numerous reoccurring enemies during his travels, including the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master, another renegade Time Lord.
Doctor Who is a British science-fiction television programme produced by the BBC since 1963. The programme depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called "the Doctor", an extraterrestrial being from the planet Gallifrey. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Accompanied by a number of companions, the Doctor combats a variety of foes, while working to save civilisations and help people in need.
The show is a significant part of British popular culture, and elsewhere it has gained a cult following. It has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. The programme originally ran from 1963 to 1989. There was an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with a backdoor pilot, in the form of a television film titled Doctor Who. The programme was relaunched in 2005, and since then has been produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. Doctor Who has also spawned numerous spin-offs, including comic books, films, novels, audio dramas, and the television series Torchwood (2006–2011), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011), K-9 (2009–2010), and Class (2016), and has been the subject of many parodies and references in popular culture.
Twelve actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation – a plot device where a Time Lord whose body is too badly harmed to heal normally, can instead recover by transforming into a "new" body. Each actor's portrayal differs, but all represent stages in the life of the same character and form a single lifetime with a single narrative. The time-travelling feature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, who took on the role after Peter Capaldi's exit in the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time".
Yet again here in doctor who we often have the industrial style. however the earlier doctor who series was slightly more unpretentious. By now with my research I had decided I wanted to exterior of my ship to look rather complicated while the interior of my ship would look simplistic and unambiguous. The corridors would be a comprehensible grey, this would slightly follow to the outside of the ship to keep a pattern, however I would include a much more complex design and add subtle colouring where needed. The panels in Doctor who inspired how I would model my own panels, as well as the buttons and rains on my ships exterior.
An Explanation of the show:
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. A spin-off from the 2005 revival of long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who, Torchwood aired four series between 2006 and 2011. The show shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from BBC Three to BBC Two to BBC One, and acquiring US financing in its fourth series when it became a co-production of BBC One and Starz. In contrast to Doctor Who, whose target audience includes both adults and children, Torchwood is aimed at older teenagers and adults. Over its run, the show explored a number of themes; prominent among these were existentialism, homosexuality and bisexuality, and explorations of human corruptibility.
Torchwood follows the exploits of a small team of alien hunters, who make up the Cardiff-based, fictional Torchwood Institute, which deals mainly with incidents involving extraterrestrials. Its central character is Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), an immortal former con-man from the distant future; Jack originally appeared in the 2005 series of Doctor Who. Other than Barrowman, the initial main cast of the series consisted of Gareth David-Lloyd, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, and Eve Myles. Their characters are specialists for the Torchwood team, often tracking down aliens and defending the planet from alien and nefarious human threats. In its first two series, the show uses a time rift in Cardiff as its primary plot generator, accounting for the unusual preponderance of alien beings in Cardiff. In the third and fourth series, Torchwood operate as fugitives. Gorman and Mori's characters were written out of the story at the end of the second series. Recurring actor Kai Owen was promoted to the main cast in series three, in which David-Lloyd too was written out. Subsequently, American actors Mekhi Phifer,Alexa Havins, and Bill Pullman joined the cast of the show for its fourth series.
The first series premiered on BBC Three and on BBC HD in 2006 to mixed reviews, but viewing figures which broke records for the digital channel. It returned in 2008 where it aired first on BBC Two, receiving a higher budget; its uneven tone, a criticism of the first series, was largely smoothed out, and the show attracted higher ratings and better reviews. The third series episodes worked on a higher budget and transferred to the network's flagship channel, BBC One, as a five-episode serial, entitled Torchwood: Children of Earth. Although Children of Earth was broadcast over a period of five consecutive summer weeknights, the show received high ratings in the United Kingdom and overseas. A fourth series, co-produced by BBC Wales, BBC Worldwide, and US premium entertainment network Starz aired in 2011 under the title Torchwood: Miracle Day. Set both in Wales and the United States, Miracle Day fared less well with critics than the previous series, though was applauded by some for its ambition.
The series is set in Cardiff, Wales and follows a rogue covert agency called Torchwood which investigates extraterrestrial incidents on Earth and scavenges alien technology for its own use. This Torchwood, led by Captain Jack Harkness, is a small, independent organisation, but began as the Cardiff branch of the larger Torchwood Institute, then-defunct, which began in the Victorian era. (Its origins were outlined in the Doctor Who episode "Tooth and Claw", and Harkness's long connection to it is covered in flashback scenes in a Torchwood series 2 episode.) As the opening monologue explains, the organisation is separate from the government, outside the police, and beyond the United Nations. Their public perception is as merely a 'special ops' group. The events of the first series take place sometime after the Doctor Who series two finale, in which the Torchwood Institute's London headquarters was destroyed. This format was maintained for the first two series.
Series three, a miniseries, saw the Cardiff headquarters destroyed and the team temporarily operating as fugitives in England's capital city of London, its membership declining and the organisation thoroughly broken over the course of the serial. Series four starts with Torchwood fully disbanded. Jack has left Earth after the events of series three, and Gwen has retired to be with her family. The group is then unofficially reformed, this time operating primarily in the United States, joined by two fugitive CIA agents who have been framed for treason.
Torchwood inspired both my hangar and my corridors. It also has a rather industrial style and so I was keeping with a theme I had intentionally created. The placement and design of lights within corridors in Torchwood heavily influenced where I believed I should place my lights in each scene. I didn't want the ship to look as grimy as the corridors in Torchwood,so instead of placing them all at floor level I raised some. I also added colouring to a few lights to give a more technological atmosphere. The shaping of the lights however I designed while looking at pictures of Torchwood's underground base and tunnel systems.
Concept art
overview
James Clyne attended the University of California at Santa Barbara where he studied Fine Art and Painting. Eager to focus on design, he attended Art Center College of Design as an Industrial Design major focusing on entertainment design. Clyne began his professional career designing creatures, characters, and environments for gaming companies such as Sega, Activision, and Pulse Entertainment. Wanting to expand his work in entertainment design further, James began consulting as a concept artist and storyboard artist for special effects houses such as Digital Domain and Rhythm and Hues.
His early work in film began with Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Soon to follow were Instinct, Titan A.E., Mission to Mars, Galaxy Quest, Mystery Men, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, The Polar Express, and Troy, for which he provided conceptual designs for environments, sets, props, matte paintings, and vehicles.
Overview
A concept artist and designer originally from Berkeley California. Now a senior concept artist at Bungie in Bellevue Washington.
Overview - Cornelius Dämmrich
Born in 1989 behind the Berlin Wall, what makes me kind of a real-life wildling. Years after the fall of the Soviet Union, my mother and I moved to West Germany where I grew up and went to school. Today I live in Cologne and work as a freelance 3D Artist. I create 3D environments with a combination of various 3D programs. Since I’m not a character modeler, you will sparsely find any humans or animals (with a few exceptions) in my work. All you will find are signs of life: Remainings of activities, scratches or marks of somewhat dealing with its surroundings. Sometimes I try to change this, sometimes I don’t. I love movies and watch a lot of them. I also admire several composers and musicians like Trent Reznor and Clint Mansell. Movie soundtracks have a huge influence on me and often take part in the process of creating images and artworks. Earned a Bachelor of Arts in Media Design at the MHMK College in Cologne. For my work I've received several awards—such as the CGChoice Award—and have been published in several books and magazines.
Overview - Jason Park
Jason Park is an LA based concept illustrator and background designer specializing in sci-fi and futuristic art. A lifelong Transformers fan with over fifteen years of concept art experience, Jason won a 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual in Animation for his work on "Transformers Prime." Jason has also done concept illustrations for a variety of other projects in the animation and video game industries for a wide range of clients including Warner Bros. Animation, Sony Pictures, and EA.
Nicknamed ‘Djahal’, Geoffroy Thoorens has produced many excellent artworks as well as tutorials and brushes. His work reaches from video game to movie, and his drawings have been featured in highly educational book like Digital Painting Techniques.
Unlike other artist, Lin Chen does not provide much information about himself, but his artworks, particularly science fiction artworks are stunning enough to be called as professional production, and these works have brought him over 168 thousand views with only 78 artworks in his Deviant page.
As a passionate professional who considers painting as a great faction of his life, Marek Okon has raised his skills by self teaching, which is quite unbelievable if you look at his impressive artworks. His passon also leads him to professional work which creates high quality illustrations for promotion and advertising use. His favorite tools are Photoshop, Autodesk 3ds Max and Pixologic Zbrush.
After learning illustration programs, Markus Vogt become interested with incredible possibilities and power of 3D modeling, animation and rendering packages, and they are in his field of focus now. His artworks have been featured in well-known graphic magazines like 3D World, 3dArtist, and Advanced Photoshop as well. His production toolbox contains Cinema 4D, ZBrush, Vue, Bryce, Poser, and 3d Coat.
Currently working as a freelancer, Marta de Andres specializes in concept art, digital illustration, landscape matte painting, and photo manipulation. Her skill set has enabled her to embark herself in a variety of projects from musical album covers to background illustrations amongst many others.
Received CG Talk Choice Award and CG Land Flower Award for 9 times each, Pene Menn offers his service as a concept artist, matte painter and art director for big players like NCSoft. He also created a course called ‘Pene School’ which teaches and shares his illustration skills to the world.
Exploring ideas for my space station.
Below are some slideshows of my work. To look at them, you have to scroll by clicking which ever direction you want the pictures to move in.
This is the presentation
This is the interior of the hangar/docking bay, and screenshots of the progress in making it. First I modelled the walls and floor of the room, using a plane and then I subdivided the polygons/divisions, then using the multi-select tool I began raising certain areas to mould it into the shape I wanted. I then began making things such as the stairs, which was simply just making a cube into a more elongated shape and then used "shift D" to duplicate this shape. Next I moved onto creating the railings, I did this by using a cylinder and used "shift E" to extrude and manipulate it into a banister shape. Moving this and creating this around the floor and stairs I had made created a step way. After this I created crates but using the cube polygon and selecting the bevel components tool that can be found towards the end of the polygons tab. I used booleans to then make dents in the creates so that it would have more detail to the crates.
These are the control rings around the station, that help with it's gravitational pull within space. These are the steps of me adding detail onto the rings and creating them using booleans.
To begin making the rings I created a torus polygon (the doughnut shape) and another smaller one, I placed this inside the other torus and then using the mesh tool booleans I subtracted the difference of the two shapes so that this would create a dented tire shape within the larger torus. I did this again with a thinner larger torus on the outside to make another dent in the main torus. Following this I created the buttons buy placing small cubes and flattened sphere shapes upon the torus. Lastly I created the railings using the same technique as I did in the docking bay, with thin cylinders and extrusions. Once I had the railings in a design I liked I was done with the creation of the gravitational rings.
These are the solar panels, they take energy from the passing suns and stars upon its journey. Here are progression screenshots in the making of the solar panels.
To begin with I used a plane for the triangular solar panels, to make this shape I subdivided the polygons and moved the bar along until I achieved this shape. The base for the generator was created using the same technique but with a cube. Next I used a torus shape and lowered its subdivisions to 7 fitting this around the generator. Next I used a sphere and moved around the subdivisions till I created a shape I liked. I duplicated and then flattened this shape to place it on the top and bottom of this shape. Then I used elongated cube shapes to make the connecting structural beams. Then I made additional small details using spheres.
These are the reactor cores I created and placed upon the ship. Here are progression screenshots, this model was mainly repetitive modelling of the same objects.
Now the reactor was an extremely complicated design comprised of subdivided cubes, planes and spheres. The entire shape was trial and error. After getting one side of the hexagon correct I duplicated this and formed them around each other.
Here are some progression pictures of the modelling for a part of the space station that I call the cargo units.
To create this shape I used the same techniques I had with the other models, subdivided the cubes axis until it made a robust triangle shape. All models in this are the same shape just different sizes apart from the extra details which were made by cylinders and flattened spheres.
Textures I created/edited together in a program called photoshop, they are specifically placed to form around the Uv maps I created within maya. The base textures are taken from google and nasa models as well as this site;
https://www.gametextures.com/product-category/all-materials/sci-fi/?orderby=download_count
I imported all the separate models into one file and then connected each to create the space station. Next I textured them using substance painter and rendered the models.
These are my final renders.
These are my final renders.
The space station
The Docking Port/Exterior Hangar
Interior Hangar
Space Station Corridors
Final major project video
Here are previous ideas for my final major project.
I was originally going to create a horror scene with popular horror movie villains' heads in jars. The story would have been that there is a new serial killer "in town" killing all known murderers.
This idea was changed due to feedback as it was not unique enough of an idea following the fact that they were not my own character ideas and so it was not creative enough of a project.
The above gallery shows a selection of villains that I had chosen from to create for the project. My end choices were, Freddy Kruger, Chucky, Pinhead, Pale man and Ghost Face.
Freddy Kruger: Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger is a character of the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. He first appeared in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as a burnt serial killer who uses a glove armed with razors to kill his victims in their dreams, causing their deaths in the real world as well.
Chucky: Child's Play is a 1988 American supernatural psychological slasher film directed and co-written by Tom Holland, and produced by David Kirschner from a story by Don Mancini. It is the first film in the Child's Play series and the first installment to feature the character Chucky. It stars Catherine Hicks, Dinah Manoff, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, and Brad Dourif. Hicks plays a widowed mother who gives her son a doll for his birthday, unaware that the doll is possessed by the soul of an infamous serial killer.
Pinhead: Pinhead is a fictional character from the Hellraiser series, first appearing as an unnamed figure in the Clive Barker novella The Hellbound Heart. The name "Pinhead" is derived from a sobriquet given to him by the crew of the first Hellraiser film; he is first credited as such in Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Nearly thirty years after The Hellbound Heart was published, the character was given the designations the Hell Priest and the Cold Man in the sequels that followed, The Scarlet Gospels and Hellraiser: The Toll.
Pale man: The Pale Man is the iconic secondary antagonist (although he only appeared in one scene) of the 2006 fantasy drama film Pan's Labyrinth. He is a pale skinned humanoid demon with his eyeballs in the palms of his hands, giving him a terrifying appearance.
Ghost face: Ghostface is a fictional identity adopted by several characters of the Scream series. The character is primarily mute but voiced by Roger L. Jackson, regardless of who is behind the mask. The character first appeared in Scream (1996) as a disguise used by teenagers Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), during their killing spree in the fictional town of Woodsboro. Ghostface was created by Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson. The mask is based on[citation needed] The Scream painting by Edvard Munch and was created and designed by Fun World costume company employee Brigitte Sleiertin as a Halloween costume, prior to being discovered by Marianne Maddalena and Craven for the film. The character is used primarily as a disguise for each of the antagonists of each film to conceal their identity, while conducting serial murders and as such has been portrayed by several actors.
Along with the heads in jars I was going to make torture devices to place around the room.
This image is my inspiration for heads in jars.
Below are some images for my inspiration of the room.
Evalutation
For my final major project I aimed to create an architectural visualisation set in space (it was influenced by media reports of NASA), which I decided upon doing after researching into the science fictional culture and finding many of the formations of lunar modules and objects, from both real life space exploration organisations and space odysseys, to be very interesting. Prior to this idea I had many previous plans such as a models of popular horror movie villains, I was planning on putting their heads in jars with the back story of a new serial killer on the loose, seemingly killing known killers and putting their heads in jars in a eerily set room. This would have been a cinematic viewing experience, however upon feedback I was told this idea is not unique due to the fact that i'd be using character ideas that were not my own. My next solid idea was to create a sci-fi corridor and make it a walk through, nevertheless I thought to myself that this idea was not nearly ambitious enough. So this led me to creating a complete space station with a small glimpse at the interior. The story leading to this would be that humanity would have to leave earth in the possible future due to turning earth into a dystopia from all the pollution and mistreatment of the planet and this space ship would be their escape plan. I believe that I have met my aim/ intentions because I have made an environment within Maya/Mudbox/Blender/Substance painter which captures the essence of science fiction. Not only that but when presenting my ideas my class had given me feedback that my idea was very clear and well put across. I believe that my research was successful in developing my final major project because not only was I able to change from ideas that were quite common but it enabled me to get reference images (from both games, movies, tv shows and real life), which gave me examples of how the structures looked and how rocket ships, space stations and satellites were designed. The most relevant research that I did was researching cinematic representation of space crafts, I found these in Doctor Who, Torchwood, Star Trek, 3%, Passengers and Red Dwarf. I also researched games such as Half Life 2, Deadspace and Doom. This research is what inspired me and helped me get examples of the type of textures that they used and what kind of assets that they. From completing the research I learned how to layout my space station and what kind of textures/small details they subtly added. For my FMP (final major project) I relied on subject knowledge a lot because I required it to use the different techniques that I used to create space station and it's interior.
My development stage was after researching the space craft designs, I decided to draw up and plan each structure and model. I also looked into how I was going to layout the space station and whether I was going to make an interior or not, in the end I made corridors and a docking bay/the interior to a hangar that you could theoretically walk into however did not make them to be the focus of my project apart from a few well laid out renders. Throughout the project I experimented with different lighting systems in Maya, I also tested out different effects such as glow to give myself a varied look in lighting systems. The reactor of my space station is heavily influenced by the ship called Passenger. It is a movie based on the elite moving to mars, however two passengers are woken up 120 years too early. The cargo containers were inspired by 3% as there are many challenges that involve storage containers and I thought I could incorporate this into my own ideas. The solar panels are heavily formed around the NASA resource site, satellites have solar panels that help them stay powered in case of main generator failure, I thought this would be an excellent inclusion since my project involved the idea of a space travel.
I encountered several problems within this project. My first issue was my laptop, it's about 6 years old and "on it's way out" as some may say. Due to it's age and lack of modern software it often had problems with running the programs I was using to design my space station. I often lost progress due to it crashing and sometimes randomly shutting down. To overcome this I just tried to make sure to save as often as possible. The next issue I had was with the Mac computers at college, my work is quite a high amount of polygons and so the Macs managed to handle the files a lot less than even my aging laptop. This meant that I could not do any modelling in class as it would instantly crash before even opening the files. Instead I decided to try to model everything I could at home and write up on my website when attending college. I had quite a few issues when modelling, this was due to switching between programs often, as my modelling technique was to create more robust models in maya, any spherical models in mudbox and often used blender and 3dsmax just because I was trying to learn how to use other programs. Now I don't regret this decision because I am very happy with the outcome of my project, however it often caused me to have to research file errors and such, which took up a fair bit of time. The fourth issue I encountered was with the texturing, I spent hours and then days trying to find textures that would work for my space station, eventually I concluded in using substance painter and created and edited a few textures of my own within photoshop. My final issue was with Unity, it would not allow me to open my models within it if there was a texture on it.
I decided on how to make my final product/outcome by referencing back to my research. I was inspired by a movie I had watched called Passengers, I watched this after I had already modelled my corridor and had not yet begun the design of my ship. In my presentation I explain how it influenced my decisions within the project. To explain simply, the ship is modern yet industrial and problematic. The reactor I created was a near replica of the reactor in the movie, however I added my own touches and incorporated a few ideas from star trek in it's design. The methods that I used to produce my work involve Maya, Mudbox, Blender, Photoshop, 3dsMax and Substance Painter to make the models and textures by using a variety of tools and techniques e.g. extrusion, polygons, edge loop tool, bridge tool, bevel tool and for Mudbox I would use the smooth tool, bulge, foamy and flatten etc, as well as using these I also utilise photoshop to create and edit textures. Within photoshop I mainly used the blur tool, darken, highlight, loop, burn and clone stamp tool. The tools I used in Blender are extrude, mirror mode, smooth shading + edgesplit modifier (to get some edges sharp and others smooth), subdivision surface, inset extrude addon, loop tools addon, Bsurfaces addon, proportional editing and constraining grabs rotations, etc to an axis/plane. The tools I used in 3dsmax are tools within the "create panel" such as geometry, modify panel, hierarchy panel, display panel and utilities panel. The tools I used in substance painter are paintbrush, eraser, projection, polygon fill, smudge tool and clone tool. After the models were complete I would then texture them so that I could import them all into one file and gather my space station. My choice of methods enabled me to fulfil my statement of intent because the methods that I put in my statement intent were the pivoting guideline that I was going to use throughout my project. I would model in class and do write ups at home, render in class and texture at home. The strengths of this method is that I could organise and split the work load. The weakness of this method is that it could not prevent any issues I would have during the production of my project. I would have not changed anything in the methods that I used as I believe that this method worked well, issues in my work where not foreseeable and so I believe it t be the best way. The characteristics of my work are that the methods that I used to create my models e.g. The cargo containers, the space station, the hangar/docking station, the corridors etc.
My audience for the final outcome is my peers as they were the individuals that gave me advice throughout the project. My audience will interact with my work by going through my website and then finally watching a video of the scene that I created, the constructive criticism will hopefully help me improve my work. I hope that through this my audience will get a sense of the time period that I have attempted to construct. I believe that my final major project has answered my original statement of intent because I have created what I have set out to create after setting on a better focused set of ideas.
As a final body of work I believe that my project is as successful because I have made it with the best of my ability. The changes that occurred is the choice in what to make my project about and going from a game level to an architectural visualisation. My peers believe my final outcome really put across my ideas of medieval times. I believe that my final outcome has turned out great and has been done to the best of my ability.
I planned in using my time at college and home by doing the modelling and taking of screenshots at college and then continuing with the modelling or start texturing a model at home. I followed my timetable to a certain extent throughout the project because I knew what I had to do on certain weeks so I used it as a guideline for how long I had to do something. I tried to manage my time as I intended even though halfway through I had to change what I focused on at college and home and what models I was able with the time that I had left. If I was able to re work a section I would improve on the models by making them more detailed by using a mixture of techniques/ methods. If I was given more time I would model the inside of the castle and transfer it into unity to fix the problems within that program.