Before getting started on this big project i wanted to experiment with certain elements that would be in my final environment. Firstly i wanted to get an idea of the size of the island, location and size of the mountains and the buildings The shape of the island itself (particularly from above) is very unique and i wanted to start with that, the side views would come naturally and i wouldn’t change that very much, just so long as it had a mix between real islands and Neverland.
The first attempt of the island was mainly an experiment to get a clear idea of the placing of everything. Basically it is a few plates and traffic cones placed on top of each other but the purpose of it was well served and allowed me to get a clear idea of what my 2d drawings would look like in CGI. I was quite pleased with it but i wanted to give it a more natural look and make the island almost one single shape so merging of the mountains and the rest of the scenery looked natural. In class i was taught the technique of using vertexes, edges and polygons to sculpt shapes and surfaces.
I tried the technique and found it to be the best way of sculpting a landscape perfectly, make it all one shape and avoid looking to geometric and symmetrical. It also allowed me to play with how to place buildings on the scene accordingly to the sculpt of the mountains. This was going to be my final maya project for the environment but i decided to make the whole island out of one big cylinder.
Before making my final version of the island i wanted to experiment with the main factors of the project that were vital, namely, textures and water. We were told that UV mapping is the most tedious but effective way of adding textures to an object. I had to look at quite a few tutorials on youtube (not all of them very helpful) and eventually found a few that gave me a brief introduction to hypershading, brush effects and fluid/ particle animations.
I found a tutorial on adding textures which consisted of giving a table the texture of wood by the use of the UV mapping.
Here is my take on it, i didn’t get round to the legs but this proved well in teaching me how to UV map, a technique i soon got used to and took a big liking too.
Next i wanted to try something more drastic on my own, i simply made a box and made each face on it with a different texture of different elements of nature (bionicle helped with my choice of elements)
This proved to me that UV mps textures is not such a difficult task. My only concern for this was getting a few textures to fit such a unique shape that would be my island but UV mapping allows me to change the texture face by face etc. One last element that i was concerned with was the water as i wanted a few waterfalls and a stream to run through my complex. I found one tutorial that allowed mt to use a fluid emitter but…
after trying it it proved far to complicated and far to detailed. the water itself was difficult to control as i wanted it to do very specific actions. even real water on a model would be easier to control. all the polygons emitted caused complications, including slowing down of playback and would slow down rendering. the water isn’t such a huge part of the environment as nothing revolves around it so i decided to look at a better solution. That is where i found a tutorial for a particle emitter and how to control it which proved more easier and less detailed.
Making it from a waterfall was relatively easy once i got hold of the settings and use of gravity fields. having it interact/ collide with objects was more easy.
One last element to add to my scene was wildlife/ plants. i found by accident on maya a brush tool that allows us to paint brush certain elements across a landscape. getting used to that was quite tedious, especially when i learned it only works on flat surfaces so manipulating it and changing it’s scale it was quite difficult.
Practice on all these elements all helped in the final version of the island and it’s complex.
Joshua Lee Animation 