ANOTHER PROJECT, ANOTHER TIMESHEET.

So progress is currently underway on the fleshing out of one of my characters in 3D. I decided to go with Maya this time around-- as I'm rusty after almost a year away from the program and wanted to get acquainted with the it once again.

I have always favored building a model over most of the other features encompasses 3D software. Even this task has been neglected for a very long while due. I've had the itch and it felt good to scratch at it today. All of the techniques I was taught in college were washing back on me as I navigated through an all but familiar interface.

One of my favorite features of Maya is the ability to customize a shelf through the script editor, which Max offers as well through Macroscript. That was my first step-- followed by some hotkey assignments. My main goal is to get back to Maya but get back to Maya working even FASTER than before.

With the Project, my favorite Shelf Button so far has been a custom layout orthographic split with a tearoff perspective panel for my 2nd Monitor. My favorite hotkey: Hide UI elements. I'm only in the preliminaries so these two shortcuts are simple but pretty effective for me.

My technique is slowly coming back to me, although I am trying a different approach than I have in the past. I started bare minimal with 4 sided boxes:




I'm really trying to be more conscious of my polycount. Only carving in geometry where I NEED to create more detail. I'm trying to keep the polycount as low as possible in Maya before bringing it into Zbrush. Not because my computer can't handle it, but because I don't want to over complicate the model should I need to animate it later on.

I look it at as the less vertices to weight skins, the better... And skinning has to be one of my LEAST favorite tasks.

I'm always tracking my progess with a Timesheet. I got this idea from Kim Lee, owner of Worlds Away Productions and a friend and confidant of mine who I worked with in the past. He always stressed that it's was good to try to be conscious of how long you spend on a model. It gives a good competitive goal too. I always like to try beat my last record, even if the model is more complicated. That's just my nature.

I've kept my timesheet to four columns:

1). DATE
2). TIME SPENT
3). POLYCOUNT
4). DESCRIPTIONS AND/OR PROBLEMS

As far as modeling technique, I'm excited to say that this week I will be flying out to Los Angeles for a day later on this week to join in at the Zbrush User Group where I will watch my old instructor (and mentor) present his incredible talents to a mass amount of wide-eyed digital sculpting fans, along with two other very talent artists.

Danny Williams, founder of lunchcrunch.org and a phenomenal 3D modeler/sculpter, had generously taught his students his tricks of the trade at the School of Visual Arts back a few years ago. I luckily was fortunate enough to be part of that. I can proudly say that I had learned some crucial "rules" that I still execute to this day. Without his classes and a bookful of notes, I'm not sure if I would have the same love for 3D modeling or the same inner faith that I continue to hold for 3D modeling as I do currently.

Anatomy-- is the same needed nod. You've heard this time and time again, I'm sure. I'm not expert on anatomny by far (Wish I was), but by my desk-side a large anatomical reference of the human male that I ordered a while back from http://www.anatomicalfigures.com. This is one of the best purchases I've ever made. My browser, too, has been open all day making sure I have access to the proper reference(s) needed.

The character I'm modeling?

Well, that's for another day.... Maybe you can guess as I proceed along?

Keep it fun right?

Anyways, I'm hoping to the "maya" portion of "it" completed before I head out of town for my Zbrsuh crash course. I will post the character's designs as soon as the model starts taking a recognizable shape (perhaps my next post). For now, here's a semi-obvious tease:



The current stats of the timesheet (which I will post at the end of this project) stands at 1972 polys and about 5.5 hours of life investment.

The Zbrush meeting is leaving me SUPER excited about the next few days! It is the perfect ammunition to drop me back into Zbrush for Chapter 6 of Eric Keller's Introducing Zbrush book. Next Chapter: Advanced Digital Sculpting.

That's one thing about my job at the airlines that I will miss when I finally get the courage and appropriate skillsets to leave... The priveledge of traveling the distance for such a worthwhile and unbeatable opportunity.