normal mapping and uv mapping research

http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/Use-Maya-Transfer-Maps-Tools-to-Create-Normal-Maps/25213
this is a tutorial that paul gave me for the normal mapping problem.

i have read it all and now i had some idea about the skills. this is something that i never thought at the first place. now i can understand that why the game characters have such high level detailed mesh but with only about 10,000 tris faces. this is very helpful to me. its like opening a new page for me. now i can free myslef to model a high detail character and then transfrom the details to a low level model with normal mapping.

paul also introduced another sotware call blender to deal with the uv mappin problem this week. i had a look and feel about the same. it is a very strong uv mapping software as well. i felt that it could aslo deal complex UV very well. however, i have alrdy finish the uvs for my characters in the scene. but i will try this software next time when i need to unwarp uvs.

this is the link i have read.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Unwrapping_a_Mesh unwarp a mesh
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Managing_the_Layout managing the layout
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Editing_the_Layout editing the layout
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Applying_an_Image applying a picture

http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/mytut/uvtut.avi this is a link to download a tutorial video. it is very helpful~~ after watching that i have alrdy have some idea about how to use blender.

after all, thx paul for providing this such helpful information.

Assessment 3 modelling

LEON !!! FIRST~~YEAH

this is the male character i m working on in my story. he is a male centaur and his name is leon. it took me a lot of time to model it coz i have to model a human and a horse. but im quite happy with the outcome.

the lines look good and tidy. i think it will work fine with joints. im trying to think about that im modelling a game model. so i need to reduce as much faces as i can. however, if the character do not have enough faces, it will not work smoothly after the rig. So this will be the biggest problem that need to be concerned. i will find out the solution to that. i think there has to be a way to do that. coz i know most game characters do not contain more than ten thousand faces. but ten thousand faces are not enough to present a detailed game character. so i hope i could find a way to this ASAP. before that, wt i can do is just use "soft edges" and try to model the character as smooth as possible in the lowest display level.

i used UVLayout to finish the uv for leon. its a very strong software to deal with complex uvs speically for human's uv. it only took me about one hour to unwrap the uvs. i export the character to OBJ file from MAYA and then load into UVLayout. after unwraping the uvs, i reload this OBJ into Mudbox to paint the texture for it. it is the first time for me to use Mudbox, so it has been a little hard for me to control the brushes. however, mudbox could only have me a brief idea about the texture. i exported the texutre layer from mudbox and loaded into Photoshop to draw real texture. the texture is not 100% complete and i will do some more detailed texture in the next sesmter.

In the end, leon has 9404 tris faces which is not bad but not very good. coz i havent do the weapon for him, and it is just the lowest vision. i was trying to reduce his tris faces into 5000, but i failed...... coz im afraid of the range of the movement will be effected if i reduce the tris faces into 5000. however, i will try to reduce it again during the holidays. i will use this model in my project in this semester.

HERE COMES OUR AVA~~

Ava is another character in the project. she is a female centaur. i saved sometime when i was modeling her coz i just need to finish the human body part for her. i copied the horse body part from Leon and change a little bit outlook in order to let it looks more like a female. after all, i merged them together. and Ava is finished~~~~

i m quite happy with Ava's appearance as well. but i still got the same problem which is i cant help myself with reducing the amount of the faces. i still model her like i was modelling the object for a animation film. i put too many detail on her ear and hands. i hope it will work fine in unity otherwise i will have to reduce it.

I finish her UV in UvLayout as well. after that load into mudbox the paint the texture and then finish it in Photoshop. this is not the final vision. i will do more texture for her in the next semseter.

Ava has 9758 tris faces. its too much for this vision i think. again, hope she will runs good in the real time game engine

ROBOT

This is the robot i will use for this semester. it is just a very gruff vision. it has too many faces and i havnt do the UV or texture for it. it will just be displayed in the scene. It wont be moving or having any behavior. The full vision of it will be finished in the next semester.