Lighting test with both Lep and Drak

I have placed both of the characters in the scene to see how they look. There is a little bit more work to do. I very much like the way the light is hitting drak but it isn't shining on Lep enough. I either need to move or enlarge the light(or add an extra one) and I think I definitely need to increase the contrast of the specular map on Leps skull. Maybe even increase the contrast of the texture, or maybe its the diffuse that's messing it up? I also think there is too much fog but that is easily remedied, I just need to decrease the opacity of the fog and maybe increase its scale

card designs

Had to create some cards for a few scenes in the film. I created 11 plus the back card. Unfortunately they might need a little bit more work because the designs have become indistinct due to the amount of texturing I've done to them. They look fine in photoshop but when put under the lighting they look muddy and unreadable. I wanted an ecclectic mix of cards because I want the card game to not make any sort of sense to the audience, except that it is some sort of betting game. Although there are lots of weird things that I have on the cards I did take quite a lot of desgins from the book of kells. I enlarged pictures from the book of kells and other sources to a3 size and drew over them as I doubted that I would be able to get copyright free versions of the pictures, not to mention a decent size/resolution. Then I overlayed lots of textures, especially parchment textures.

Set modelling and texturing

I literally only have to model and texture the ship(which will be at a distance so I don't have to make it too complicated) and a table to have the sets done.

 This was to see how streaky I wanted the table

The Yellow ball was to see how reflective it was.

 To make the table I used this tutorial to create the wood texture http://www.pixelophy.com/2011/01/creating-realistic-wood-texture-using-only-procedural-textures/ it uses the 3d texture within maya to create a wood texture. I would usually use photo textures but this seems to work pretty well for what I want. Next I made a slightly larger(only just) transparent duplicate table that incases the original table. The duplicate has the streaks in the specular channel(and bump) to try and make the table look like it has been coated in laquer or polyurethane.

Then to create the inlay there is a third table layer inbetween the wood and the laquer that is mostly transparent except for the inlay. I like doing it this way because there is a slight shadow underneath the inlay which makes it pop out a little.

Refining the lighting

Spent a little bit of time trying to get the lighting at the right level of brightness

 1.) Initial test with just single spot light, brightness of 1

2.) Tried adding a dark brown ambient light to try and lighten up the shadows but I found it too bright on the body

 3.) Tried a directional light, also dark brown, brightness 1 facing the side of the rabbit

4.) Changed the colour of the shadows in the directional light to brown too, there is a slight difference.

 5.) I think I changed the settings on the bottom jaw of the rabbit because it was bothering me. Increased the spot lights and directional lights brightness to 2.

6.) These are tests using the previous lighting checking what it looks like close up and far away. The body is still getting too much light because of the directal light but for close up shots this won't matter.

Rigging and some final texturing

Going good. Got everything rigged up now and textured. I need to make the ship then I'm all ready to go with setting up the scenes.

Keeping going

Keeping going with texturing and modelling

drak totally textured

Textured the remaining bits and peices of drak, although I may go back and properly texture the bells and the belt.

Continuation of texturing and modelling

Just keeping on doing what I've been keeping on doing, texturing the minor characters. The boxer dog birdcage is pretty much done except for maybe some gears etc inside the birdcage.

Lep textured and modelled

Lep is textured and modelled, the only thing left is the gears which will be sorted out at the rigging stage.

Modelling minor characters

Modelling some minor characters at the moment, they don't have to be as fancy because they're in the background. I'm also making use of the stuff I've already modelled in the past like ribs and the hands that I used for Lep.

I would love to have the candles lit on the deer/horse but I'm not sure if I can be bothered putting a fog box thing on each one or whether I should them in in post. It all sounds pretty annoying to do it either way to be honest.

wing testing

Did the feathers on Drak. Last time I did wings I simulated the feathers, this time round I'm trying out a soft bind. The feathers stretch when the wings move, I'm trying to decide whether I want this to happen or not. All in all I much prefer doing the wings this way, it's a lot easier controlling where I want the feathers placed(especially along the very front bits of the wings where the curve is extreme). I was also curious what the fur would do when I bound the model but it seems to be behaving. I'm  not sure if I want to soft bind the vertibrae or just parent them directly to the skeleton, presumably that is the next test. I also did this test because I wanted to double check that draks little claw things could actually reach the table in the animation(see the bottom picture, which is the wing flat against an imagined surface.).