The course has hit its next milestone: The (First) Project. I have previously mentioned that the projects require us to model, texture, light and position an object of our choosing in a photograph; this will be achieved such that its true nature as CGI is hidden. Some of us knew that projects were part of the structure of the course, while it has come as something of a surprise to others.
The purpose of the project is to act as an equivalent for coursework in school. As we go through the next three and a half weeks learning more about the tools of Maya for modelling, texturing, lighting and compositing we will work on our projects at the same time, using the same skills. Once we finish the first six week section of the course we will be more familiar with the workflow from start to finish.
The object I have chosen is a typewriter! A nod back to my years of working as a typist.
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| A Smith-Corona De Luxe typewriter. |
I bought this typewriter in Spitalfields Market for thirty-odd quid and do really rather like it. It is in perfect working order, the only thing it needs is a ribbon; ribbons are, to my surprise, still very much available and I will be buying one as soon as possible.
We started the projects at the start of this week (on the 15th of July), but haven't got much further than taking reference photos and setting up our scenes.
Above is the scene as I work on it - the images are photographs I took, all of them with the camera as far away as possible from the typewriter, using a zoom lens to remove perspective. The boxy blob in the middle is a rough 'sketch' of the model which will be kept as simple as possible until I'm ready to start adding more detail to it. The goal is that I will have most of the important shapes and curves fleshed out in something as simple as this before I begin to detail the model: as soon as detail is added, working on the mesh and making small changes can become a nightmare so it's best to realise mistakes and problems early on.
I'm pleased that the project has started because it will give me something to structure this blog around. Instead of simply running through the last week's learning, I will post regular updates in the form of 'how the typewriter's going' and fill in with other, extraneous, details.
The completion of this project will mark the end of the first half of the course, and so will be at the six week mark: three weeks, two days.
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