BA3: 500 Word Creative Piece

To apply our new knowledge of Vladimir Propp's "Spheres of Action" we have been given the task of creating a short story for a character created during a parlour game seminar. The character I have is shown below:

I have decided that this particular character will be the Helper, which means that he will aid the main hero of the story in some way. We're not allowed to give our character a name though, so this will be a challenge. Here we go.

Have you ever wondered what happens in the wonderful world of the earth worm? No? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. This is a grand tale of adventure, valour, and of course, worms. So you really should stay and listen. I shall begin my story, naturally, at the beginning.

Under the earth where humans cannot see their cherished kingdom, live the humble earth worms. But the worms we see on the surface are just that, the surface, the workers that build the kingdom and maintain the endless tunnels that twist and turn in your very own garden. This world of wonders is ruled by a Worman, a magnificent creature, the head of a worm, the slim body of a human, tentacles instead of arms and, in this particular Worman's case, two peg legs. All these elements come together to form a creature of truly epic, but still very small, proportions. Under the rule of this great creature, the kingdom prospered and all its citizens were happy. However, things were not as happy as they seemed, and the great Worman knew of this but kept it from his people for their own safety.

Instead, he called upon his only son; Wigwam, in secret to express his concern and ask him to do something about it. In truth, the king was a very wise man, but he had no power other than his knowledge. After losing his legs, the great king could hardly stand at all let alone complete the task he was about to entrust to his son. And so Wigwam came to his father as his father had asked, eager to hear of the request he had. The king told his son how, in just three days time, the kingdom will be subjected to a terrible flood that would fill all of the tunnels with water and drown all the citizens, not even the great king will be spared if the floods were allowed to continue. The great king watched as fear filled his sons face and twisted his expressions with horror, but didn't lose faith in his son. He instructed Wigwam to take 50 of the fastest builder worms in the kingdom to the very highest point in the kingdom and to dig a huge space to fit all of the citizens of the kingdom, and therefore save them from the floods. Wigwam accepted his task, and turned to leave the palace in search of these workers. His father watched with new found faith. "My son will succeed, I know he will" he thought to himself.

As the days turned to nights, the great king of the worms awaited his sons return. On the third day, the king had still not lost faith, and as if on cue, his son returned explaining his success and that he wanted his father to be the first saved from the floods. But the king refused. Instead, fighting back tears, the king then instructed his son to go to his mothers chambers. Upon arrival, Wigwam walked into his mothers room with a confused look on his face, until he heard the laugh of a new born child. The room was never meant to save the kingdom. Instead, it was to welcome a new Worman into the prosperous world that lives on your back garden.

After all, how could a being no larger than a worm know of a flood that will destroy the kingdom?

And there is my story.

BA3: Tileable Texture Research

Creating Tileable Textures for use on models created in Maya is a skill in itself, and something every 3D modeler will have to do to make their models effective in a Games Engine. There are a number of ways to create a tileable texture, but for the sake of this project I will be looking at only one method that I have found on tutsplus.com posted by Collis Ta'eed.

This particular method uses Photoshop and Collis says "So to turn that photo into a tiled background we need to first remove any irregularities, and the make the edges blend into each other". The first step involves getting rid of the darkened edges of an image using the Crop Tool, as shown below. This step can be skipped if the edges aren't as dark as they are in this one.

The next step is to lighten the darker areas of the image using the Dodge Tool. By gently brushing over the edges with a large soft brush you can weaken the shadows slightly, but don't do it too much or the image will appear too washed out.

Once that is complete the next step is to get rid of any obvious details that would show the texture has been tiled. In the image used for this tutorial, there is a leaf in the top right hand corner that will give away the tiled effect, and this can be removed by using the Patch Tool or Clone Stamp.

The fourth step is to make the edges bleed together. Duplicate the layer to both the right and the left to get an idea of where the make the edges bleed. In the image you can see below a 1px gape between the layers so you can see where the layer has been copied.

After that it is important to bleed these two layers together, again using the Patch Tool or Clone Stamp it doesn't make too much difference what tool you use as long as you use it effectively. Below you can see the result of this.

And there it is! By repeating this process for all 4 edges you can create a fully tileable texture. Below you can see the final image.

This is the method that I have used to create the tileable textures I have used for my model, such as the Gold Metal and the ground texture.

BA3: Research into Bump Mapping

Bump Mapping in Maya (and many other 3D packages for that matter) is a great way to add new levels of depth to your 3D assets and is therefore very important in the modelling process. Bump maps are similar to Diffuse Maps, but instead of adding colour they add the illusion of 3D details to flat poly-planes, saving on your poly count and making your assets much easier to render in a games engine. I have found a great tutorial online that helped me when I was adding bump maps to my terrain in Maya, which you can see below:



With this tutorial I was able to understand the process of Bump Mapping and also apply it using Crazy Bump. The results of my bump mapping can be seen below in this screenshot of my model (in progress).