MDDN 343, Project 1B, New Tentacles 2

I was trying to merge the vertices for my new tentacles and it wasn't merging properly. There were excess vertices which wouldn't merge properly and when they are merged together it didn't make it a clean smooth object.

I have now re done the tentacles again. But this time how I did it was i made a cone with the length of how I want the tentacles to be and curved it to how I want them to be. I have also made the head of my character again and where I want the tentacle to go I have moved some vertices around and deleted the faces to make a circular hole. I have then merged the vertices of the end of the cone and around the hole in the head. This stretched out the and has made it look like the cone is coming out of the head.

Again I quartered the model and duplicated it 3 times.
But i really like how this one looks and I like it even more than the previous one.

This was the first time I had heard of the merge vertices tool and it helped me a lot after that. I used that tool not only for the tentacles but for merging the legs and the head together. I had to delete a lot of interior faces, which took while. But after I did that it made the model look really good and I'm glad that I learnt about this tool.

MDDN 343, Project 1B, New Tentacles

I am trying to redo my tentacles for my character to make it look more organic and natural.

This is how I would like to make the tentacles look in my character

In this image the tentacles are actually coming out of the character. The way in which I think I could do this is to stretch out some of the vertices and soft select is so it i can stretch it out. 

I have completely redone the head of my character and making it have only 6 small tentacles and have 2 large tentacles.

I am making only one quarter of the tentacle and copy it 3 times to make it so that everything is completely symmetrical.

  

I think that this looks a lot better than how it looked originally and I really like it. The shell for the character is  still exactly the same as the original but I have made used my original legs which I was going to use for my character. The legs as well as the new tentacles look well together and I really like this new object.

MDDN 343, Project 3, First Meeting

We just had our first meeting as a group for our game design assignment. Unfortunately katie couldn't come so she couldn't tell us more about how she imagined her game to be. We sorted out a few things which we thought could be cool for the game.

At this stage we havent thought to much about how the game is going to be like because we are still working on project 1B. Once that is all finished we plan on doing a lot more with the game.

We have decided that we are going to have weekly meetings which will be after the game design lecture on tuesdays. We have booked a room in the computer science section of the university which we are using as our meeting room.

Here is the minutes from our first meeting and the stuff which we have decided on that might be a part of our game.


We have also been partnered up with one of the computer science students to work with us in project 1B. I am partnered up with Dawn and at this stage she seems to be pretty good at what they do and I am looking forward to working with her

MDDN 343, Project 1B. Working on High Polly

In part B of this assignment we have to make a high polly model of our character.

Something which I need to work on is combining all of my parts of my character into one main object.

I also what to change my textures for my model because I really didn't like what I just put onto my model. I want it to look a lot more organic and realistic.

I also what to change the tentacles of my character because I don't think they look that well. At this stage all the tentacles are just sticking out of the model but don't look like like they are coming out of the head. That is something which I really want to achieve.

MDDN 352, Project 1. Final Website

I have finally finished my website for this project and I think that it looks really well. Most of the links work in on it except the search button which I haven't got to work.

The website is
http://www.richard-hpa.com/

The website is responsive and it works well on all 3 of my chosen devices. Each of them has something  different in each of them which is what the brief says it should be.

Here are screen shots of the main changes in the website are. The screens have only been resized on my desktop to look similar to how they look on the other devices but might look a little bit different

MDDN 352, Project 1, Development

I have been working more on my site and have almost finished it. The main changes which I have made since the last post is that I have made all of my pages and they all link together very nicely.

Something which is a bit of a problem is that my main image is to large. I want to keep it the main thing on the page but as it is the user doesn't know they are on a new page.
So to fix that I have made a fixed nav bar at the top of the screen which stays on the top as you scroll. It only stays fixed for the desktop and the tablet but not the mobile for some reason.
On the nav bar it tells you what page you are on.

Something else which I have made is the layout of the actually recipe page.

I have a Large image of the food with the ingredients next to it and have the method bellow. I really like this layout as it is easy and simple to view which makes it simple for the user.

MDDN 343, Project 3

Alright so my game wasnt chosen to be one of the games which are going to be made. I am kind of guttered that it didnt get chosen but this project should still be fun.

The game which I am going to be making now is called Upside Down, Downside up, this game was pitched by Katie Watson. It is about a monkey which can live in 2 different dementions of the same world at the same time and has to travel from each one to be able to escape from a laboratory.

I thought this game had an interesting idea and has quite abit which could be expanded on. It wasn't my first choice of the games which I wanted to work on but this will be able to teach me some new skills not only with creating a 3D game but also how to be able to work with a group who I have never worked with before.

The Designers who are in my group are:

Katie Watson
http://343watsonkati.blogspot.co.nz/

Francis Guerin
http://interactivemedium.tumblr.com/

The Computer Science students who are in my group are:

Dawn Richardson
Stephen Bennett
Ryan Sumner

I have never worked with any of these people in the past so it will be an interesting assignment. I really hope that as a team that we can all work together as well as how my group in 2D game design managed to work.

MDDN 353, Project 1, Development

The more and more I work with HTML it is getting a lot easier. But there are also a lot of things which are frustrating me about it.

I Havent managed to work out how the slider works to change the information on the page without having it to actually go to another webpage. No matter how bad I really wanted it in my site I have had to scrap that idea.

Something which I do have now is a nav bar.

This just shows you all of the pages which are in my site and they highlight depending on which site you are on. Changing this is what I am focusing on for the change between the desktop and the tablet.
When I bring this into my tablet it changes slightly and doesn't show all of the content which is on the bar immediately on the screen.

When the user presses the button on the right of the nav bar it will drop down like this

This is exactly what I wanted it to do with the change in the nav bar and perfectly works with tablet and mobile devices. All buttons work and send the user to another page

Layout

I have chosen a simple blocky layout for my home page and a lot of this will be replicated onto the other pages throughout the site.

There are two of the main dished covering most of the page as well as a small description at the Bottom.

Beneath that are 6 small images showing other things which are on my site that the users might want to see. 

I have chosen the plan white and blue colour scheme because I do want my site to stand out but I also want it all to look nice together and I think that it does look quite good so far

MDDN 343. Project 1A walk cycles

I have joined all of my character together and have started to rig my character. There is a lot of joints in my model and when weigh painting it got really annoying. I figured out that it is better to weigh paint with the multicolour weight painting instead of the black and white because it is easier to see all of the really small parts which are being effected that you don't want it to be.

Rigging and weight painting took quite awhile but now that it is all done it moves very well. I have used IK joints for the legs of my character, as well as use them for the tentacles and the tail.
I have put in drivers which are connected to the main moveable parts of my character so that it is easier to animate and they you don't have to animate the skeleton, which is a huge mistake which I made last year in the 3D animation paper.

We have to put in two videos of our character. One is an idle animation and the other is a walk cycle.

For the Idle animation I want my character to just bob on the spot while his tentacles move. The tail also slightly moves when he is standing still but not that much.


idle animation from Richard Hpa on Vimeo.
For my walk cycle I came up with the idea that the squid still thinks that he is in the water so he will still move the same way in which they do when they are traveling in water. This involves a lot of gliding back and forth.


Walk cycle from Richard Hpa on Vimeo.
I think both of these animations are quite good and I am really happy with what I have so far

MDDN 343. Project 1A, making legs more boxy

When I showed Kah my model he told me that I should try make it more blocky for this hand in. I decided to keep the body and the head the same  but I have changed the legs as well as the tentacles.

I have made the legs out of one cube and extruded it to make one leg.

I kind of like the blocked one more but I will have to round the edges for my final in Project 1B.
The point at the end of the leg also looks a lot better and looks like something which my character could actually stand on.

I also changed the tentacles so they they don't have as much faces on it but they still look very similar.

MDDN 352, Project 1, Starting to make website

I have started to work with Text Mate and focusing on my idea a lot more.
I am starting by working with the framework from the example page on bootstrap
http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/examples/carousel.html

I have had a look through it and have taken out as well as added some code which I want to use.

I have found a site which I am going to be taking recipes from for my site.
I am taking my recipes from 'Food in a minute'

http://www.foodinaminute.co.nz/

I am just clarifying that this is fully for educational purposes and I do not plan on using my website in a profitable way. All images and information has been taken from http://www.foodinaminute.co.nz/.


While playing around with some code I have figured out how to make a slider which I am planning on bringing into my website

I am not sure how I am going to make it that the information on the page changes depending on the value of the slider. At the moment it goes up in intervals of 5 and max's at 50. I have tested this on my tablet and it works the same way as it does while using the desktop

MDDN 343. Project 1A, legs and final model

Now that I have all of the main squid I am starting on the legs. I am going to be repeating the legs 5 times so that there will be 6 legs for my character. They will all be the same but some might be slightly smaller than each other.

For my leg it is made up of cylinders as well as spheres so that the limbs can move easier when I do the weigh painting.

Now that I have all 6 legs I have put all of the pieces together into my character.

I think it looks really cool and I think that this is actually what a land squid might look like if they were to evolve into if the water were to dry up.

MDDN 343. Project 1A, head and tentacles

After modeling my body I have decided to keep going with his body. I want to make the squid before I start adding the legs to the body.

The Head in for my character is made pretty much the same way as the tail. I used an cylinder again and stretched it out as well as expanding some of the vertices to give it a better look. I also have pushed in 2 of the vertices so that it can have eye holes.

For the tentacles I modeled one of them using a small skinny cylinder. At the end of each of them I wanted to put a sphere object so that it isn't just a a cylinder.

I copied this 7 more times as well as 2 more times which are double the length of the other 8. These 2 are the main tentacles for my character. These would be the ones which it would use to catch it pray
Once I got all 10 tentacles I added them onto the head in a pattern so that they are all evened out on the head.

MDDN 343, Project 1A, first modeling

I have started to bring my character into Maya to animate. I am starting off with using this image which I have drawn.

The outline of him is in black because that's the main part which I am trying to model.

At first I tried using a plane box to model my character but it was getting really annoying because of the curve. So in the end I just decided to use a cylinder for the main part of its body.

The sharp end of the tail is just a pyramid which has been stretched out a little bit. For a starting part of my character I think it looks quite good.

MDDN 343. Project 1A, evolution cycles

For the hand in we need to show the evolutionary cycle of my character.
So I have drawn 5 stages from a normal small squid to my land squid.
I have decided to do a side on view as well as a front on view because I needed to show two main things which change in my character and I couldn't do that with only one side.

MDDN 352 Project 1. Logo Expanded

I have decided to expand on my logo a little bit more.
Because I am planning a food website I thought that I should have some images of food in my logo.

Have a couple images on each side makes the logo look a bit better but I really like it.

While mucking around with images I think that the layout which I got really makes it look better. I wanted to have foods that might come in the site. These foods might not be in the site though because I couldn't find a quick recipe for these foods.

MDDN 343. Project 1A, drawing up character

I really like the idea of a squid because I think it is an idea which hasn't been done before and could look really cool when modeled up.

I have done a couple sketches of a squid, as well as a top and side view of what I am hoping to for my character to look like.

The main thing which I am going to be changing is the idea that it is still a creature that kills. I want to have the fin of the squid to have turned into a sharp object which it now uses to kill its pray. Its entire body has been curved up so it gives it a better range of motion to use its tail for attacking.

Also having 6 legs gives it a lot more motions and can move very quickly. I want the legs to sort of be like a lobsters. My idea is for it to have a hard shell on its back which also goes over its legs which protects it from being attacked by other creatures

MDDN 352 Project 1, Concepts

Have I have done several drawings of layouts which I am thinking of trying to use in my website. These are all quick sketches will some of them being a bit more technical drawings.

Most of these are really quick drawings but something which I am thinking of doing is trying to keep a nice box layout. Something which the user finds easy to use and can easily navigate between pages and know exactly where everything is. 

Because we have to make a site that can be used across 3 different platforms. In the mobile and tablet versions I am planning on having my tabs which will be in the desktop version to be put into some sort of drop down box. Bellow are some ideas which I have that could be used for my drop down boxes.

MDDN 343. Project 1A. Environment

Because that I want to do an aquatic creature, for my environment I am taking the squid out of the water and bring him onto land.

The backstory for my assignment is that 90% of the earths water has dried up, which has killed millions of types of aquatic creatures. The squid has managed to survive the drought and has evolved to be able to live on land. With its new grown legs and sharp tail it has become a predator not only in the water but also on land.

MDDN 343. Project 1A, chosen creature

I have chosen my main creature that I am going to evolve.

The squid is a cephalopod which has always been a water creature. There are many different types of squid and many of them are known as being quite vicious. Especially giant squid which can get quite large. In the ocean these are a predatory species, so I want to try and show this with a land version.

I am thinking of creating a hybrid of a squid and a scorpion.

I can imagine that there is a possibility of something like this happening if a squid were to come onto land and if it were to evolve

MDDN 343. Project 1A, ideas

I have looked at several sea creatures and many of them have evolved quite a bit over the years.

Like the image above, sea creatures have evolved by being able to walk and breath on land without having to rely on water to keep them alive.

So if I am going to use a sea creature for this assignment. The major thing which I have to think about is the ability to grow legs. This obviously gives the creature the ability to survive on land.

Also while looking at creatures that have evolved over time they often have a way in which they can defend themselves in their new habitat. So this is something which I have to take into consideration.

MDDN 352. Project 1. Intrim Presentation

In our intrim presentation we drew up some more concepts which we could use in our website. And we also had group discussions with a tutor in each group. Ryan was the tutor that I had in my group.

Here are the drawings which we did in class.

We had about 10 minutes to think of theses broad ideas and a lot of these are a lot blocky which I think I am going to try and focus on that. I would really like to use a slider in my website because I think that these will be interactive.

These are two which we had a little bit more time to draw up and like the other ones they are quite blocky. There are a lot of images in my second one which links in well with my image focus

Now this is something that I really want to try for. This for me would be the idel website that I could make at this moment. When I start using Text mate to work on my website I think that there are some parts of this which could be quite hard but I would really like to try for something like this.

MDDN 343, Project 1A, evolution's

For this project we need to design a character which has evolved from its original form because of the dramatic change in the environment.

In history there have been many creatures  who have evolved because of a change in the environment.
One of the main evolutions which has happened is the evolution of man.

This image is used a lot to show the evolution of man from a monkey. Shown in this picture is a monkey which starts with walking on all 4s to being about the stand and walk with 2 legs as well as losing all of its hair.

Because of the monkeys change in environment he had to evolve over time to be able to walk like we do now.

For this assignment I want to focus on under water creatures and how they might evolve if they were to come onto land.