Ronnie Leah, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

 Within the animation the Japanese Palace gets set on fire and so I made a burnt version. I tried adding a glowing fire texture in the windows however this never really showed in the render. I will so the rest of the effects in editing and rendering. So far I feel this version is a good start and I wanted it to be a darker version so it is disguised a bit in the fog. I do however prefer the original textured version and so want to show that off in the animation before the realization that the palace is on fire.  I really like the melted effect I was able to create on the tiles to really sell the idea that the palace is on fire. 

 Today I UV'd and textured the Shinto Shrine in Substance painter. This was a simple process as the model is low poly as it is a background model.  I originally made the black parts around the top and base metal, however felt that this made the Shinto shrine look too new. As well as this the Shinto shrine is meant to represent nature and I found online they are mainly constructed of wood. I then changed the material to be the same as the red parts of the model and found it to fit much better with the theme.  

 Today I experimented with different textures within substance painter until I found a combination I liked for the palace.  As the original piece of concept art had no colour to it, it was left up to the texturing phase to decide what the actual palace would look like. Although I already had an idea of the sort of colours I wanted to include, I gathered reference images online to be certain it matched the theme of traditional Japanese Palaces.  Below is a closer look of the final textures of the Palace. It is important that it reflects the traditional look of a Japanese palace so I put it against a neon background, which represents the Cyberpunk world. I really like how the building has come together and feel it contrast nicely against the background. All I need to do now is fix some of the UV's on the rooftops of the building.  I feel this is a believable environment for my character to have been brought up in. All I need to do now is figure out how I'm going to rep...

 Today I applied textures to the Japanese palace in Substance painter. Some of the UV's for the roof were a bit stretched, however I will go back and change this later, at this stage I just wanted to see how the model looked so far.  Below are some of the additional textures I found online for the Japanese Palace. I will experiment with different looks for the palace.  Castle Wall - By Louise Coomber stylized tiles - By Mehrad Mousavi pavement snow ground - By Enrique Chavarria Stylised Roof - By Sukrit Tanticharoenkiat Mountain - By Vladimir Petkovic Wood Stylized Plank - By Chew Gashuen StoneWall - By Ben Rosendahl Valorant Style Brick Wall - By Stephen Mulligan Stylized stone path - By Julio Evangelista painterly wood - By Michael Concannon

 Today I assembled the buildings so that they matched the drawings. This was a simple process as I had planned out each part of the buildings, and simply had to put the pieces together. I applied random colours before doing this to objects which will have the same textures when in substance. This will make it so when I drop a material on a single object, all objects of the same colour will also get that material. This will save time having to manually apply each material.  I added in these mountains to compare how the final scene should look. However I am unsure whether to use the mountains in the final scene as they are quite high poly for a background object.  Overall I am happy with the results of the buildings and feel this was probably the best method of creating the palace. I tried to keep it low poly as it is only a background object, however the Palace is only seen in full for a limited amount of shots, meaning I can delete sections when they are not in frame. I a...

Today I continued modelling the environment for my animation by creating the Japanese Palace. I decided to do this in small sections which will be combined together to create the different buildings, much like how I drew the palace. As the palace is only in the background of the animation I decided to make it as low detail as possible, only modelling what the camera will see.    After modelling the basic parts of the building I then UV'ed each part. / After Uv'ing the models I tested out the wall in substance painter. 

 Today I found different tutorials online which are relevant to creating my environment in 3D. I started by firstly reviewing what the environment looked like in my drawings and then how this was depicted in the Pre-viz, this helped me to identify the important details which were missing. The main things contained within my environment are: Mountains Stones Grass Trees Rope Bridge Japanese Palace Background Skyscrapers Lanterns Bridge Shinto Shrine Starry Night Skydome Overall the environment is not too detailed as my project focuses on characters, however I still want it to look good. I feel the main part I want to focus on to achieve the look of my environment in 3D is through lighting and rendering effect, which I will investigate at a later date.   I then searched for tutorials online to investigate how I could create these features in 3D. Below is a video tutorial which depicts making grass in Maya through MASH. I will use this on the traditional Japanese environment...

Art Of Below is my Premise project "art of", showing the progression of my project through my artwork and influences. The document can be downloaded for closer inspection.  Final Reflection On Premise Project  I started the premise project with the knowledge that I wanted to create an animation which would push my skills. My goal was to produce a product which I was proud of to show off to possible employers. From previous projects I had been able to measure my skills, allowing me to identify my strengths and weaknesses. I wanted to take the opportunity the premise project allows to fully hone in on my weaker areas in order to give me the best possible outcome when it comes to the end of major. For this reason I decided to extend my project across all three units, premise, minor and major.  From my last project titled 'Collaborations', I managed to produce a final animation I was proud of. However I felt as though the animation wasn't as fluid as it could be. Th...

 I completed some initial drawing of what the cyberpunk city could look like. I tried to consider the overpopulation factor throughout the drawing. I really like the middle building which points to the sky in a beam of light. I also tried to include the narrative that the city is alive by making the building on the bottom right out of a helix shape, much like a strand of DNA.  I was then going to continue along with this idea by drawing more building and layering them in a way  which looks like the image below. This was translate the sheer volume of buildings in the city.  Although I like this idea as every building is unique with its own personality, I feel it would be far too much work for the type of project I am doing. As my project focus is the fight scene, to spent so much time on objects which will only appear in the distance seems like a bad way to spend my time.  I could however solve this issue by making the city in the background a matte painting, how...