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

 Today I began to render my animation. Even though a few scene still need to be animated, I thought it would be a good idea to get a head start on lighting an rendering to see how the full animation process would worked. I have done the rendering process before however don't have a ton of experience lighting a scene and selecting the correct settings. Before rendering each scene however, there were small details about the scene's background, such as the tree, ground and Japanese Palace which I still had not sorted out. I spent the time playing around with different textures in Substance painter in order to texture the ground and tree. As for the palace I had already textured it however was unsure as to whether It would be worth using in the final animation as it would drastically increase rendering times, even though it is just a background detail.  After spending the time texturing the ground plane in Substance, I found that no matter what texture I was using, the ground woul...

 Today I decided to remodel the stairs which lead up to the main palace as I felt that they did not look grand enough in the pre-viz. I wanted to take the time to block out the newer version of the environment before animating to see what possibilities I could add into the final animation.    I Uv each part of the model and put it into Substance to test what the model looked like with textures applied. I tried to go for a stylized look which I think I could achieve with the brickwork if I added a bit of variation. In terms of creating the grass, I want to do this by using a MASH network in Maya, however I thought I would see what it would look like with a texture. Although not perfect, I feel if I spent the time I could make the grass texture work in Substance. 

Today I remodelled the katana the Cyberpunk character uses for the fight and textured both of the characters weapons in Substance. In order to create the Samurai's weapon I simply used the weapon created for the previz and UV and textured it. 

 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 wanted to explore different looks for my Cyberpunk character. I firstly started by putting the rest of the textures on using the material I thought would best fit the character, matching the placement of the materials as best to the reference drawing as I could. I found that the overall character works very well, however I feel some materials need tweaking to fit the theme of the character, such as the legs. I also want to add wear to the original version of the character to emphasis that it is made from metal and is used in combat. I will create an additional model which will be further worn after to show the effects the battle has had on the character.  I decided to add a more metallic material to the leg and arms as I felt the colours looked two flat on the previous version. I chose a material which has the ability to add dirt which I feel would be a good starting point to show the age of the characters armour. However it is only dirt at the beginning and the actua...