Research into Asian Castles, Lead to the idea of an Underwater Castle of Atlantis

I felt that I should not succumb to my first Idea of a stylised gothic Castle straight away, I felt that i should explore different Castle types so I can produce a range of Ideas and pick the best instead of the first one that comes along. 

Again with the overwhelming scale of the castles which provides a dramatic setting. The colour scheme in both of these is beautiful. The oriental architecture of these castles is much more square and cubist in style than those of the European castles I previously looked at, I really like the style. 

 I researched further into Chinese Architecture which led me onto underwater castles as I stumbled across images of the ancient city of Shi Cheng also known as the Lion City located in the province of Zhejiang. This got me thinking a lot about the lost city of Atlantis and underwater castles and thus onto The Little Mermaid.

Above is concept art for Arial's underwater castle. I enjoy the fantasy of an underwater world and how the  sea life is incorporated into the architecture. I went on to explore the concept of an underwater castle more.

Having a castle based around the myth of Atlantis would allow me to experiment widely with the architecture I use. There is no confines to what I could do as there it is not real. I could take inspiration from a jumble of cultures and combine it, or perhaps give it a futuristic style as Atlantis was supposed to be technologically advanced way before its time.

The Impact of Proportion & Scale/ Colossal Statues

All three of these Castles are colossal, I feel that for a level having the architecture way out of proportion to the character would make for such a more dramatic atmosphere as it does in these images. The idea of having gigantic statues supporting the architecture (see right hand image) really excites me and i'm thinking of incorporating it into my castle. Either that or like the image to the left where the statues appear to be acting as guardians of the castle entrance. Gothic architecture often incorporates statues as well as gargoyles. I would quite like to experiment with stylising statues and gargoyles, perhaps in a Tim Burton kind of style.

Castle Research

After researching Castles extensively I decided that I really liked the look and feel of the more european style. My Initial idea was to go for a Frankenstein/ Draculas Castle kind of approach. I really like the architecture of the Harry Potters Hogwarts (the brown brick castle above), The multiple spires which vary in height and width have a strong visual impact on me. While researching many of the castles, just seemed to 'Happy looking' for what I had in mind. No photo seemed to capture the spooky gothic imposing structure I imagine in my head, so I went on to research artists to see how they're interpretations compared.

I really Love the top image, the way that the castle is built into the rock and has a bridge connecting to a lone Tower. Im pretty convinced in having my Castle carved out of the terrain/ surrounding rock/ ground. I feel that Castles are designed partly to be imposing, to deter enemies from attacking. I imagine the front face is vital for achieving this, so mine is most likely going to be very large, intimidating and interesting in shape.

I would really love my Castle to look like that of the left one, which is extremely Gothic in style, unfortunately I think that would be extremely hard to do, especially as Im just starting out in maya, so don't want to overreach. Perhaps it would be more wise to start with something less ornate for my first project.

The top left image is heavily stylised, I really enjoy the wackiness and higgildypiggildyness of it all. The background of it makes me think of a nightmare realm. I think that perhaps by making my Castle stylised ill be able to achieve a more interesting and unique piece. The bottom picture is concept art from the game Castlevania, I intend to look at more game concept art of castles. 

Above are all concept images for games. At the top is Devil May Cry gameplay which shows a very gothic styled castle, as I have already said I really like Gothic architecture but feel it may be interesting to stylise it into a less realistic way, such as the bottom image does which is a Rayman: Legends concept piece. I really enjoy the colour scheme of the left image which from Epic Mickey, to me the greens and purples give a sense of a magic yet there are enough shadows to still give an aura of spookiness. Its hard to see all the of the castle in the last image to the right which is from Alice: Madness Returns, but from what I can see I enjoy the tall narrow towers and the use of the heart symbol.

Looking for a more stylised cartoonie castle look I came across concept work for the animated film Hotel Transylvania. This work really portrays what I was imagining in my mind, a stylised gothic architectural castle, mounted on a mountain terrain. Its the kind of style I would like to aim for.

BA3 Project Brief

Experimenting With Various Render and Lighting Effects

Texturing & UV Mapping Captain America's Shield

I didn't want to go for anything to hard so decided to do Captain Americas Shield, which is a fairly basic shape but could have a detailed texture. Here is my first layout of its UV map.

I later learnt that there was an easier and more efficient way of UV mapping the Circular shape of the shield and that was to go to create UV's and use Planar mapping with the Y Axis selected. This allowed me to apply a more detailed texture in a way easier way. The previous UV (above) made it nearly impossible to get the style of star that I wanted, Using Planar mapping made everything much simpler, thus making it look better.

Learning to Texture (A Barrel)

I learnt how to Texture a 3D object in Maya, we started of simple and modelled a Barrel and then sorted out the UV map. I then used a UV Checker to make sure the texture was balanced and didn't have any major distortions in. I then took the map over into Photoshop using a snapshot and filled the shapes in with the wooden board texture I got of the Internet, as well as adding a grey strip with gradient to show a metal strip. The Texturing itself is pretty simple, but now I have the hang of it hopefully Ill be able to move on to bigger and better things.

R2D2

 For my second attempt at creating a 3d game asset I decided to try and make R2D2. To start with I went around making it the wrong way. But learnt a lot from the experience. I came back to it later to try and sort out the UVs so that maybe I could texture it later. I tried to start by making a 2D plain to work from but I should have figured out how I was going to make it visually in my head, in 3D. Ill come back to it later.

Juke Box

Maya Begins!

Jukebox 

This next project will be done on Autodesk's Maya. Here is my first attempt of creating a 3d in game asset. We could choose any object smaller than 1.5m by 1.5m, I choose to create a Jukebox. To the left is a small mood board to help me understand how the style and shapes vary, and which kind of jukebox I wanted to create. I went for the middle bottom one as you can see below. The image below has been edited on photoshop to ensure its symmetry, and placed on a square paper so it can be moved into maya for reference without distorting.

This is my first 3d model, I think I did well. There was some bits where I was unable to delete parts which annoyed me. I think I captured the shape and look of the Jukebox. I should reduce the number of edge loops I inserted along the side as they are not necessary. I had not yet learnt about UV mapping, below is the UV map its quite a mess.