This week, I was supposed to finalize the Temple Interior environment.  I made a lot of headway on it, but because of other SPROJ work it didn’t quite get completed.  A lot of my time ended up devoted to working with Val and Anthony on our characters, solving weird rigging issues with our hair and polishing their shaders.  I also spent a lot of time converting illustrations from our unofficial team-member Isaias into masks and maps I can use in VRay!

Shading and Texturing (Temple Edition: Part Deux!)

• Summary: I continued applying and polishing the shaders for our Temple environment, though as I said I didn’t get much done on this front.  My biggest achievement here was finalizing the snow shader on the floor, and unwrapping the remainder of the Temple’s architecture.
• Positives: I got a lot done, and the bulk of the shaders are more or less finalized now.  I just need to apply Isaias’ hieroglyphics and texture the trenches outside and this scene will be ready to render!
• Negatives: I wasn’t able to spend as much time on this as I would have liked, but the issues we solved on our characters had to be addressed sooner rather than later.
• Hours: 8

Shading and Texturing (People Edition: Parte Dos!)

• Summary: Val painted texture maps and roughed in the shaders for Danforth this week, and I polished them and made sure that they were optimized.  Danforth should be render-ready now, and Dyer will be by the end of Monday!  Speaking of Dyer, we ran into issues with his hair this week that set us back a bit.  Despite being set to static (ie, non-simulated), it would move and sway and generally slow things down.  It took three of us the better part of a night to sort it out, but he should be stable now!
• Positives: Danforth’s ready for his grand debut, and Dyer’s hair no longer has a mind of its own.
• Negatives: Dyer’s shaders still need work, but he can be done by the end of Monday.
• Hours: 15

Alien Hieroglyphics (and YOU!)

• Summary: Our unofficial team-member, illustrator Isaias Santillan, has been working hard to draft us artwork and carvings and things to liven up our dead, deserted city.  I spent a lot of time this week tracing his drawings in Photoshop and converting them to maps and masks we can use in VRay.  There’s a lot of detail in his drawing that I wanted to preserve, which is why I chose to trace it by hand.
• Positives: Isaias is awesome, his drawings are awesome, and we can finally incorporate them into our environment!
• Negatives: They took much longer than I expected to trace, which is the main reason I didn’t get to finish the Temple’s shaders this week.
• Hours: 17

UPCOMING TASKS

1. Finish Temple environment
2. Polish Dyer’s shaders
3. Render render render!