Worklog #2 - 29/10/13

Worklog time! It's long overdue. So, in terms of development of designs, 3 ideas were settled on, and orthographics were made for each design (handcuffs, cane and rifle). The rifle went from a melee/sniper weapon hybrid to a steampunkified rifle for only the most gentlemanly of marksmen.

3D MODEL PROGRESSION PICTURES INCOMING

I can't find any version of the file that's older than this. Blocking out the proportions and shapes.

Making adjustments to length of the barrel, 'cause the rifle seemed a bit stumpy.

Creating the gears was troublesome at first, but once I figured out a simpler method to achieve the geometry, it became much easier.

Beginning to dislike the shape of a few pieces of the rifle. The back piece, attached to the spring, and the trigger. The trigger was just a hole, and it just seemed out of place. The shoulder-guard's shape was too round and didn't fit in to the aesthetic of the rest of the model.

Added finishing touches to the ammo clip and shoulder guard.

A closer look at some of the finer details inside the rifle, behind the grate.

And a peek at the wireframe.

As you can see, I decided to model the rifle. I'm on to unwrapping now (have been for several weeks), however I'm having trouble with getting my head round it. I feel a little unstable and lost while doing it, despite it being demonstrated to me twice now. I fear I won't have a fully textured model at the end, due to the fact that I couldn't have possibly taken in to account the fact that I had to unwrap and texture my model, as it wasn't explained to me until after I'd finalized my model. Had I known this prior, I'd have kept some simpler shapes/added less detail, because right now I feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew.

Now, in terms of Photoshop, I am worried once again, as I don't have access to a tablet at home. So, finishing my piece off with the mouse will be both frustrating and unsatisfactory. With only having learnt some Photoshop basics in the penultimate week of college (which I had to ask for), I only had 3-4 days at college to make use of the tablets. The same goes for watercolours, for most people.

All in all, I'm unhappy with how this module has been laid out. Organisation was low, we were being given tasks that we didn't know about half way through the 6 weeks. We spent many sessions being left to our own devices, when many wanted to learn software techniques that'd be helpful to us. A full "to do list" was only presented to us on the 5th week of the module. This would've been nice to have on day 1. It felt like there was a lack of communication between each of the tutors. And whenever I asked for critique on something, I often just received a shrug. I feel like criticising the technicalities of a drawing, or the quality of a model's mesh is important to progress. Being told that "it looks alright" is far too vague.

I realise that this is less of a worklog now, more of a complaintlog or something. And I'm aware that this probably isn't the best place to be expressing how I feel about the course, and instead I should be speaking to tutors directly. But I guess I'm a coward.

Anyway, I look forward to the start of the next module, and to hopefully see that it's handled better.

Oh, lastly, I definitely didn't take enough notes on this module. I need to grab me a physical notepad and whip it out ALL the time. I've been using my iPod's notepad, but it's too limited.