Gunning for it

The model for my gun is already pretty much finished. The next stop was to create and apply textures to my model.

I used maya to create an ambient occlusion for my model. Normally I would have done all the pieces at once but as I am animating the gun I did the moving parts separately so they would not look unnatural with fixed shadows on them. This ao I could then use with my diffuse texture.

For my last project I created all textures by hand, for this I wanted to try using photography in conjunction with my layers to create a nice effect. I created a heavily scratched section of metal for the mechanical parts of the gun and wood for the handle. As the weapon is spose to be something my character may have salvaged from the apocalyptic wasteland, it suited it to be deteriorated to a certain extent.

This shows the gun with just the diffuse texture applied. My next step was to create normal and specular maps for the weapon. Crazy bump is a program I have never used before, however on trying it it works especially well. I used the information from my diffuse map to create the information for the other maps and them simply plugged them straight into maya. As you can see the finished effect is pretty pleasing.

Now I had the model looking how I wanted it was time to animate it. I used skeleton joints to help me with this. One for each of the moving parts, hammer, cylinder, trigger, and a parent one for the whole model. 

Something I found out was that if I altered the geometry I had to reset the joint it was applied to, otherwise it wont play cricket. Once all my joints were set up I began the actual animation process. This was pretty easy and suprisingly fun. It included the revolving cylinder, squeezing the trigger, pulling back the hammer and the movement of the gun due to recoil. I made a turntable with this animation playing and rendered a couple of images ready for my hand in folder. This pretty much concludes my gun model. Gee whiz.

A Base To Call My Own

     I will be looking to have two examples of my model for hand in. The lower poly version that will be appearing in game, and the more aesthetic posed sculpt in Zbrush. For the latter I wanted to create a plinth in order to stand my character on.
     Interestingly Fallout contains little bobblehead statues in the game. Whilst I dont intend on making something identical it is fitting that my sculpt should be set up in a similar fashion. 

      Using the spotlight feature I was able to easily carve a biohazard symbol into the top of the base.

 Using rotational symmetry I was able to plane off some of the edges around the base and add a lip around the top.

  I used the slash brush to add damage to the base. This is in keeping with the kind of environment you tend to come across in the Fallout games. Again I used the spotlight tool this time to add a rocky surface texture to the base.

I positioned my model upon the base and then began posing it. I was then able to use the turntable feature in Zbrush and export directly as a .mov ready for my hand in folder. Using the guide in the book I had for this project, I attempted to add effects such as an outer glow, ambient occlusion and shadows to the model, however it does not seem to be working the way the guide stated. This is something I would like to get my head around for future work in Zbrush but with my deadline approaching I feel that I will have to settle for now with it as it stands.

Contextual

     I was pretty late into the project before I could decide on an essay question this time round. My problem is that I usually enjoy the writing more if it is about something I am interested in, however even with such a diverse them, how games change the world, I cannot think of something of interest. I have decided to lean towards something about the way the military uses gaming. This was initially put in my head by a comment someone on our course made about Kinect for the Xbox being developed in the military initially.
      I started with just a few general searches relating to games in the military. One of the most prominent things to come up was "America's Army" a war game/simulation that was being used as a recruitment tool.

     This got me thinking about how else the military could be sing these simulations for training, recruitment and propaganda. This is likely a point that I will try to base the structure of my essay around.
     Another thing that stood out to me was the psychology aspect, one particular site http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1152421-0This 

mentioned how gaming may be able to treat problems such as post traumatic stress disorder. I immediately contacted a friend who knows a psychiatrist in the hope of getting a first hand opinion on this matter.

Getting a-head

    I had a little trouble projecting the features of my original headsculpt onto the new topology I had created but this was just down to inexperience with Zbrush. After meeting with our tutor Mark I was able sort this quickly.

This picture shows my sculpting projected onto the new correct topology. My next step was to add in some of the skin detail. This I achieved by very lightly sculpting into the surface of the model. It is important to note how the shape and density of pores change over the face, the temple area is much loger and stretched then the nose for example. I also added slight wrinkles to the looser areas of skin such as the bags around the eyes.

I was then able to begin polypainting the face. I selected a colour that was a Caucasian skin tone. Using the standard brush with the painting (RGB) on and the sculpting off, I then selected the "colour stroke" and upped the colour variance. This will stop the painting looking too flat and unnatural. Once I had a bese coat of this colour I then added some additional colour to different areas of the the face. The area around the eyes for example has some yellow and purple tones running through is, meanwhile I added some redder tones to the lips, cheeks jawline and neck.

Once I had my head painted I was ready to add the head model to the clothes I had created earlier.

I now needed hands and some kind of undershirt to complete the model. As I liked the effect created on the jeans, I decided to also use spotlight in order to texture both these objects.

The gloves are SAP gloves. Basically ball bearings stitched into the leather in order to create a more devastating should you punch an opponent. I thought this would make for a cheap and obtainable form of protection for my character.

Now I have all the separate parts of my model set up I use the multimap exporter feature on Zbrush to create diffuse and normal maps for my character- as well as exporting all the parts as obj.s into maya. Here I hit another snag where the diffuse map for my head was not being created. After taking my model into uni to show the tutors we deduced that this was likely due to the fact that it was not taking information from all the layers I had set up. Now this is fixed I will need to set up the model with all the maps into maya.

Contextual

     Since my last post I now have a much clearer idea of what I am doing for my essay. We have a scheduled meeting with our CS tutor Sharon tomorrow therefore I completed a draft version of my essay today ready to take in. I decided on the question "To what extent can gaming culture impact the military?" By saying gaming culture instead of just gaming it allows me to look at things such as transmedia and participatory culture , see Henry Jenkins TED talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCLKa0XRlw, and how this can also impact the military. One particular example that stood out to me was the British army's "Start thinking soldier" campaign that combined a variety of advertising to lead audiences to an interactive quiz/simulation of battlefield events.


To summarise the points I look at within the essay:
     Training- to what extent can gaming be used to train soldiers. How can this save lives, equipment, environment and therefore improve public image
     Recruitment- How can gaming culture be used to draw peoples' interest to a career in the military, can this this cast a wider net to maximise recruiment and locate a new audience.
     Propanganda- The positive and negative effects when the military is seen to use gaming as an enticement for enrolling in the military, how the public percieves this.
      Public perception- should games be used to train to kill?
     Medical- How can gaming be used to treat those affected in the line of duty or even prepare them for future warfare.

     These are some of the sites I have found essential to the structure of my essay.

http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1152421-0This 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/18/video-games-propaganda-tools-military

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvMZHrjfC_c

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2009/11/19/video-games-effective-form-of-recruitment-for-army.aspx

http://www.military.com/video/forces/military-training/military-training-via-video-games/2243219051001/

http://kotaku.com/5898342/us-government-turns-to-gamers-for-new-military-and-scientific-solutions

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/us-army-spends-32-8-million-on-propaganda-videogame-657121

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/711092/homefront-and-propaganda-in-video-games-what-are-they-trying-to-tell-you/

    I was able to obtain first hand quotes as mentioned in my last contextual post, and these will be included within my essay however I will not be posting them on my blog.