24/10/13
For the tree, I followed this video on YouTube, refamiliarising myself with the EP curve tool. It took a while to get used to, and while creating the points of the curve, I often wouldn’t be able to see the actual point I put down unless I went into another perspective camera, This was really annoying as I was constantly switching between front and side view to try and figure out how the curve actually looked.
I was a bit concerned about how thin the base looked, As I was going for something more similar to the reference picture, I reckoned I could just add more to the thickness when I sculpted it afterwards, so I left it.
For some reason, the curve and the mesh wouldn’t stay together, which caused a lot of issues, like a messed up mesh when extruding, and even when I tried to adjust it, any small move would change the entire mesh drastically. I ended up having to remake the curves and branches several times before I actually had a decent looking tree. I stopped after two more branches, as I felt that it wasn’t really worth spending even more time adding one or two more small branches that most likely wouldn’t even be seen when I could very quickly sculpt some afterwards. I didn’t need the branches to be perfect, as most of them would be covered by the flowers anyway so I left it at that
The branches were a bit more windy than I planned, but I felt that it was only because the whole tree itself was a bit too thin, which can be easily fixed once sculpted.
I followed this YouTube video to make some cliff rocks for my waterfall and some rocks to lay along the edge of the islands. I didn’t really want too much poly, as I just needed the basic shape done first, so I thought this video would be good. The process was very simple and quite easy to follow. It was interesting to make them this way, as I had never thought to use these tools, like the create polygon and transform tool.
I started off making the sample, just completely following the video, Although it wasn’t really the shape I was going for, I wanted to try it out first and then see if I could tweak it my way after.
This first trial went ok, it wasn’t exactly how I wanted it, but for a starting shape, I thought it looked decent enough for me to experiment on my own.
I made a few more afterwards with different shapes and sizes so I could get in some variation. I tried to make it smoother than the first trial, which worked but it really didn’t look like cliff rocks for a water fall. I played around with them for a while, changing the shape and stacking them to see if I could get any closer to what I actually needed but nothing seemed right.
I didn’t want to get rid of the rocks, even though I had no clue what I was going to do with them, as I didn’t really have any other ideas on how to make the rocks in maya. I wanted to avoid using Zbrush as much as possible, as I still find myself not really knowing how to use it so I kept the rocks just in case I actually did want to use them later
Staying away from the cliff rocks, I started making the smaller ones to place around my islands. Using the same method, I made the base shape, but instead I kept it short and more round by scaling the top and bottom vertices down. There were quite a few vertices that went rogue, so I spent a while fixing them back into place for a smooth and round rock. Compared to the cliffs, I really like how this one turned out, both the shape and smoothness were perfect for what I needed.