07/11/23
The next step was to make the stone table and board. In Chinese gardens or parks, you can find these stone table sets that are usually made for people to play Chinese checkers or go. These are both strategic two player games similar to chess, which has been around for a long time. The table is usually round, and the seats are kind of like a stool block with no backrest. More recently made tables sometimes have the Chinese checkers board carved into the stone, so you only need to bring the pieces. However, for the scene, I wanted to make a go board as I have a connection to the game from when I was younger.
The table and seats were easy to make, normally there would be 4 to 5 seats at a table, but I only wanted 2 as this was a garden for the two if my characters didn’t need any more than that.
The go game I referenced was the game between AlphaGo, an AI software and Fan Hui, the European champion, in October 2015, where for the first time an AI had beaten a human professional player on a full scale board with no handicap. I chose this game as it was a significant moment in the history of the Go community that shocked a lot of people, even Lee Sedol, one of the strongest players in the history of Go.
To add the pieces to the board, I found a picture of a board I wanted to use as the texture and put it into Maya as the material colour. Once the texture was right, I started duplicating the pieces into the results of the game. Once everything was placed correctly, I separated the two colours into different materials so I could texture the colours easier.
The teapot and teacup were very straightforward, with simple extruding and scaling to get the shape I wanted. For the teapot, I started off by making the round pot shape first. Once that was done, I selected a few faces on the side of the port and circularised them. Using the same method as before, I extruded the handle out to the desired length and bevelled the edge of the handle. The same method was applied for the spout and for the go bowls.