Creating the diorama

Now that the presentation was finished I wanted to make a start on the diorama and try to get it done as quick as possible, so I could focus on the character. I started off with the base, I created this by first making a square and adding quite a few subdivisions into it. I then create a high poly cylinder, I then selected both and went to Mesh>Booleans>Intersection and it gave me the shape I wanted. I then selected the edge and extruded it down, so it looked like it was a chunk of land. Afterwards I went and just moved faces and verts up and down, untill I had my desired shape.

I then created a square plane and shaped it to fit the diorama, I would use this for the water when going into UE4

Next I wanted to make the board walk that the soldiers would walk across to avoid the mud, when I first did this for the blockout I just make them blocks like they were wood, but after some research I found that they would actually be shaped like this

While writing the blog I couldn't actually remember the name given for these boards which is annoying. But I have got this image to show as reference. 

https://tce-live.s3.amazonaws.com/media/media/88169b05-0b76-4c13-b5ca-d0b2c3dac9e5.jpg

Here it is placed into the scene.

Next I worked on the trees , I wanted to make a variety as I knew if I were to only make about 3, being it is such a small scene it would be more noticeable to which have been duplicated.

Here are two images I used as reference. From them you can see that they werent really that tall, especially in the image on the left. I also noticed that they were very bare and dead with many branches missing, I tried to show this when creating mine. And looking at it, when I go to texture them they will be very dark and dull as if they have been on fire. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtfEhxm9T3rm3FgrpyMk0cv1e7DokXsX_TEiInbPQNA7oce-XJmuXjwcHZeaRbf3xxZu1l4UI6dO6qsUNbu4Chj2_Rwd39vdmoUkV8VQAwcW0xunUD_fQX_VaX4zt-c0dQd6pPPp4EVEM/s400/west-02.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKKa50Bp-AkqJX2blKTN7YS67iv9nwmIPAyBQwb_5mj_VmVm_8xzw5Jbj5LKhnJKAcUddtSS0N_E9XhrcNzh7m2Rj7fuEyVJdcJVKFCNz4uH0G6Qs_ye9TuTOpygemh6TIje351pgADsQ5/s1600/Americans.jpg

Here I have placed them into my scene, I tried to scatter them around well, so it wasnt too full but were still quite a few.

Next I worked on some barbed wire, I was unsure on how to do this as I thought this may be an expensive way on creating it as there would be quite a few polys just in one object, and then for me to duplicate it around the scene, I imagined this may be quite hard for UE4 to handle. I thought about doing it using an alpha, but Im not a massive fan on using them when you can look at the object from a number of angles as it can disappear. So for now I have created it fairly slow poly. I may change these later on and create a variety of them to break it up. I created these by first using the EP Nurb curve tool to create an uneven line which I then extruded a square face along, and then added in the number of divisions I wanted for it. I did this for each of the lines that went across.

Here is the reference I used when creating the barbed wire.

http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/jpg/barbedWire_WWI.jpg

And here I have placed it around the diorama. I feel this is already starting to look quite good and is bringing the scene together.

I have placed it so the planks would lead off the diorama and the barbed wire would stop when it reaches it, I think this looks quite good and makes the scene look like it could be part of a bigger picture.

I then wanted to create another type of barbed wire to scatter around the scene to fill it up a bit more. I created these, and I used the same method to make the wire as I did the other time, however this time I had it curling around the middle piece of wood. I think I will keep it to just one of these as the shape it too complicated to look like its been duplicated, and when I go to create the cinematic the viewer wont really be looking out to see if its just one mesh. As the idea of it is to be background noise which should have an impact on the scene as a whole.

Here is the reference I used when creating this barbed wire.

http://ww1revisiteddotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/20140303-231455.jpg?w=1024&h=678&crop=1

And here it is placed around the scene. There is still an open space in the middle of the diorama which needs to be filled up, but I shall worry about that later ha!

Presentation

Now that the Blockout was done, this week we had to present our ideas to the class. For this I created a gantt chart to show when I will create my final models and to make make sure that I kept to all deadlines.

This images are sadly quite small, so you will need to click on them to be able to see what im showing more clearly

Here is an image of how Ive broken it down more clearly. Ive done it so I finish the diorama first, so I cant get this out of the way and I can spend the rest of the time focusing on the character.

I then went to talk about my own personal milestones, this includes finishing the diorama, then finish modelling the character, texturing everything and then finally rendering it all out in UE4. I feel this are quite suitable milestones to have set.

I then went to talk about possible issues I may encounter, such as modelling the character. As Ive spoken about this before, this will be my first time modelling a character, so I will be watching many tutorials, which may make me lose quite a bit of time. I also mentioned working with Zbrush and UE4, as these are both new pieces of software I am not completely comfortable with, I will also be spending quite a but of time watching tutorials for them as well as getting used to the lay out.

I also talked about minor parts of my piece that I may change, such as small parts of the textures on Uncle Sam. As well as how I am going to finish the diorama.

 Here is the final blockout cinematic, I am quite happy with how it turned out at this stage and I feel it already has quite a bit of atmosphere to it. When I go to do this for real I plan on changing some of the cameras and possible adding another. With the one that pans around I plan on bringing it closer to the model to show him off better, but for now I just wanted to show how the environment looks as well.

The majority of the feedback I got was just asking how I am going to integrate Uncle Sam into the scene more, and as I have spoken about this before, anything I think would work would add too much work and would make keeping the the plan hard, I will however think about this more as I continue and will come to a final idea within the next week or so.

Creating base mesh for character

Now was time to make the almighty blockout for my Uncle Sam.
I started off by first making a simple top hat in Maya and importing it into Zbrush.

In Zbrush I went into the mannequin section and chose the standard male. I then went and posed him into the position I wanted, once done I skinned him which gave him a fully body skin which I could then work on. Since I was still fairly new to Zbrush I found it hard sculpting in the detail so the character was very skinny but lumpy in some places, I felt he resembled a clay man you'd see been made in a school by a child, so I had that going for me. I sculpted in the blazer and used the mask tool to try and pull out the blazer from the rest of the body, I found this quite hard as it seemed to always blend back into one. 

I then tried the same method with the trousers only really using the claybuild up brush and going in between subdivision levels to get the detail.

Here is a fully body shot of the body posed from the front and behind. Just from this even though it is very rough you can already begin to get a sense of what's going to happen.

 And here is a close up shot of the blazer, it is very rough but you do get a basic idea.

I then went to do the head, I used the one from the previous semester so I can quickly sculpt in the bead and hair. I did this the same way I did the body, not going into any real detail but just filling in the large portions to get the overall silhouette done. 

This is what he looked like in the end, no real work done on the actual face, but I sculpted in the beard and the hair, I left the top as this is covered by the top hat. Once it was done I placed it onto the shoulder and made it look like it was one mesh

I then went to work on the hands, I went into the mannequin section and found a hand which I could move about, so I shaped it into the finger point and then placed it on the hand of my body. I didn't bother skinning it or adding detail as there would be no point because I getting the pose done was more than enough just at blockout stage. I also didn't bother doing the other hand as this would barely be seen and would be more of a waste of time that it would be worth.

Here is the full body with top hat, head and hand. This is more than enough for blockout stage and you get the idea that it is Uncle Sam. 

Now to place it into UE4 with the scene and create the cinematic. 

Looking at it again after the presentation and doing this blog, it kind of scares me and I find it kind of creepy. Lets hope it isn't like this for the final outcome HA!

Creating the Blockout

For the diorama I have made just a square base for it, just for now. I created some very quick trees and planks which I placed around the scene to look like no mans land. I also created some very quick barbed wire and placed it around the edge of the diorama to close it off and to make it seem almost trapped.

The base has had a variety of faces moved up and down with another plane placed over it to represent water. At this moment in time I feel the scene already has a certain feel about it and you can get a sense of the emotion from it. I look forward to creating this for real and seeing how it turns out.