Sci-Fi Room (Maya) Final

Term 2 at CG Spectrum has started! And oh my God it is such a step up from the first term, with a ton of work straight off the bat! This term focuses on "Environment and Character", the environment being a small sci-fi room and the character is a mechanic - standing in the middle of said room.

Here's the fun and interesting part of this all: this time we get to decide some stuff on our own, like a 3D artist would as opposed to a 3D modeler! So before I was allowed to do any kind of modelling, having seen the 2D artwork of this new project, first there was a focus on gathering references for setting the overall mood of this sci-fi room that we're about to create.

Week 1: Now onto the actual modelling and... well, considering how detailed this room is going to be, I thought that we would first focus on the wall with the door; thinking about how the locking mechanism works, how the door opens up, what we could contribute to the scene when it comes to not only adding details, but also thinking about realism. Like there's definitely enough here to cover a weeks worth of work!

But nope. Once I was done with the wall that holds the door, the next video told me to start on the second wall - and then the floor too! Needless to say I've been working my ass off this week lol. But at least everything turned out good! ...I hope, I'll see what my mentor has to say about it two days from now, as she looks at my work XD

Note: this is also why there aren't any pics from when I was modelling the second wall, because I was so stressed out about the whole thing that I forgot about doing print screens ^^'

Week 2: Not much to see or tell, it's time to go high poly with what I made last week! At least one of the walls should've been done by the end of the week, so I went ahead and finalized a wall and most of the floor ^^

This week also gave me some insight into using Maya's tool for Creasing. Almost felt like cheating lol, with how easy it was to make sharp edges without adding supporting corners or edge loops! Had a little chat with my mentor about it and I felt both calmer and much wiser afterwards, as she educated me on when not to rely on creases but use edge loops instead. She herself used it a lot and found it very convenient - once she got into it! But at the beginning of her career she never touched it, until she herself was taught how the tool could be of use and actually help in her 3D modeling, depending on the situation and project.

Week 3: High-poly stuff! Also reworked and tweaked just a few things, while also adding the monitor in the corner - something that the tutor still haven't done lol >_> At this point I seriously believe that he's just gonna pretend that it doesn't exist. I'd rather follow the concept art/reference material meticulously, so that's what I'mma do!

Update: to my surprise and joy my mentor asked for permission to use my high poly model as an example for all of her other students, on how to make a proper high poly model!! She called it flawless and said that it was easy to tell just how much work I put into making the high poly model look good <3

Week 4: Not much to add here except for UVs! And although I still find it somewhat tricky to figure this step out, it went surprisingly smooth this time. But maybe it only feels that way because I did everything completely wrong, we'll see what my mentor has to say about it when I have a chat with her X)

Oh, and I also finished modeling the monitor so that it now has a connecting cable and an extension arm!

Week 5-6: One week of redoing my UVs due to some weird artefacts and stuff (unnngh), and then two weeks of winter/Christmas Holidays - woop woop! Just wanted to report in for anyone following along here who might be wondering how the project is coming along ^^
Putting some overtime into texturing even though I'm technically not in school right now, but Í still feel like a total noob when it comes to working in Substance Painter, mainly because of how much more time I spend on building/modeling stuff in Maya compared to adding textures in SP!

Edit: I turned in my finished prototype of the room right at the end of the Holidays, since we are now supposed to move on to creating the character for the room! Gonna need to polish the lights in the Arnold render though, as the colors are somewhat bleak - especially when compared to what it looks like in Substance Painter.

And I shall hence create a separate Project for the character, to upload all my progress on it there! ^^