Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 2

I made a start on creating some of assets for the environments of my film. I decided to make a start on the palm trees, as these would be tiled within my scene.

I made a start on the modelling process, and my original intention was to replicate a realistic palm tree. However, due to the high poly count of the main character, I decided to give it a cartoony style to reduce it. I then rigged the palm tree so that it would bend and avoid the trees from looking too formulaic.

I then applied cylindrical mapping to the trunk, and left the mapping on the leaves the same. I then exported it into Mudbox to start texturing. I found it useful to do it this way, as It allowed me to mark out specific places that needed texturing. Once I'd done this, I then exported the texture maps as psd files to be edited in Photoshop. I made slight edits on them to ensure that they looked right when uploaded to Maya.

Another thing I wanted to try out was bump mapping on my models. I've never tried it before, so I wanted to experiment with it for this project. Having found a tutorial online, I decided to use a software called CrazyBump. This program allowed you to import files and convert them to normal, displacements maps etc. it was a lot quicker than doing it manually, so I plan to use this software for future projects. I then uploaded all the files to the original mesh in Maya, and I found that I got a far better image in the end.