Maya: Turret

28/11/2014

Turret


Over the past month I have been following teachings in class and tutorials online on how to create, texture and animate a model, which in this case was a turret.

The first task was to use the reference image and model the turret. I did this by first creating the basic shape of the turret using cubes and cylinders for the barrels. I then grouped those shapes as low_poly. This will come into play for when I texture and create normal maps for the turret later. I then created and added additional detailed and created a new group called high_poly.

The following week I learnt how to efficiently uv unwrap the turret using a blend of planar unwrapping and automatic unwrapping. These techniques made unwrapping the turret quick and simple.  I added a chequered texture which helped to show distortion of the unwrap if the squares were distorted. My unwrapping was ok for a first attempt, I need to spend more time editing to bring it up to a professional standard.

The next step and maybe the most crucial was baking the model. What this means if done right was to transfer the high poly detail onto the low poly model without the poly count being effected. Using the software xNormals I found this process less daunting and surprisingly easy to follow and complete. 

The image on the left (purple) is the normal map. What this does is use the lighting to trick the camera into rendering additional detail which isn't modelled on the object. The image on the right is the occlusion texture and here is where you can add additional detail and texturing to the model without the normals being effected.

The final steps is to animate the turret. This was a simple process where by selecting each individual object you can edit the transform, scale or rotate and just by pressing the "s" key keyframe it, which will then be marked with a red line in the timeline below.  Once I was satisfied with the animation I made sure all the settings were set to realtime and hd video quality to make sure the animation ran smoothly when exported as a video. One I was was happy I used Playblast to create a quicktime video.

I found this project interesting and enjoyable, but I feel my weakest areas are uv unwrapping and texturing. I will work on this areas to improve my models in the future so they have less distortion and more realistic textures.