Samantha Hernandez

3D Animation and Games

[shern1995]

Life Drawing | Week 2

This week's life drawing was focused more on the attention to shapes and variation of line. Each line was to be different from the last. Some could be bold, some could be squiggled, but the idea was to consiously change each new mark we made in order to see things differently. After this exercise, we were told to focus on the shapes themselves. So the darkness of a shirt as it sat next to the lightness of an arm or a leg and so on.

[shern1995]

Project 5: Asset Sheet

These are a few of the objects that may or may not have been included in the 3X3 VR room. They are all inspired by Asian design and would have served as a practical asset in the room. The space was being designed as a bedroom/ religious space so it would have included a bed for himself and a small floor pillow for his pet/animal he rides on for transportation. The rug would have been a prayer rug and the teapot may have been used for ceremonies or just an average teapot for making tea. All of these objects were modelled in Maya and then put into Substance painter to add realistic-looking textures.

[shern1995]

Project 5: Week 2

This week our group members pitched ideas for a layout concept and some suggestions for assets that could be included in the room. I decided to include a color palette for my layout concept to help convey the idea of what this room might look like even with the limited symbols on my map. In addition to drawing up a room concept, I decided to start modeling some of the assets included in my concept as well as others from my group member’s concept art. This was done as a precautionary step on my part so that there would be completed assets prepared for assembling the room in the event that deciding on a concept took more time than expected, or the resources available to my group members were limited in light of current events. It was intended that our group would choose the best layout of the assets by the end of the week and begin modeling the assets from an agreed-upon asset list.

Group Members:  Rakosi Darius, Lexi Weston, Shaun Hudson, Jilani Jilani

[shern1995]

Life Drawing: 12/03/20

Samantha Hernandez

Initially in this lesson, we were instructed to do quick 3 minute drawings to help us establish the entire figure in space before getting sucked into details. We were to make little marks for the top of the head, the feet, and the shoulders. After we made these marks we were to continue making quick marks for parts of the body all while keeping in mind the distances between different objects. 

[shern1995]

Project 5: Week 1

Samantha Hernandez 12/03/20

Partners: Rakosi Darius, Lexi Weston, Shaun Hudson, Jilani Jilani

The character my group chose was decided to have come from an Asian background and is deeply rooted in religious practice. The religion is rooted in futuristic tech so the aesthetic would be an ancient Asian temple room with aspects of technology mixed with rudimentary objects like candles and an apothecary set. The exact color palette of the room is not yet decided and some other small design choices need to be made regarding the type of tech aesthetic we are going for, but overall it is agreed that the primary aesthetic is a Nepal inspired temple. The overall message you should receive from this character is that he is reclusive, disciplined, religious, and stingy. He does have a side companion that is comparable to a dog or a horse. 

[shern1995]

Workshop 4

Samantha Hernandez 04/03/20

The biggest challenge when completing this project was re-adjusting myself to the Zbrush interface. It was a new experience learning to model hard surface objects first in Maya and then adding further detail in Zbrush. The inspiration image I chose was a pile of slate rocks that show a lot of chipping but are flat rocks with smoother tops. I felt this would be the best introduction to using Zbrush for hard surface modeling. My partner chose a character that looked like it was coming from an environment with water or some kind of underwater society so I decided to add a decorative piece to the top of my plinth to make it seem like he was standing in the destruction of some ancient or regal civilization. In the end, we created the character in a pose that is similar to one that a power ranger or a superhero might stand in. 

[shern1995]

Life Drawing 27/02

Samantha Hernandez 27/02

This week we started life drawing with ten second drawings of the model. This was to train our eye to move around the model quickly and jot down the most information about what we are seeing in a short span of time. By training ourselves to do this, we can better get in as much information as possible when we are given a bigger time span to draw in. This way, when we have five to ten minutes to sketch the model, our eye is constantly moving and we are constantly putting down what we see rather than getting lost in the details.

[shern1995]

Life Drawing 20/02

Samantha Hernandez 20/02

This week I chose to use a toned page and a mix of white and black pastels. Using these mediums greatly changed the way I saw the models. I used the white pastel to capture more light and the black to capture shadows. This focus on strictly using white and black for light and shadow encouraged me to draw the models without harsh outlines and see them as shapes and forms in space. Adding on the advice from previous lessons, I tried to keep my eyes constantly moving around the models and the space around them to keep the image growing in a cohesive and well-rounded image.

[shern1995]

Project 4: Final

Final Version

Previous Version

26/02/20 Samantha Hernandez

The first video shown in this post is my final piece, the second listed video is the version just before my final. After going through the critique, I was advised that my character might have too many movements within a small period of time and therefore the overall action looked a little unnatural. To fix this issue, I simplified the main poses to just two instead of having her move between three extreme poses. As advised in the critique, I listened to the inflection in the spoken phrase and had her move in a visual arch with the phrase. This helped eliminate the wobble and off-balance overall appearance. Given more time to fine-tune the animation, I would have smoothed out the movement in the knees and made the overall animation look weighted and less snappy. 

[shern1995]

Project 4: Week 2

Stepped Animation

Spline Animation

After settling on my key poses in stepped animation, it was time to add some anticipation and in-between poses. When I started adding these poses, I felt that some adjustments needed to be made to the key poses in order for my character’s movements to look cohesive and natural. 

While completely the spline animation, I found that It was difficult to make the character look like her movements had a purpose. In other words, her arms or legs might continue to move on to the next position without holding her current position for long enough. Additionally, adding some smaller secondary movements like moving her feet along with the twists she makes, was another challenge I faced while animating in spline mode. 

[shern1995]

Project 4 Animation & Performance

Samantha Hernandez 14/02/2020

The audio I chose to use was clip 8. After scrubbing through the audio and finding the frames where the audio was most notable to me in terms of mouth shape, I began blocking out my key poses. In the beginning, I created poses that were very different from one another so when I played back the scene, her movements were very fast because she was going from a crouching position to a full standing position in less than a second. I then realized that she wouldn’t look very natural if she was constantly jolting up and down in this way so I played with dynamic poses in just the crouching position. This way she still moved in a more interesting way, but without making her look sporadic. 

[shern1995]

Life Drawing: Tate Modern

At the Tate Modern, I drew a few of the artworks but was more captivated by the architecture of the building. There is more than one scene depicted on each sheet because I wanted to keep my hand busy as I moved from room to room.

[shern1995]

Life Drawing: Hampstead

01/30/20

[shern1995]

Workshop 3

Samantha Hernandez 07/01/2020

Artist: Sarah Lucas

This garden is very bare much like a dessert. Around every corner is an unexpected surprise. Much like Sarah’s work, it is jarring and almost hard to look at. Her pieces are very minimal and use a lot of objects in place of body parts and genitalia. To reflect this, the space is very minimal with a stone terrain and various sand bag-like objects much like Sarah’s work. 

[shern1995]

Hard Surface & Organic Modelling Final

Samantha Hernandez 28/01/20

Concept title: Railway carriage of refugees from art nouveau mountain town

The concepts I came up with for this project were based heavily on jewelry pieces I found at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I was drawn to nature themes and any found objects that had nature themes in them. In particular, I was fascinated with the vine-like structures that were a common aesthetic amongst the objects. When it came to putting an idea together for my hard surface object, I was struggling to find the balance between what is hard surface but still takes advantage of the Art Nouveau aesthetic. At first, I settled on a very basic, and not well thought out concept. After playing with some 3d shapes in Maya, I began to realize what I could potentially create and drew up a completely different concept that was far more interesting than my initial drawing. The organic object is a lantern that would have been made up of materials like leaves, petals, or parts of a honeycomb. They would have been textured to look like they were found organic objects in nature that have been put together to create a sort of magic burning lamp. 

[shern1995]

Life Drawing: Royal Airforce Museum

The Royal Airforce Museum was an excellent source of inspiration for modeling objects. I could immediately envision parts of the aircraft or even the other objects as part of something else. What caught my attention the most was the headgear. I kept thinking of what those objects might look like in a sci-fi fantasy or, even in a space odyssey setting. With the first few sketches, I kept everything very loose and quick. I aimed to keep my eye moving around the object and constantly making adjustments to the final product. With the final sketches, I wanted to focus more attention on the way light was hitting the object. The lighting in the hanger is very bright and causes a lot of specular light to show up in shiny hard surface objects so I wanted to study that a little closer and show off those glossier parts of the helmet.

[shern1995]

Hard and Organic Surface Modelling Week 2

Samantha Hernandez

After working with My model for a while, I wasn’t happy with the way my original concept for the carriage came out So I decided to dig a little deeper with the silhouettes. Initially, I was struggling to find a way to make a hard surface object that didn’t look organic, but I realized that It was through decoration that I could achieve the aesthetic I was looking for. Working with UVs were a bit tricky in a few areas; the main carriage was most difficult in the front part where it curves up, there was a lot of warping in the texture tests and it was taking a lot of patience to figure out how to best cut the UVs. The second area that proved to be challenging was the wheels because there are so many small details and curves that are made up of a lot of faces so this was initially very overwhelming and challenging.