What I've learned so far...

Maya is an- interesting tool. I've struggled with it, I've cursed its very existence on multiple occasions. I've had to dive into forums and question threads. I've had to really spend time getting to grips with it- even now knowing so much I feel like I'm using maybe 30-50% of the whole tool set. That either speaks to a large tool set- or alternatively a lack of knowledge on my part.
It's tough to know where I'm at but am I enjoying it?

Well, that's a tricky one to awnser too! I'm en joying Maya when it works is the honest awnser. I remember right at the start of the semester I had to re-install windows just to get it to boot! Very frustrating- then I got into the tool set. It was a case of the first models I made where based on extruding everything I came into contact with- resulting in some very blocky models. That's fine, a part of the learning process I'd say. So far so good, but looking at the alternatives Blender is getting bigger and bigger but Maya is still the industry standard and a lot of the Maya skills are transferable- which is fantastic.

It's been a struggle- but I think it's been worthwhile.

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Rendering- Let's glam up!

The part I was most excited about this whole process was the rendering. Luckily I rendered out quite a few shots as I tried to pin down the look of the final scene so we'll go through them and I'll try to discuss each but the process and the progress of the image should tell you how keen I was to get the image looking right. I'll do a post-mortem on the project as a whole and my general thoughts soon but for now let's focus on getting the image right. This was one of my first attempts. The lighting was drab and I hadn't thought about texturing anything at this stage. I took this image relatively early on in the process. To me it doesn't really 'pop' out. The lighting is a touch too dark and the framing of the scene is out of place. The focus should be on the train- but it isn't. The focus is on the room as a whole. Now we move onto my second render, you'll see a very basic laptop has appeared in the scene and a poster of the Toy Story ...

The Night before!

I know it's been a long time coming but I wanted to be done with my project before I addressed it here. So this is the first of a couple of posts- this one will go over the project itself and the next post will cover rendering and the stages I ran through to get everything working so let's dive into it! Found on 3D warehouse So I decided to go down the toy train route, simple but effective if done well. I started to research the references. I wanted something simple but could really shine as a 'hero' asset- that is the focal point of a scene. The wooden train you see to the left is more detailed than my own- I wanted a clean look, polished and simple so it didn't fit. Found @ https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-wooden-toy-train-1215533 This toy train was another consideration, it was simple and something I felt I could accomplish. I felt that after my previous attempts I needed to get someth...

Spaceship progress and thoughts so far,...

So this is the image I decided to use as a reference for my space ship- it's baased on the spaceship from the video game No Mans Sky and the image itself is by Justin Mezzell . So here's my progress so far- it's still rough and it's behind where I expected I'd be at this point in time but so far it's looking ok- I'm having some trouble with the engines on the wings at the moment which is a bit of a pain. Overall I'm happy with the look so far but we'll see how it develops beyond this.

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