This week I tasked myself with adding final objects to the scene and working on materials. I must say that I floundered pretty hard on the materials. Beside the simple shapes in the scene I extreme difficulty with creating materials that looked real. The complexity of some of the objects, especially those from my shows, proved to be frustrating to say the least. I also wanted to create these materials in Substance Painter, which learning was more challenging than I had anticipated. This week was a struggle!
To prepare for the weekend, I’ve enlisted Professor YouTube once again and endeavored on broadening my understanding of the process and best practices.
While each of these tutorials addressed similar concepts it was nice to hear about it from different perspectives, to understand the different workflows that artists use. I personally found the last video to be the most useful in my case since the artist is unwrapping a character mesh which has some non standard geometry. I must admit that I was trying to get away with Smart UV Project and most of my models were materials were coming out terribly. So this weekend will be filled with seam marking and using proper UV methods in order to achieve the look I hoped for when I endeavored on this project.
And to take my mind of my woes I watched a couple weird animation videos before realizing I just needed to get off the computer.
This piece by Fernando Livschitz and Black Sheep Studios was a beautiful imagination turned real with the use of CGI and mixed reality. While I’m not exactly sure if there is any critical issues this animation is referencing, I did find some motivation to keep working with my materials. Since clearly the result of great materials is worth the work.
As artists around the world deal with isolation, we can revel in the fact that we are all in it together. Some are handling it well and some are not but one thing is for certain it’s definitely a great time to focus on our work, whether that be creating our masterpieces or just focusing on the process. This very endearing stop motion animation by Akut Herakut was a wonderful way to remember that I need a digital detox every once in a while.