The Imperial Boarding Party – Week 3 (Building a Stormtrooper – Part 2)

So we’re into Week 3 of our FYP projects and this week I have been continuing on my Stormtrooper model. Unfortunately I do have to say that I wasn’t able to get as much done as I would’ve liked during the week but with an extra day I should be able to complete the final pieces I wanted done this week due to being a little busy over the week and needing to go to work this weekend.
So what did I manage to get done this week? Good question!

This week I managed to:

• Complete the abdomen plate and cod piece of the trooper.
• Adjust the torso, back and butt plates to accommodate the abdomen armour.
• Model the straps that connect the front and back pieces of armour together.
• Model a neck seal/gorget.
• Fix the belt onto the Stormtrooper so that it bends around the waist instead of it being straight like the previous week.
• Model shoes
• Model the hand guards
• Model all of the Stormtrooper’s arm armour (Shoulder bells, bicep and forearm)
• Model the shin and calf armour

I still need to model the top section of the legs and the sniper guard for the left knee to complete the stuff I wanted done for this week, once they’re done though I can move onto creating the helmet.

Here’s some screenshots of the work I done this week, enjoy!

The Imperial Boarding Party – Week 2 (Building a Stormtrooper)

Week 2 of my Final Year Project has been going pretty well! I got some nice and assuring feedback on my E-11 Blaster during the practical session on the Monday which was nice to hear because I now know that I’m going in the right direction and that I’m doing well with my progress. Some minor tweaks needed to be made to small parts of my blaster to help further cut down polygons in the model which originally sat over 1.4 million polys in the high poly model and now stands around 26,500.

This week though I’ve mainly been focusing on modelling my Stormtrooper for the diorama.
The Stormtrooper

For the Stormtrooper so far I’ve mainly been focusing on doing his armour this week focusing torso, butt and crotch as well as the holster for the trooper’s blaster.
During the week I have modelled the front section of the Belt, the Thermal Detonator, the “Posterior” Armour, Kidney Armour,  E-11 Blaster Holster and have the Chest and Abdomen armour pieces as works in progress. Every piece of armour, the detonator and holster all have a high and low poly variant which I’ll show during my practical session tomorrow for some feedback plus ask for some feedback on my work in progress pieces of armour. I’ve been using a default Male mesh from Autodesk’s Mudbox as a mannequin for the armour and to save on some time I’ll probably use this mesh as a base for the undersuit of the Stormtrooper and sculpt on top of it to simulate the cloth undersuit and straps which hold the trooper’s armour together.

Pieces that still require to be modelled so far are:
The Legs and Shoes
The Arms and Gloves
The Helmet and neck seal

Once the WIP pieces are complete I will move on to finishing the body armour first and then move on to modelling the Stormtroopers’ helmet. Once all of that is done it’ll be getting unwrapped, baked and textured followed either by rigging or I’ll move straight onto Darth Vader and skin and rig both characters together (not literally together but after the modelling is complete).

Here’s some screenshots of the progress and models so far!

 

The Imperial Boarding Party – Week 1

This week I’ve been busy finishing the high poly model of the Stormtrooper’s E-11 Blaster for my diorama scene for my Final Year Project, making a Gantt Chart to keep track of my progress as well as making a low poly variant of the Blaster so that I can bake my high poly to my low poly asset.

First Hand-In Complete!
This Friday (10th Feb) was our first hand-in for our FYP which was based around our proposal for the project, I didn’t really need to alter mine too much after going over it in the practical sessions with my supervisor but I put in some screenshots of the Gantt Chart I made and also tweaked an existing asset list I made so that I an asset list for both of the scene ideas I mentioned in my first post here on my blog and in my proposal. I managed to get that handed in during Friday afternoon, which was quite nice to do instead of rushing to get it done.

The Blaster
On Thursday this week I managed to complete my high poly E-11 (which I done a blog post about, scroll down to find out what I had to say about it!) and today I managed to get the low poly version of it complete also! I was hoping to have got the high poly bake and UV unwrap done by the end of this week too but unfortunately with being busy at home I wasn’t able to so I might have to either spend one or two more days on the Blaster to get it done or move onto modelling the armour and come back to the bakes and unwraps when I do the Stormtrooper’s armour. I’ll probably speak about it to my supervisor in my practical session on Monday morning.
Here’s some screenshots comparing the high and low poly models of the blaster!
Though some parts of the blaster couldn’t be reduced in polys due to having Booleans applied to the mesh.

Shaded

Wireframe Perspective

Wireframe Top

Wireframe Back

Asset List: asset-list-scene-1
Gantt Chart: gantt-chart
Finished Proposal: p4111309_justin_grace_fyp-proposal

 

Booleans and the High Poly E-11

Yesterday I’ve managed to get the Highpoly model of the Stormtroopers’ E-11 Blaster completed which I’m fairly happy with. I’ve tried to get it as accurate as I could to the prop but had to make some compromises due to time or problems I’ve encountered when modelling the blaster.

The right hand side of the E-11

The left hand side of the E-11

Firstly with the compromises is the folding stock on the bottom of the blaster. The front grip is meant to be hollow and have cutouts towards the end of the grip, with the geometry however and when using the shell modifier in 3DS Max it was causing unpleasant and unwanted results so I left it as a single full piece instead.

The blaster is also meant to have holes running along the barrel (?) of the gun, I experimented with different variations of using booleans but they just ended up causing a lot of shading issues when using smoothing groups and just ended up adding a load of unneeded geometry which resulted in a cluttered and messy model.

Here’s some screenshots of the methods I used and the results they produced.

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I have used booleans in my model however for some cutouts for the weapons’ cocking mechanism and for the round ejector plus for a hole at the front of the barrel due to them being vital pieces to the look of the blaster.
I’ve decided that I will probably create normals for the holes in the blaster within Quixel Suite due to the majority of them being covered by the grips along the front of the gun, this helps reduce poly count and can nicely fake the detailing and give the illusion of holes being there.

Now I have to create a low poly variant so that I can produced some highpoly bakes for the E-11, after they have been produced I can go to the unwrapping and texturing stage for this weapon. Modelling for the Stormtrooper can also begin once the low poly model is complete.
I’ll be making a re-cap of my week’s progress this weekend going over any alterations, problems or work I’ve done in the next few days. Stay tuned!

The Imperial Boarding Party – Week 0

The Beginning of the End… of Uni
So the first week back at Uni has passed and during the first Practical Session of the module I got my project idea approved and was able to crack on with some modelling more or less right off the bat, very nice!
My supervisor looked at my proposal which I worked on during the holiday break and didn’t seem to have any problem with it apart from the theme of Star Wars partly in jest (I think) and due to it being a well known IP, he was pleased though that I was nicely ahead already with having a completed pitch, an asset list and project plan as well as already having a reference library. During our one to one I was advised to take time with my texturing and to make sure that I include PBR and focus on making sure that my materials look like that used in the costumes, props and sets used within the Star Wars films.
After the chat with my supervisor he instructed me to start doing a blog including my initial pitch and to not mess up project after hearing my pitch, I’ll definitely try not to!

Week 0 – Progress so far
During the starting week (technically the first but officially not the first week of production on our projects) I’ve been working on the high poly model of the Imperial Stormtrooper’s blaster, the E-11. Here I’ve been using 3DS Max to do the modelling and have been using a lot of reference material to try and get the proportions and shape correct to the blaster prop used within the original Star Wars film, A New Hope. Unfortunately during this time I ended up getting the flu and due to not feeling incredibly well I couldn’t do work for about 2 days which was a right bummer and not really the best start to the project hopefully though I won’t get ill again during the period I have to work on the project.
Modelling has been going well for the blaster however there are some parts which I am not too sure how I should go about modelling, with the prop used in the film the blaster has a grilled like muzzle/barrel which is full of holes going from the front of the rail for the scope to the front of the blaster, when trying booleans it leaves a rather messy looking mesh and it causes the smoothing groups to not work properly causing a rough looking model, I think it’d be best to talk to the supervisor for some feedback and perhaps a better way/method of going about these holes. Other than that the blaster is going well and the highpoly is nearing completion although if I didn’t have those 2 days off the model probably would have been completed by the time of this blog post. Damn flu!

On another note for my project I gave myself the choice of 2 scenes from A New Hope I could model for my project, the first scene being smaller with 2 characters (Darth Vader and some Stormtroopers) going down the corridor of the Tantive IV after the Stormies killed the Rebels trying to stop the Imperials from boarding their Ship or Scene 2 being where Darth Vader is interrogating a Rebel Soldier about the whereabouts of the transmissions the ship received which contain the stolen Death Star Plans this scene contained 3 characters and the environment was also a little bigger, and with some extra pipelines getting involved due to character with exposed skin and a visible face was nearing the edge of perhaps over ambition giving the timeframe.
I have decided however that I will be going with Scene 1 because if needs be it gives me extra time to work on the characters and the environment for the project and also saves me needing to learn facial rigging (which I believe could take a long time to get right) and Sub Surface Scattering for the skin that Scene 1 would be a more sensible option. By going with Scene 1 I can have 4 weeks for both characters and the environment and keep 2 weeks spare for polish and putting everything together in a scene in Unreal or I could have 5 weeks per character and 3 for the environment while keeping those last 2 weeks for polish. If I went with Scene 2 that’d give me 3 weeks per character (3 in this case) and 3 weeks for the environment with 2 weeks for polish. I’d have no headroom if I required it and I wouldn’t be able to get rid of my 2 weeks of polishing and compositing time, so I think that Scene 1 is my best bet going forward.

Pitch Word Document:  fyp-pitch

Pitch Asset List: asset-list

Pitch Project Plan: fyp-project-plan