This month at Full Sail University served to test my ability to balance work and school to the extreme. Throughout the month We were given the opportunity to model characters from 2D flat and boring images to 3D lifelike creations with accompanying assets.
I think what worked in my favor above all else is the time that I have dedicated to studying Z-Brush prior to taking this course. I have taught myself many techniques and gained various insights from other artists in the creation of 3D characters. I was able to progress steadily throughout the month by progressing from one step of the creation process to the next. (Blockout to secondary to simple form to finalization ).
What did not work for me is the same issue that I always have. As we are supposed to submit our assignments in stages I work fast in the first stage and the work feels unfinished so I progress to what I feel would be a reasonable next step. This, almost always, is not the case. I tend to do too much and then coming into week 2 of assignments I have to back track on what I had previously done. For example: Working from week 2 to week 3 of the class we were to create clothing and accessories for our characters which I had done week 1 as conjoined assets. This proved to make the process of creating clothing assets painful, as I had to recreate the model or spend time cutting it up so that I could create clean and "separate" assets.
The major problem that I encountered did not come until the final turn in. My files were far too detailed as the majority of what I have learned in the past did not have me deconstructing the form to submit for small file sized turn ins. This created a major issue as the assets were degraded severely due to the poly-count loss associated with the directive. I think next time I would specifically ask what the final output size needs to be in order to generate models at that resolution so that the final is not a mere shadow of the original file for output.
Each of these images looked fantastic in zbrush... However, when I had to import them into maya I had to degrade them from 18 million polys down to a minimal 200k each. This of course destroyed the integrity of their structure and in some cases punched holes in the asset where there was not enough information to fill the size variance. I feel that the final images came out spectacular. However, the final turn in was complete minimalism. It looked as though I did not spend much time on them and the assets, if needed for a game or render would be unusable. I don't feel that this was entirely my fault as I was not given a guideline from the beginning and all of the files were turned in a different way throughout the duration. Finally, it took far too long to import the assets and there were no lessons on how to minimize my geometry within zbrush. I had to spend hour upon hour scouring the internet for insight into the proper way to lower the poly counts of my geometry. Sadly, the tutorials still were not sufficient and my final turn ins were very weak assets.
The class however, and instructor were fantastic and I cannot wait to progress in future classes. I will however, remember to ask what the final turn in size will be when I start the first assets.
