Research

My supervisor for this project told me to create a breakdown of the assets.  So have a sketch or image of the asset with textures, reference and a description.  I did this with three assets and stopped as I realised just how time consuming it was, I spent the entire day on three and I have seventy eight odd assets in my scene.  It was not a time efficient way of breaking my scene down.

So what I did was split my scene into textures, woods, metals, glass, fabrics, stone, plaster and plants.  This way I can get a general idea of what textures I am going for.  I also found when looking at textures that I will have to go take some pictures of my own, so doing this made it so I was able to move on with my work without getting too bogged down with the details too early on.

I will of course break down each asset as I am making them, here's a quick example at what I have been looking at doing;
Sketch/photo of the asset
Textures
Reference
Movie/Concept book reference
Description

This is by no means how I will present it, this is just messing with layouts.  Until I have decided on font and a theme I will just use plain text, black and white lines and backgrounds.

New Reference

I found some new videos of the interior of Radagast's house.  There is very sparse reference for what the environment is in the movie.  All I really have is a few seconds of footage.  On this new video I realised the ceiling is a lot lower than I had previously thought, so I went back and played around with it.

It took me a while to decide on a height, as the taller the room, the more mysterious feeling it has.  By this I mean if I have a flythough and in it you can't see the full ceiling you can only hazard a guess what might be up there, it makes you use your imagination.  On the other hand if the ceiling is lower, then it has a more cosy and compact feeling, which is what Radagast's house is kind of like.  I didn't want to have an extreme of either, I didn't want problems with getting my camera around if the environment was too compact, and I didn't want it too spaced out and not engaging.  So I went in between the two, this means I will have to mess around a little more with the position of the rafters but I would rather have realised this mistake now than further down the line.

Blockout Complete!

I think I can finally say that my block out is complete, I know where everything is going and I know where assets are instanced.  I've out a lot less emphasis on my back room as it is just a background to the main room.  There will be a lot of instanced assets in there, with only the sink, table, benches and shelves being anything dramatically new.

Completing the Ceiling

I have been working on getting the rest of the ceiling blocked out.  I had some issues with some of the rafters in the back room.  As you can see from the top image, the rafters look nicely spaced.  But as you can see on the bottom image, they look a bit odd.  I had to move these around a lot to get to this point, I decided that the camera angle in the top image is most likely what will be used in my flythrough.  So it was more important to get this looking right rather than the other camera angle.

Changes

I decided that the circular table on the left was not working, so I replaced it with a table with a drying/hanging rack.  I think this works better as it does not draw my eye as quickly as the circular table.

I also started putting some more whitebox assets into the back room.  I don't want anything too complex in here as this room is sort of a background piece, it's just to make the main room look good.

Cracked It!

 Argh!  It is surprisingly hard for me to get the ceiling right.  A few attempts later...

Much better, I now have the right number of rafters and they are in the right position.  All that I have to do now is tweak them by distressing and rotating them.  I might also make them a little chunkier, I'll have to experiment with dimensions.

Rafters

I went over to Photoshop and drew in some new rafters.  I then went and modelled them in to see what the proportions looked like.

I could instantly see that I had far too many rafters, and the gable wall leans too far into the centre of the building.  So I will go back into Photoshop make the needed changes and drop back into 3ds Max to remodel.

What a Mess

I decided to further block out my ceiling.  It didn't go all too well, I brought my model into UDK and the ceiling looked a terrible mess.  I might take a screenshot of my environment and bring it into Photoshop, then draw over the top where I think the beams should go.  Or maybe I will start with the main rafters and work my way to the smaller ones, after which I will put in the purlins.

Stick to the Schedule!

I spent a while putting together my schedule for the project in PS.  I wanted to jazz it up a bit so I can stick it on my wall.  I knew this wasn't wasted time as I will have to present it well when I hand my project in anyway.  I'll most likely go back and make some changes to the layout at the end of my project, but it's enough for now.

It's a very brief outline of what should be done when.  I didn't want to go into the specifics and end up getting all tangled and confused in it.  As long as I have these milestones then I have something to stick to.

Ceiling

I've been messing around with the ceiling and trying to get the structure correct.  I found it quite hard to wrap my head around how it would work.  I played around with the height and proportions for a surprisingly long time.

When I was happy with the general shape I then started putting in some beams to get a better idea of what works and what doesn't.

Dimension Troubles

After adding more blocked out assets to the scene, I reaslised it was still far too big.  There is too much empty space in the centre of the room.  So I had a mess about with the dimensions.

I played with this for quite a while and I was finding it hard to get it looking right.

Blockout

I started adding more detail to my blockout.  I made some really simple assets so I could get a general idea of the space in the room.

I'm going to have to research fireplace construction when it comes to the modelling stage.  The fireplace in the concept would never stay up, and would most likely fill the room with smoke.

Blockout

I first started blocking out the scene in 3ds Max and running around in it in UDK to check the scale and space was correct.

I used a small top down drawing that I found in The Hobbit concept art book to get an idea of the layout.  I found that the drawing was quite off and that the rooms were far too big and empty.  I scaled them down slightly and cut one or two bits out here and there.

Let the Games Begin!

For my final year project at Teesside University, after much deliberation, I have finally decided to create Rhosgobel from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

I will model the interior of the ground floor of the house and the stairs that wind up to the first floor.

I will use 3ds Max for modelling my assets, Zbrush to add extra detail through sculpting, Photoshop for texturing and I will implement it all in UDK.  My primary objective for this project is to have a complete scene flythrough.  I also want some of my assets to be animated so that the scene isn’t static, some boiling liquids in pots, a burning fire and possibly some insects.  I’m unsure of the latter, I will have to do some experimenting in my scene to see how well it would work.