It was now time to head back to completing Jason Patnode's 'Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional Polygonal Modeling Techinques' book. However I noticed that the deadline for this project was now fast approaching and the aim is to create a high standard character that I can put in my showreel. So I decided to skip the remanding chapters and tutorials of the book. Luckily there were only four chapters left for me to read so really I'm not missing too much.
The first chapter that I am skipping is a chapter called 'Creating a Hyperreal Character'. This chapter is a very long tutorial showing you how to make a monster type character. I already had an idea at the beginning of the project that I would be skipping this tutorial as it showed the same tools and techniques that the creating a Game Character tutorial did. So I gathered that I would not be learning too much new information and could spend this time learning a lot of new information, and also use the time that I gained to create the character for my showreel.
The next chapter that I am skipping is called 'Creating a Photo-Real Character' this chapter contains a series of ZBrush tutorials that help to create a photo-real character. I was very reluctant to skip this chapter as it contained a lot of new information that I did not know that could have helped me such as a tutorial that shows how to sculpt clothes and hair. It also had a tutorial that shows how you can pose your character in ZBrush. I think that that would be a very useful technique. However this chapter did cover some topics that I had already learnt such a sculpting using layers. Unfortunately despite wanting to follow these tutorials I do not currently have time. I will definitely be following these tutorials as soon as I have the time as I think I will gain some vital knowledge from them.
The third chapter from the book that I am skipping is called 'UVs and Texturing'. Luckily I know about all of the topics that this this chapter covers. This chapter includes three tutorials. The first shows an overview of UV mapping, I have had plenty of experience UV mapping and consider myself to know a fair bit about it. After reading this tutorial I discovered that it covered no new grounds for me. The second tutorial that shows how to texture in Adobe Photoshop and then apply that texture to your model in Maya. Again this was a topic and process that I already knew how to do, and again after reading this tutorial I discovered that gave me no new knowledge. On the other hand the last tutorial was about Polypainting in ZBrush, I had already followed a tutorial that taught me the basics about Polypainting but I would have liked to have followed this tutorial as I believe it would help to develop my Polypainting knowledge. As soon as I get the opportunity I will be following this tutorial. So overall I was not missing out on too much by skipping this chapter.
The last chapter that I am skipping and the final chapter of the book is called 'The Next Step'. This chapter contained tutorials that covered how to create a Normal Map in Maya, how to create a Normal Map in ZBrush, Creating a 16-bit Displacement Map and a 32-bit Displacement Map in ZBrush, Rendering with Maya Software and Rendering with Mental Ray, creating a Turntable in Maya and creating Wireframe Renders in Maya. I had rendered with Maya Software and Mental Ray on several occasions before so I knew about those two processes. However I knew nothing about creating Normal Maps and Displacement Maps and this looked like a topic that could be very useful. I consider these two topics to be knowledge that I should know about. I was not sure how to create a Wireframe Render as I had never done one before but I know that I need to include Wireframe Renders of my models in my showreel. I was also unaware that Maya has a built in Turntable function and I need to include turntables of my models in my showreel so this technique would be very useful. When creating a turntable of my models I would usually just manually rotate my model and set the keyframes to dictate how fast or slow the timetable is and then render it out. However I think that the Turntable feature that Maya has to offer will offer more constancy to my showrell because if I keep my setting the same then all of the turntables in my showreel will be the same speed. I think that this will help to make my showreel look more professional. So skipping this chapter means that I am will be missing out on a lot of valuable information but I decided that the most important thing at the moment is to begin creating my character model for my showreel. If I create the model for my showreel quicker than I estimated then I will definitely return to these chapter of the book that I skipped, and I will certainly return to this chapter as I think that I will benefit a lot from the information that this chapter contains. If I do not have enough time to return to these chapters before this unit finishes then I will be returning to these chapter's regardless as I think the information that they contain will help me in future.
Overall I think that buying the 'Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional Polygonal Modeling Techniques' book was one of the wisest things that I have done whilst studying Animation. I personally found that this book has been the best tool for learning character modeling. I think that since reading this book and following its tutorial my character modeling ability has improved drastically. I now feel that I have a lot more knowledge about character modeling and think that I am finally at the stage where I can start modeling a character without the help of a tutorial.
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