Final Reflective Statement - What If Metropolis?

This project has been like a small learning journey. To start with, I originally had hardly any experience with modelling with Maya at all and was barely used to drawing concept art for imaginary cities. In the first few weeks of this project I managed to push my limits with digital drawing and teach myself how to add more realistic textures to my paintings and then I was able to drastically change the look of my piece of concept art. 

Taking it into Maya was a whole new experience I had to adjust to. Creating the orthographs was a pretty simple task as my buildings are simple shapes (rectangles). When it came to modelling them, I stumbled upon a couple problems, mainly with the holes for the windows. I remodelled about 3-4 times until I finally got it right using skills I had learnt throughout Maya tutorials I had watched already. 

The windows were probably the hardest part to model. Mainly the top part of the window with the indenting detail. Originally, I had made it and deleted a few faces that looked right at first. Eventually, with some help from my tutor, I realised what I had done wrong and how to fix it, also making the unfolding process much easier on my end.

UVs were probably the hardest part of the entire process for me. It took my a while to wrap my head around where to cut to unfold the model properly so I could then texture it for the scene. At first, I was cutting and unfolding and then undoing the process continuously as it kept getting worse and worse. After asking for some help, it started to click and I managed to unfold everything in my scene and take it into photoshop. 

Photoshop was my favourite part. Applying my new skills and creating textures for my scene felt really rewarding as it is a technique I never thought I could do until now. The process didn't take too long yet the textures really brought the scene together. 

Applying the lights was a slight challenge too as in my concept art, the sun shines over the back buildings, coming from behind, yet it lights up the canals. So I placed a directional light to represent the sun, to come from behind the buildings and some area lights above my ShadowMatte to resemble the light bouncing off of the water and onto the buildings. 

After my final render I made a last-minute decision to create another Matte Painting to apply on top. This being the Sign and Petals. I chose to do this to add something in the foreground to draw the viewers eyes to something else other than just the simple buildings and canal. I'm pleased with how it turned out and feel it just adds that little bit extra to the scene.

All in all, I feel I really expanded my roster of skills whilst working on this project. I learnt how to use some new features of Maya that I hadn't used before and officially created my first ever original Maya scene. I stumbled upon some problems and learnt how to overcome them. I'm proud of my progress so far and am excited to look back in the future and see how far I have come.