A little bit of Overtime

It had slipped my mind to finish up this blog with a final post, so here it is:

We had a lot of fun working on this project, and we didn't have any problems with each other. The only major problems we ran into were communications amongst ourselves and our client, and the final rendering which took a few extra days than we originally thought, but we still got it finished on time.

I really enjoyed this challenge, as I had never created a texture in Photoshop before, so this was a great opportunity for me to try out new techniques and styles, and experiment a little. It also gave me a chance to work with others that I haven't really worked with before, and get to know them a little bit better.

Our client was excellent, and we had a great time meeting with the museum workers. I would love to do another project with this client again, as this was a wonderful experience, and we barely had any trouble at all.

Well, the project is over now, but I will still use the techniques I tried out within my own Photoshop works, and perhaps create my own digital environment.

Still Textures

I spent the last couple days still creating more textures in Photoshop. I am waiting for the rest of the 3D animation to complete so I know exactly what it is I need to texture.

This is a bone texture I created for the 3D skeleton. For reference, I used cracked concrete and beige marble stone. I'm going to adjust this later to compensate for lighting and hue.

One of the many tree bark textures I have been creating over the last couple of weeks. I really like how this one turned out, and I can't wait till we can use it

Continuing with the tree bark. This was from a fossil of tree bark. The diamonds are supposedly where leaves and branches were attached to the bark. The original picture was grey, and I used browns

And finally, another simple tree bark texture, created from stripped bark. I like how this one is really simple, yet very effective at looking like bark.

More Textures 2.0

I was doing more texturizing today in Photoshop, and I have a few samples to upload here to show.

This is a moss texture I created by drawing over a pre-existing moss texture, and then using color samples from the image to color in the main moss and the highlights.

This is a rock texture. I am planning on creating more textures because this one didn't turn out as well as I'd would have liked, but I'm still experimenting.

This was a snake skin texture I used a color effect on in Photoshop, and I also duplicated and flipped it to get this large canvas. I was trying out different colors, and decided that for now, the yellow and orange looked the best.

This is a bark texture I created, and am pretty happy with, as it actually looks like tree bark! I am excited and pleased with it, and I'm looking forward to creating more like this one. This project is a lot of fun so far, but also a lot of work.

Joggins Trip.

Yesterday we went to the Joggins Fossil Cliffs in Joggins, Nova Scotia, and we learned a lot about our little lizard, Hylonomus Lyelli.

This is the actual fossil of Hylonomus Lyelli, which is roughly only 20cm long. It's a very tiny fossil, and as you can see the bones are scattered and the lizard seems to have been flattened

This is a close up of the fossil, and the flash from my camera really caught the bones very well, so it's easier to see them. We were very surprised at how small the actual lizard was, but now we have an idea of how to create him within the environment.

This is a picture of a modern lizard skeleton that is roughly the size of what Hylonomus Lyelli would've been. This skeleton could fit in the palm of your hand with room to spare! That's a small lizard!

These footprints were everywhere in the museum, and they were supposed to be the footprints of our little lizard. I thought they were cute and had to take a photo of them. This particular set was heading for the exhibit known as "The Hollow Tree", where you would crawl into a small hole, and they had a dark room set up like a hollow tree. A hollow tree is where the fossil of Hylonomus Lyelli was discovered, so it is assumed that he either lived, or died within the tree.

And these were scale models of the trees from the Carboniferous period, which is the same period that our lizard is from. These trees went all the way up to the ceiling, and about 2/3 from the top they have this diamond texture on the trunks, which scientists have come to believe is where the branches would've been.

This is another photo of the same trees, showing their height. I'm going to be using the bark from these trees as reference in making bark texture.

It was a great day, and I really enjoyed it! Now to get back to work

More Textures!

I spent today creating more textures in Photoshop. I made tree bark, moss, and a rock texture. I was experimenting with a snake skin and a color effect so I know what to do later when creating the skin texture.

I had already started making a tree texture yesterday, but I decided it was too complex for the amount of time we have, so I decided to scrap it for now, and I may pick it up again at a later date if the chance arises.

I am going to create more rock textures to give our environment some variety, and I may begin to make some leaves over the next few days, depending on what we need for the project and what we don't.

Texturing: Stage 1

I started doing a texture of a tree today, as there is not much for me to do at this point in the project, and I'm mostly taking color samples from an image of a tree texture, and coloring over it in Photoshop.

There isn't much else to say except that I'm really enjoying texturing so far! And I can't wait to move onto the other pieces of the project.


We're heading out to the Joggins Fossil Cliffs on Wednesday, so hopefully I'll get some new ideas then.

April 29th 2011

Today was spent searching for textures to work with in Photoshop to create a carboniferous period environment for our Capstone project. Our client is the Joggins Museum in Nova Scotia, and the project is to create a 3D model of the extinct lizard Hylomonus Lyelli, which the museum has a fossil of.

I am going to be doing most of the texture work for this project, and today I found some really great reference pieces from the website http://www.cgtextures.com to use for tree bark, bones, lizard scales, and moss.

I can't wait until I actually get to start creating my own textures for the models