Unit 6: Commission - Environment Concept Initial to Final

Hello Everyone,

Meant to post this last night but my need to sleep got me I think my clock is reverting to normal, heyho. I spent yesterday constructing my environment final concept which consists of the world wide web being built of telomeres. I thought this was a good way of thinking about the web especially with my age book idea.

I began drawing the idea but I wanted the image to spiral endlessly, having not found any easy way to do it in photo shop I decided to jump into Maya and get this image built as 3D concept. This is when things began to fly, especially once I got the hang of the bump and specular maps. I just kept it simple and got Maya to do just what I needed and nothing more after I had a play with some built DNA spirals.

Lets get down to the 3D environment concept!

The image above is if you could see into my fictional world where websites are connected via a powerful world wide web of coded DNA spirals. Think matrix but using actual human science and not so much coding. I imagined this image ripping into the age book site where one can see what their profile consists of.


Figs 1, 2 & 3 (shown above) were the very early stages of the concept at this point I was just playing around with light and reflectivity, it also annoyed me that my texture didn't loop correctly. The width of the pipe felt correct but the scaling had to feel right as well, plus at this point I hadn't brought in my shot cam.


Figs 4, 5 & 6 (shown above) were further lighting tests. I was also testing the limits of my specular map making the background behind the spirals darker while making the spirals themselves lighter. At this point I was just hoping to bring out the spirals without having to physically build every single one.


Figs 7, 8 & 9 (shown above) were my final scaling tests and the introduction of bump mapping. I tried to keep it very small I wound up sticking with an 0.05 for bumps. The spirals were starting to look real with almost no modelling what so ever. It is accurate to say I was quite proud of this development I was finally getting the hang of bump and spec mapping, darting back and forth between photo shop and Maya.


Figs 10, 11 & 12 (shown above) were my final bump tests, I also incorporated my first bit of Maya text but I couldn't get it to fire god rays through it, I spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to figure out how to do it. Still at this point I was rather proud of what I had achieved with a pipe and some simple bump and spec maps, I am feeling mildy confident toward this animation now. I wasn't at first...

Fig 13 (shown above) was the final result, not sure if anyone notices but I put alot of face book jargon spinning with the spirals. Even some genuine messages that I had recently received. I put the text in just to make the concept feel more face book themed that's if the colours didn't do it for anyone in the first place. I made the text slightly transparent so I could finally see some of the colour on the age book logo.

Well this concludes my little environment post, I will probably play with a few other concepts at another time but for now there just isn't time I really need to get my script cracked out and then get working on my storyboard.

Take it easy people!

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx