Block Out of side view

I blocked out the side view of my digger picture into individual parts that I'll model. It has several parts but the most worrying among them will be the track section. I think I'll split it into 3 parts so that I can focus on the individual detail. I'm also quite worried about how to fix this on a single texture map but I'm sure I'll get it done in the end. 

Construction Vehicle Images

Today I have been visiting various construction sites in Derby to find pictures of construction vehicles for my module assignment. I managed to visit a site last Friday evening which had a few small construction vehicles but by the time I took the shots they had to leave and lock up soon (meaning I had little time) and that daylight had faded meaning that it was too dark to get good shots. It was also quite cramped in some shots so all in all it wasn't a good shoot. However they were very kind and invited me to come back on another week day which I planned to do today.

On Saturday whilst in Derby I inspected various areas of the city for construction sites and found quite a few possible locations. This morning I met up with a few friends and we headed off to the site I had been to previously. Whilst they were there, they all looked very busy and few machines anyway so we decided to try some other sites. After another couple of sites we came to the Cleggs building companies site. After speaking to the site manager we had permission to take photos of the site and vehicles in their lunch break. We returned at the expected time, were given high visibility jackets and helmets, and were escorted out to the site. This site had 3 or 4 construction vehicles, all the largest 50 tonne models according to one builder. So we picked our vehicles (the most well placed 2) and got to work. In all I took around 125 shots of the JCB including texture images, views from different angles and detailed shots. However the back of my vehicle was ill placed and so I couldn't get a great shot but that was the only problem here. Whilst a complex model, I do look forward to hopefully making a great digital copy of it. Here are a few of my shots.

Photo task

This week we were given the task of collecting certain images using a camera to develop are photography skills for modelling. They are all very straightforward shots and very easy to gather, being things that are common in almost any place. However it did make me more comfortable using my camera. I am only including some of the shots as there are quite a few. 

Module Brief

This semester I have been set the task of creating a diorama for a realistic game environment based on the construction industry. The main part of the diorama should be a JCB construction vehicle which must have all photo references for textures or design gathered by myself. I will marked throughout the module at certain milestones and at the end will put the diorama into UDK and produce two final renders of it. I will then have to place all the files on a CD for hand in.

I have a poly limit of 6000 triangles for the vehicle and 1000 for the rest of the diorama though it should be optimized regardless. No textures are to be bigger than 1024x1024. I have to create collision for the diorama for the model in UDK and also create a shader network. The scene must be scaled correctly which can be checked against the 6 foot UDK soldier we have been provided with.

At the moment I think that I will be fine with this project for the most part but I am a little worried about sourcing all my own textures as I don't really know where I will find a JCB for photographing. Apart from that worry I don't feel too worried about the modelling of it and think that it will be an interesting project to do.