BA3: Digital Modeling

Something I Should’ve Posted Sooner!

I can feel time literally slipping through my fingers! My plan was to take some really lovely shots of the sketches I had done in my sketchbook at the beginning of this projects for my door but alas, as time fails me in front of my very eyes I have just taken some quick photographs to get them on here and give you a rough idea of where my ideas stemmed from. 

I should have posted these before I posted my Google SketchUp versions so you could understand where my design started and where it ended up. Ironically it has changed again anyway so I guess that makes my point pretty void but alas, here they are! 

Here you can see a selection of rough and very initial designs for the pillars around my door. I found something quite frustrating in God of War and that is that there are few doors…this really helps when you’re trying to build a GoW inspired door yourself! (Facepalm!). Anyway, what I did find were a lot of pillar so I focused my designs into them.

  There is often a lot of symmetrical shapes and pretty design work with patterns on the stone pillars or an intricate stone emblem in the centre of the top of the door.

I then had the insane idea that I could do a character themed door. Hades, the lord/god of the dead and underworld, is a crucial character in the GoW series and I think he looks awesome. I thought perhaps I should try and do a large model of his helmet above the door. As if this was a door leading to him. Alas, I soon realised this would just be too difficult to do in my time frame, alas, here are the designs (above and below).

Thinking of the possibilities of what could go on top of the door, I decided to try some header designs. Intricate stone details that would be raised above the door over the pillars. Here are my rough designs. 

 

I then decided I needed to actually try and find an example of a door in GoW3 that I liked enough to place into my design. I filtered back through my research and found the door to the City of Olympus. This door was basic enough to not contrast against the pillar design (shown next). Here is my design taking the door to the City of Olympus into consideration for inspiration. 

Here is the first door design that I did fully finished and ready to make 3D. It was what my first Google SketchUp 3D mock up was based on and I also did my orthographic drawings on it too. Because I did this so long ago, my design has since dramatically changed. This was due to my SketchUp designs just not looking good enough or GoW inspired enough. I let my fear for Maya change my designs, I made it way too over simple and it needed changing. Here are the drawings anyway to show where I started. Orthographic ¾ view. 

 

Orthographic Sketch: Side View

Orthographic Sketch: View from the top

Skip forward a bit, I designed my simple door in Google SketchUp and it just wasn’t cutting it. The pillars look terrible and far too simple. The roof top looked rubbish too. I needed a serious re think of my design. I tried to design more pillars based on the games vital architectural shapes and ideas. That is when I did this.

 

 

Conclusion…

So, the point I was at this stage was 2 semi final built 3D models in SketchUp, 1 far too basic and rubbish, the other looking slightly more realised. I decided there was no better time to dive into Maya. Now that I had a decent pillar design down, I figured the rest would come through trial and error. 

For example, I soon realised the flat, square roof & detail over the door was terrible too so I scrapped that in favour of a more commonly seen in GoW3 arched roof with stone detail. This way I could ensure my door would fit in perfectly with the game. 

I have, at this very point, got the door built in Maya and I am ready with screen shots to write up jut how I did it. I also ended up including stairs in my design which I trialled in SketchUp and asked friends which they preferred (options shown below). They all said the rounded stairs looked best. So I went for these. 

The nest post will be of the door in Maya and a (sort of ) step by step guide on how I got from A to B.