Bakery Sign
Concept & Basic Modelling
We were given a brief in which we were required to create and develop a 3D tavern sign as we gained skills in various software.
Our brief was quite flexible, as we could create different types of signs if we wished and were able to choose the style and design as long as it's final polycount was under 4k.
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I had a bit of previous experience in Maya, so the first session was a brilliant refresher for the basic commands, however the interface had changed a lot since Maya 2015 so there was still a lot of new things to learn. Luckily, a lot of the old commands are now available as easily accessible buttons rather than everything being hidden in menus.
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Once we were done with the very basics like creating edge loops, using simple tools like bridge and connect, producing basic polygons and even making a project file, I was able to start thinking of some ideas.
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Using procreate on my iPad pro & apple pencil, I created some simple sketches of some ideas for my sign. I knew that I wanted to branch away from a tavern design, so most of my initial concepts are for directional or welcome sign posts.
From these 2D sketches I began to block out some of them out in Maya using basic polygon tools, then using tools like bridge to attach parts that were created separately like the curled feet on design no.2, but just trying to jam it on the end didn't look good at all. However, as a lot of my ideas were very organic based (with lots of vines or body parts etc.) I really struggled to get any of it to look good because I didn't yet have the technical skills. Here were some of my first attempts at creating my original ideas.
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After attending the first crit session I was informed that it was best to steer away from organic designs for our first asset creation as it tends to be a lot more difficult to make them look good, which was the entire intention of this brief.
So with this in mind, I went back to my iPad and created some more industrial designs, focusing on wood and metal as my main materials for a solid structure.
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Eventually I settled on the idea of a bakery sign as I felt that I could make it really stylised and colourful. Most of the sketches included a wooden board that was physically muffin shaped, with bright pink paint to depict a welcoming and warm bakery.
This time I went into Maya a lot more confident about my ability to create my idea effectively. Little did I know that retopology would later bite me on the bum, but I was a happy free soul trying to manifest my dreams at this point, so I went ham.
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I started with a shallow cylinder, adding divisions as I saw fit to create a smoother edge for my muffin's top. I selected edges and scaled them inwards to create the boxy bottom half of the shape and the obvious lumps in the silhouette of the top.
The design I settled on was to be mounted on to the side of a shop wall rather than a free standing post, so I blocked out 3 wooden beams. I added divisions so that I could extrude them outwards to create the several metal brackets, however I later on learned that asset parts like brackets and nails should be separate polygons like they would be separate parts in real life.
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I took the main faces from the object -1 face loop and extruded downwards on the top and bottom of the main shape to add some dynamics to what is a very simple design.
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Overall I was unhappy with my first asset attempt as it wasn't well proportioned and I felt that my method was messy, so I decided to try again.
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I started with a similar method, starting with a shallow cylinder polygon, however this time I was much more precise with the scaling and moving of my edge loops to create a shorter, plumper asset.
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Then I started to 'build' my sign by creating simple cuboids, duplicating them and resizing for the wooden beams and metal bracket. This time they were all kept as separate polygons for a simpler, more efficient modelling method.
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As they were going to be multiples of the same identical models, I only created 1 chain link and 1 metal bracket so that they could be duplicated and placed after the rest of the modelling process was complete. This would end up saving me quite a bit of time in the long run.
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The topology wasn't very efficient, but at this stage I was just happy to have created an asset that I was ready to export into zBrush.
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I exported the low poly in to Z-Brush where I sub-divided the mesh multiple times and dynameshed, allowing for smoother sculpting.
I smoothed all of the edges and created a stylised wood grain, something I later learned was better to complete in Substance Painter. At first I thought the sign looked too plain, so I added some indents where wooden panels would split on either side.
At the front-side bottom I used some font reference to sculpt in the sign's title and opening times.
For the end of the posts I did simple spirals to replicate sawn timber and left the metal brackets alone as no detail needed to be added at this point.
Originally I completely retopologised the main part of the sign through use of the quad-draw tool, however some of the points in space didn't match up correctly.
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After completion, it was at this point that I realised I could use the original low-poly model and just delete unnecessary geometry to retopologise - I suffered great anguish for my stupidity.
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I successfully deleted all unnecessary edges, after some trouble shooting of missing faces, and UV mapped with planar UVs, ready to make a cage and export.
I created the cages by adding a script from Mel on to my shelf:
duplicate;
createDisplayLayer;
and used this to simultaneously duplicate my low-poly model whilst putting it in a new layer.
Then I transformed the new model by dragging the blue arrow to scale it up until it was just larger than the original.
I later realised that I would need to export all my sections from the same file and create a cage encompassing the entire model, so I imported all the components on to one file and recreated the cage using the same method as before.
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I combined all the low-poly models and exported them as an fbx, the same file type as the cage. I exported the high-poly models directly from Z-brush as obj files and put them all into Substance Painter.
Here I was able to complete a successful bake after several attempts and re-sizing of the cage. After this, I applied the smart material 'beech wood' and changed the settings until all the grain was facing the right direction etc. I also applied old iron for the metal brackets and used a black mask to keep this clean and easy.
From here it was hand painted with browns to strengthen shadows and create depth, whilst adding decorative paint all with the use of a graphics tablet.
I turned the roughness down to create the impression of wet paint splatters, as if it had been given a fresh lick of paint as it's an older-looking sign.
