Maya Progression... Part 3... Struggling... But I Must Go On...

Today has been very mixed in terms of thoughts and modeling...

When you have a "great" idea... always think about it at least three times... As the saying goes (from a tailor I presume) "measure your cloth three times because you can only cut it once"

Today, I was thinking that I really want to do something else... something more "manageable" A character or something very "easy" to do. I'm not saying that character creation is easy... but it's one model with extras... like adding IK-bones etc... when creating an environment, there's so much to consider. So many things to go in i.e: Assets/Sky/Terrain/Lighting/Water/Particles etc... 

When you feel like you can do it, I'd say think about it some more. I guess I feel this way due to my lack of knowledge regarding some key skills in environment creation. I have done alright, so far but its very difficult when you can't find the right sources. It's difficult. 

I've searched for a few days on Terrain Creation, some of them look promising but the tutorials misses out key elements and then you become stuck. I have used various tutorials to get me this far but it seems like as I'm nearing the end of my course, the things I need to learn/know now are hard to come by in a tutorial. I've been busting my head today but I've had to "figure" this out for myself. Not knowing if its the right way is very frustrating, but I'm at a point now that I just want it done and dusted! The quality is good but it could have or still could be much better. Since time is against me I must do what I can with the knowledge I have.

Here's a few Renders of things done today.

I made some stones to go into my scene, I also made a "Terrain" using the "Sculpt Geometry Tool" and imported a Map to the shape. This could very well be the right thing but I want to make sue that it's "right" for what I'll be needing it for. 

I'm Creating two separate scenes in Maya. One will be the Viking Village and the other one will be the Shoreline area. 

Stones - Render 1 

After using another tutorial for creating stones/rocks, these are some of the rocks I made. Some of them still need textures on them but at least it adds something to the scene. These can be time consuming to texture though... but what isn't?

Stones - Render 2

Stones - Render 3 - 

This shot is taken from my Shoreline Scene. I've added a Rock/Grass texture to the plane and a Stone texture to the other plane. Doesn't look bad but needs touching up.

Shoreline Scene...

Here are a few progression renders of the shoreline scene...

Shoreline Render 1

 

 Shoreline Render 2

Shoreline Render 3

Shoreline Render 4 - Rock Shot.

Viking Village Scene...

Viking Village Render 1

Viking Village Texture Test... 

Not sure if I'll use this texture but who knows... It's not bad but I would love a professional opinion.

Anyhow, ANY COMMENTS would be appreciated! Until my next update... (shouldn't be too long now) Many Thanks!