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One of my modules this year was to recreate part of the dwarven city of Ironforge from the World of Warcraft using Maya 2009. I have never really ventured into 3D so I didn't really know what to expect from the module, and at first I was a little skeptical about how much I would actually enjoy it. All in all though, I'm very appreciative of having this module as part of the course, and am very happy with the final result.

It was a definitely a steep learning curve, Maya is definitely not a easy program to pick-up for the novice, and you begin to really appreciate if the simple 3D work you see everyday. The initial stage of modelling was fairly long and arduous, albeit only scraping the surface of the tools you can actually use, and the mapping of all the objects¹ was a task and a half. What I ended up enjoying the most was applying the textures to the models, and creating lighting and effects. Theres nothing quite like seeing the scene come together as it shifts from a dull grey to fully textured.

A solid 100+ hours went into this project I think, and here, thanks to Vimeo, is the result of all that work:

Final WOW Ironforge Render from Luke Williams on Vimeo.

1. which involved unfolding all the shapes face by face, over 20,000 in the end [back]