So my first course of action was deciding what sort of environment I would consider perfect in regards to a holiday. Most people think of beaches, or cultural landmarks and such, while I have rather different views. Having spent a large chunk of my life in Thailand, I have come to adore the streets of Bangkok, and share lots of good memories in places like Khao San Road.
As a result, the environment I wish to craft is comparable to a Bangkok street, with neon signs, food stalls, litter, and rain. I can understand that this doesn’t exactly sound like the most enjoyable of places to be, but given my time growing up in similar places, I can’t help but want to express my love for the neon lit streets.
Currently, I am spending a lot of my free time creating bits of neon art, which I have also begun posting around the internet to a positive response. The technique to create neon signs I followed is linked here:
This technique has allowed me to create some decent models by tracing assets from media I enjoy, and I have also begun learning to draw in hopes to create my own original pieces of art to add to my galleries.
So as such, I already have some decent assets to use as neon signs for my project. I do need to see about getting the renders to work using Arnold, as currently the Lambert materials I use only give the desired neon effect using the default Maya Software renders.
Once that’s done, I need to move on to creating more of the models I need for my scene, including stuff like buildings, non-neon signs, and food stalls. I have also been messing around with nParticle systems, and have been able to create a decent rain effect that I hope to apply to my final scene. I will need to do further research on how to render my scenes with the active rain effect, as currently each time I try, the rain effect is frozen and does not play.
All in all, I believe I am making good progress on this project, and am looking forward to seeing my final piece.