The first week of week experience now over, but all the rest of the weeks are still to come. Its been a good week all in all. I've done three initial animation loops and a few other tests in Maya for the project that I and a few other people are working on. I assume we all will be getting some feedback over the weekend, although in the coming week I'm not going to be at a computer or with internet, and have said that I wont be able to do any work in that week.
I've practically finished my essay, which is good because all I have to be doing from now on are the Maya tasks and any projects for work experience... and relaxing over the holidays!!!
A Flock of Pixels
Friday, 15 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Work Experience - Day 3
It has been a bit of a shaky start to the first project. Yesterday I had one of those mental block things, which pretty much messed up the whole day! I guess I just didn't get what I was doing or I was over thinking. I did sort of, kind of, accidentally, in a way, miss the first deadline! (Oh dear!)
But today has gone much better. Although I can't divulge the specifics of the project, I can say that it involves creating abstract content of a particular style and within Maya and it is very different from the sort of projects that I've done I've the past.
I wish I could tell you more! Actually I don't yet know what I am allowed to say, but I know I can't post any images of what I'm creating.
I'm sure more will be posted later on.
A Flock of Pixels
But today has gone much better. Although I can't divulge the specifics of the project, I can say that it involves creating abstract content of a particular style and within Maya and it is very different from the sort of projects that I've done I've the past.
I wish I could tell you more! Actually I don't yet know what I am allowed to say, but I know I can't post any images of what I'm creating.
I'm sure more will be posted later on.
A Flock of Pixels
Saturday, 9 April 2011
Maya Tasks Week 24 - Dynamics and Mental Ray
In this weeks dynamic tutorials we continued with particles.
The first example is of mud sliding off a golf ball. The particle render type was set to blobby surface to make the particles a solid mesh that would deform over the ball. Various scripts were used to control the way the mud slid off the ball.
The second example uses particle sprites to create magical dust. A sprite is an image and in this case its an image of a bright star like glow.
Scripts control the look of the particles, from colour to size and rotation etc.
Then it was taken into after effects for further adjustments.
Mental Ray
Caustics
in this rather short tutorial we tapped into some caustics. Caustics are what cast bright hot spots when light refracts through materials such as glass or water.
This example shows how caustics has an effect in this scene.
No caustics
Caustics added
Notice the bright white glows mixed in with the shadow.
Mia Material X
The Mia Material X shader for Mental Ray is a very versatile shader. It can be made into almost any type of material. In this exercise we looked at all the preset materials. You can see that they can be made to look very realistic.
Before
After
HDR Image Lighting
In this exercise we looked into Image based lighting with HDR images.
-colour gain
-colour offset
With no image based lighting
Default image based lighting settings - 0,1
Looks like night time
With an offset on colour gain and colour offset by 1 - 1,2
A reasonably good looking render
With an offset on the colour gain and colour offset by another 1 - 2,3
Slightly blown out.
I found that keeping the settings within a range of 1 kept the colours neutral.
When just increasing the colour gain alone the image tinted blue! - 0,5
Tweaked settings - 1.3,2.3
Physical Sun and Sky with Portal lights
A default sun and sky set-up works great for outdoors, but not so with interiors, as seen in this render.
Not enough light seems to enter through the window of the room, so to fix this we use portal lights. A portal light focuses the light into entering the room.
This is how a portal light positioned just outside the window, helps improve the image.
I then experimented with some ambient occlusion.
Also in the occlusion settings is a colour bleed option.
Here is the final result.
The Physical Sun and sky
This exercise went through some of the more advanced features of the Physical sun and sky in Mental Ray.
Here we have an island scene with the default sun and sky.
First that was tweaked was the horizon line.
Then the sun position was changed by rotating the directional light that represents the sun.
The sun disc size can be changed to. In this case I made it slightly bigger.
Now the sun is changed back to early mid day, I shall go over a few of the other settings.
The haze attribute affects how much atmosphere is in the scene.
from left to right you can see how less haze is clear and adding more haze gives us something more overcast.
The Red / Blue Shift can be used to similar effect.
a range of -1 to 1 can be used in this channel.
The last key attribute is the Saturation.
Most of the effect changes can be seen in the sky and in the reflections of the sky.
Shadows can be tweaked also. This is the default.
After increasing the softness grain starts to notice more.
So increasing the samples helps remove it.
Last but not least, I have finally gotten round to finishing the weight lifting animation! I am quite pleased with how its come out, considering only a day was spent on it. Usually for something like this I would spend at least two days.
The video starts with the keys in stepped mode and then the final animation.
I think if I had that extra day I could have spent more time in the curves editor, fixing all of the overshot curves etc. Most of what you see was done without going into curves editor at all except for fixing a rotational glitch in the wrists.
I think that should be all the Maya tasks done for this project.
A Flock of Pixels
The first example is of mud sliding off a golf ball. The particle render type was set to blobby surface to make the particles a solid mesh that would deform over the ball. Various scripts were used to control the way the mud slid off the ball.
The second example uses particle sprites to create magical dust. A sprite is an image and in this case its an image of a bright star like glow.
Scripts control the look of the particles, from colour to size and rotation etc.
Then it was taken into after effects for further adjustments.
Mental Ray
Caustics
in this rather short tutorial we tapped into some caustics. Caustics are what cast bright hot spots when light refracts through materials such as glass or water.
This example shows how caustics has an effect in this scene.
No caustics
Caustics added
Notice the bright white glows mixed in with the shadow.
Mia Material X
The Mia Material X shader for Mental Ray is a very versatile shader. It can be made into almost any type of material. In this exercise we looked at all the preset materials. You can see that they can be made to look very realistic.
Before
After
HDR Image Lighting
In this exercise we looked into Image based lighting with HDR images.
-colour gain
-colour offset
With no image based lighting
Default image based lighting settings - 0,1
Looks like night time
With an offset on colour gain and colour offset by 1 - 1,2
A reasonably good looking render
With an offset on the colour gain and colour offset by another 1 - 2,3
Slightly blown out.
I found that keeping the settings within a range of 1 kept the colours neutral.
When just increasing the colour gain alone the image tinted blue! - 0,5
Tweaked settings - 1.3,2.3
Physical Sun and Sky with Portal lights
A default sun and sky set-up works great for outdoors, but not so with interiors, as seen in this render.
Not enough light seems to enter through the window of the room, so to fix this we use portal lights. A portal light focuses the light into entering the room.
This is how a portal light positioned just outside the window, helps improve the image.
I then experimented with some ambient occlusion.
Also in the occlusion settings is a colour bleed option.
Here is the final result.
The Physical Sun and sky
This exercise went through some of the more advanced features of the Physical sun and sky in Mental Ray.
Here we have an island scene with the default sun and sky.
First that was tweaked was the horizon line.
Then the sun position was changed by rotating the directional light that represents the sun.
The sun disc size can be changed to. In this case I made it slightly bigger.
Now the sun is changed back to early mid day, I shall go over a few of the other settings.
The haze attribute affects how much atmosphere is in the scene.
from left to right you can see how less haze is clear and adding more haze gives us something more overcast.
The Red / Blue Shift can be used to similar effect.
a range of -1 to 1 can be used in this channel.
The last key attribute is the Saturation.
Most of the effect changes can be seen in the sky and in the reflections of the sky.
Shadows can be tweaked also. This is the default.
After increasing the softness grain starts to notice more.
So increasing the samples helps remove it.
Last but not least, I have finally gotten round to finishing the weight lifting animation! I am quite pleased with how its come out, considering only a day was spent on it. Usually for something like this I would spend at least two days.
The video starts with the keys in stepped mode and then the final animation.
I think if I had that extra day I could have spent more time in the curves editor, fixing all of the overshot curves etc. Most of what you see was done without going into curves editor at all except for fixing a rotational glitch in the wrists.
I think that should be all the Maya tasks done for this project.
A Flock of Pixels
Friday, 8 April 2011
Work Experience
Had first meeting with Pete, who I shall be doing work experience for. He is associated with two companies as Head of Production and Art Director, namely Butch Auntie and Microchunk.
They deal with live event visuals and projections. He talked about the sort of projects that I would be working on. He showed some reference material so I know the style of work he will be requiring.
I will mostly be using Maya to create visuals to be processed in After Effects for various projections.
A Flock of Pixels
They deal with live event visuals and projections. He talked about the sort of projects that I would be working on. He showed some reference material so I know the style of work he will be requiring.
I will mostly be using Maya to create visuals to be processed in After Effects for various projections.
A Flock of Pixels
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Transcription - Finalising the Project
Edit: Sorted out the video. It previously stopped working because bandwidth limit.
The Making Of Document
My Pillow the Making Of
Tech Document on Maya Fur
Tech Document on Maya Fur
The Demo Real Shot I created a turnaround for my bear character. It shows both a clay render, wire frame and a fur render.
Here are the Blank DVD covers Business cards etc.
Business card
Disc
DVD case
These are the designs specifically for the 'My Pillow'
DVD case and Disc.
DVD case
Disc
Now time to rest.
A Flock of Pixels
The Making Of Document
My Pillow the Making Of
Tech Document on Maya Fur
Tech Document on Maya Fur
The Demo Real Shot I created a turnaround for my bear character. It shows both a clay render, wire frame and a fur render.
Here are the Blank DVD covers Business cards etc.
Business card
Disc
DVD case
These are the designs specifically for the 'My Pillow'
DVD case and Disc.
DVD case
Disc
Now time to rest.
A Flock of Pixels
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Transcription - Bits and Bobs
Just a quick post today!
In the animation, there are some slippers riding the ghost train as well as the bear and pillow.
Here is the final model of the slippers, complete with texture.
_________________________________________________
Here is the scene where the bear and pillow are under the tree.
Here is just the set of the cave with its textures. (not lit yet)
_________________________________________________
I've also been thinking about re designing A Flock of Pixels.
Here are a few test logo/idents made in Maya.
This is actually based on an idea I already had when I first thought up A Flock of Pixels.
Using cube pixels with 'bee wings'.
Animation is almost done and the rendering is well under way.
A Flock of Pixels.
In the animation, there are some slippers riding the ghost train as well as the bear and pillow.
Here is the final model of the slippers, complete with texture.
_________________________________________________
Here is the scene where the bear and pillow are under the tree.
Here is just the set of the cave with its textures. (not lit yet)
_________________________________________________
I've also been thinking about re designing A Flock of Pixels.
Here are a few test logo/idents made in Maya.
This is actually based on an idea I already had when I first thought up A Flock of Pixels.
Using cube pixels with 'bee wings'.
Animation is almost done and the rendering is well under way.
A Flock of Pixels.
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