Kyle's Help: Graph Editor
Following the lesson about camera, I sat down with my set trying to decide what to film. To make the camera ease in and ease out was causing me some trouble.
Kyle sat down with me and taught me the tools within the graph editor, and how the translate/rotate effects my camera movement. We also went over flattening and breaking tangents to make animating the camera easier. He also told me how to add frames and move them in order to create smooth easing in and out. This took around an hour of his time.
Edit: He has also taught me how to use buffer curves to edit the curve within the graph editor and flick between the two find which one works best. This allows me to slow down a camera movement, without spending time on key frames.
The construction of a quaint little village somewhere in the land of Jenn.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Little Gloaming: Getting the textures right.
More images of playing around with textures and colours...
The render times are looking scary on the close up ambient shots, but only coming in at 1 - 2 mins on the distance shots, so we'll see how it goes.
The render times are looking scary on the close up ambient shots, but only coming in at 1 - 2 mins on the distance shots, so we'll see how it goes.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Little Gloaming
Applying the amibent occlusion to the Horton look:
Composited colour and ambient passes:
Colour pass:
Ambient Occlusion pass:
Composited colour and ambient passes:
Colour pass:
Ambient Occlusion pass:
Little Gloaming: Lighting: Kyle's Help (Group Work).
Lighting.
In order to gain a better understanding of lighting, Kyle sat down with me and ran me through the basics of Maya's lighting. We played around with different lights so I understood what each one did. He did a few tests for me to see how final gather and global illumination worked with lighting. This took around 2 hours to get me started.
Below are the images Kyle produced:
In order to gain a better understanding of lighting, Kyle sat down with me and ran me through the basics of Maya's lighting. We played around with different lights so I understood what each one did. He did a few tests for me to see how final gather and global illumination worked with lighting. This took around 2 hours to get me started.
Below are the images Kyle produced:
Little Gloaming: Ambient Occlusion.
Ambient Occlusion
To back up the simple textures and create a solid looking piece, I will be using ambient occlusion. I will be creating to passes in Maya, colour and ambient. I will then composite these in Aftereffects to create my final camera pan. To test the occlusion I have rendered out views and multiplied the ambient over the colour in photoshop to see how it will work.
To begin with I ramped up the samples past 80, and the final result was far too dark...
Closer to what I want...
To back up the simple textures and create a solid looking piece, I will be using ambient occlusion. I will be creating to passes in Maya, colour and ambient. I will then composite these in Aftereffects to create my final camera pan. To test the occlusion I have rendered out views and multiplied the ambient over the colour in photoshop to see how it will work.
To begin with I ramped up the samples past 80, and the final result was far too dark...
Closer to what I want...
Little Gloaming: UV's...
UV's.
Within my project I have started to use the UV texture editor to make textures apply better. I have become comfortable with plannar, spherical, cylindrical and automatic mapping and how to edit UV's in the editor. I've been using cut, move and sew and the lattice tool in order to arrange the UV's for my objects.
Within my project I have started to use the UV texture editor to make textures apply better. I have become comfortable with plannar, spherical, cylindrical and automatic mapping and how to edit UV's in the editor. I've been using cut, move and sew and the lattice tool in order to arrange the UV's for my objects.
Little Gloaming: Hortoning my work.
Horton Hears a Who.
This film has very quirky, oddly shaped buildings and its textures work really well. I have previously been adding lots of intricate details that were trying to turn something very bold and stylised into a realistic environment. The sheer look of my buildings creates an element of fantasy, and I feel the textures should encourage this rather then be covered up to be something they aren't.
Horton uses subtle textures with bold, simple colours to create a very polished look.
Creating the look in Maya:
I wanted to use the softness created by Horton to make my own work stand out. I spent some time playing in the hypershade to create similar results. The results look better when ambient occlusion is used, with the samples ramped up to at least 64.
(Below is without ambient)
I used the noise as a bump, ramp as colour and fractal to create the fluffyness within the colour and blended them into a basic lambert and then played with the settings.
This film has very quirky, oddly shaped buildings and its textures work really well. I have previously been adding lots of intricate details that were trying to turn something very bold and stylised into a realistic environment. The sheer look of my buildings creates an element of fantasy, and I feel the textures should encourage this rather then be covered up to be something they aren't.
Horton uses subtle textures with bold, simple colours to create a very polished look.
Creating the look in Maya:
I wanted to use the softness created by Horton to make my own work stand out. I spent some time playing in the hypershade to create similar results. The results look better when ambient occlusion is used, with the samples ramped up to at least 64.
(Below is without ambient)
I used the noise as a bump, ramp as colour and fractal to create the fluffyness within the colour and blended them into a basic lambert and then played with the settings.
Little Gloaming: Texturing.
Colour Palette.
Texturing.
When I started out figuring out the style of Little Gloaming, I was always torn when it came to the asthetic look of the textures. From gaining images for my wall at home for inspiration I knew I was stuck. I started out following what is expected of a village, rendered walls, brick work and cobbles stones in the grass. However, when I rendered the image and looked at it, I felt it completely ruined my modelling. The textures, although layered and photoshopped to a decent standard looked very game-like and didn't compliment the unique style of my models.
The textures below where all made with bump maps. They have layers of moss, dirt, sand photospped over each other.
To get the pathways right, I drew a rough idea of it in photoshop, loaded it into maya, edited, reloaded and repeated the process which didn't take too long. Even though this one won't be used, I plan to reuse the map to create the new texture.
After much anguish I decided to delete the textures I had created, along with their bump maps and started over.
This time I chose an original piece of inspiration to help with my design.
To get a basic idea, I applied lamberts to play around with colours in maya, here is an example:
Texturing.
When I started out figuring out the style of Little Gloaming, I was always torn when it came to the asthetic look of the textures. From gaining images for my wall at home for inspiration I knew I was stuck. I started out following what is expected of a village, rendered walls, brick work and cobbles stones in the grass. However, when I rendered the image and looked at it, I felt it completely ruined my modelling. The textures, although layered and photoshopped to a decent standard looked very game-like and didn't compliment the unique style of my models.
The textures below where all made with bump maps. They have layers of moss, dirt, sand photospped over each other.
To get the pathways right, I drew a rough idea of it in photoshop, loaded it into maya, edited, reloaded and repeated the process which didn't take too long. Even though this one won't be used, I plan to reuse the map to create the new texture.
After much anguish I decided to delete the textures I had created, along with their bump maps and started over.
This time I chose an original piece of inspiration to help with my design.
Little Gloaming Continued 2.
To create my models I have employed a lot of the techniques learnt in my second year from tutorials. However, this year I have been much more alert to the effect geometry has on texturing and the overall look of a model. The main tools I have used in creating my village have been (not including selection tools):
Extrude, Smooth, Bend deformer, Bevel, Cut faces, Split Poly, Cut edge loop, Extrude to curve, Sculpt geometry, etc.
A few snipets of the work in progress:
Extrude, Smooth, Bend deformer, Bevel, Cut faces, Split Poly, Cut edge loop, Extrude to curve, Sculpt geometry, etc.
A few snipets of the work in progress:
Little Gloaming: Models
Breakdown of buildings.
Wand Shop:
Vegetable Store:
Bridge and Pumpkin Patch:
Potions Cart (this wasnt going to be included as it ruined the composition when added to the scene, but I got persuaded by Kyle to keep it as more of a backing item to the scene as opposed to a focal point.):
Margies Cauldrons:
Mog and Broom:
Plants (example of duplicating one object to create many):
Wand Shop:
Vegetable Store:
Bridge and Pumpkin Patch:
Potions Cart (this wasnt going to be included as it ruined the composition when added to the scene, but I got persuaded by Kyle to keep it as more of a backing item to the scene as opposed to a focal point.):
Margies Cauldrons:
Mog and Broom:
Plants (example of duplicating one object to create many):
Little Gloaming Continued.
Finished Modelling.
These are the final version of my models (in smooth preview to allow quicker work flow). I narrowed the modelling to the final part of my village with the more interesting buildings. However I do have the remainder of the blocking in my scene hidden in layers.
To maximise workflow, I used layers for each of the buildings with different wireframe colours, and made my outliner lovely and tidy for easy access to each item. I found that throughout the project I have developed a set work pattern which makes my modelling easier. I use a near white lambert as my default colour with a high diffuse to make spotting geometry mistakes easier, I also tend to have my wireframe on shaded.
Below: Small section my my outliner.
These are the final version of my models (in smooth preview to allow quicker work flow). I narrowed the modelling to the final part of my village with the more interesting buildings. However I do have the remainder of the blocking in my scene hidden in layers.
To maximise workflow, I used layers for each of the buildings with different wireframe colours, and made my outliner lovely and tidy for easy access to each item. I found that throughout the project I have developed a set work pattern which makes my modelling easier. I use a near white lambert as my default colour with a high diffuse to make spotting geometry mistakes easier, I also tend to have my wireframe on shaded.
Below: Small section my my outliner.
Little Gloaming
Finished Modelling.
Example of modelled buildings and their original concepts (Please note that these screenshots are all in Maya's smooth preview):
The Mog and Broom Store has changed a little from concept to production, I decided that the slant made the building much more likeable and worked with the quirky nature of the designs without adding too much more geometry. I built the original version like the concept, then rotated the top and bottom to create the interesting shape.
The shape has more or less stayed the same for Margies, but I think the overall shape has worked very well in 3D form.
Comparison between block out and finalising the end result:
Ok, it's been a while since my last post. I have been busy finishing off all of the modelling to the set. The make sure the project has more quality instead of quantity, I have reduced the camera pan to only show the final part of the village instead of all the build up which didn't have much in terms of detailing.
Example of modelled buildings and their original concepts (Please note that these screenshots are all in Maya's smooth preview):
The Mog and Broom Store has changed a little from concept to production, I decided that the slant made the building much more likeable and worked with the quirky nature of the designs without adding too much more geometry. I built the original version like the concept, then rotated the top and bottom to create the interesting shape.
The shape has more or less stayed the same for Margies, but I think the overall shape has worked very well in 3D form.
Comparison between block out and finalising the end result:
James Set Finalised.
James Set.
I have alot to document, and Im going to start by showing the final version of James's set. I was asked by James to come up with a simple set from the drawings he gave me so that it could be toon shaded in maya to match his 2D work. I am currently waiting for a finished image of the set with all of the grass and rocks duplicated.
Here are the concept drawings I was given to work with:
I asked James to produce a top down layout for me to follow, I imported this into maya to create my basic shape, extruded, tweaked and smoothed the cliff.
This look didn't work for James, as the toon shader didn't react to well to the deformations in the rock face and it clashed with the overall style been as it was too detailed. I went back to an original incremental and used the starting shape, tweaked it a bit and used it for the final design. This with a few rocks, grass clumps and tree was what I produced for the final result.
I have alot to document, and Im going to start by showing the final version of James's set. I was asked by James to come up with a simple set from the drawings he gave me so that it could be toon shaded in maya to match his 2D work. I am currently waiting for a finished image of the set with all of the grass and rocks duplicated.
Here are the concept drawings I was given to work with:
I asked James to produce a top down layout for me to follow, I imported this into maya to create my basic shape, extruded, tweaked and smoothed the cliff.
This look didn't work for James, as the toon shader didn't react to well to the deformations in the rock face and it clashed with the overall style been as it was too detailed. I went back to an original incremental and used the starting shape, tweaked it a bit and used it for the final design. This with a few rocks, grass clumps and tree was what I produced for the final result.
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