More Outline Tests | Major Project | Year 3

In a bid to make the models look more 'hand-drawn' with choppy outlines, I've been experimenting with toon outliner even more. The car looks absolutely fantastic with this choppy outline but on the other models, I'm not so sure. The normal outline works very well but I'm unsure if this adds to the look or ruins the effect. I might tweak this outline further on individual models to try and perfect it.

Split Renders | Major Project | Year 3

Batch Render Test | Door Opening | Render | Fantastic Voyage

Batch Render Test | Door Opening | My Science Project from Beckie Ryan on Vimeo.

This was a test run for batch rendering my animation. This is the opening scene from the pre-viz as the lights and positing are identical to how this scene is laid out in the final scene.

Overall the lighting looks good but I think that I need to find a way to light the stage area a little more with the ambient light.

Frame 184 is missing (un-rendered for some reason) so there is a slight glitch in the animation but this will be resolved for the final piece.

Sign, Render and Movement Testing | Playblast | Maya | Fantastic Voyage

Sign, Render and Movement Testing | My Science Project from Beckie Ryan on Vimeo.

This is an incomplete playblast of my pre-viz. This was to test the signs, render quality and movement of the objects and signs within the piece.

All of the pieces shown have had their UVs created and basic textures applied. I applied a slightly different top layer to the 'warden tower' which gives it more of a 'painted on cardboard' effect. I think for the final animation, I will apply this texture top layer to all of the pieces to give it more of a realistic look.

Early Pre-Viz Renders | Maya | Fantastic Voyage

These are some renders of my early pre-viz. The UVs have been corrected on the cardboard and many of the pieces have had textures especially made for them. These were made to test the lighting and how the components should look when layered correctly. 

Pre-viz of Box | Render | Maya | Fantastic Voyage

Maya - pre-viz of box

Maya - pre-vis of open box

I've successfully managed to pre-viz the basic set of my box for the animation. For now, I've also added in a basic cardboard texture to the box to add a bit of depth.

Lighting is a bit of an issue as I keep getting a hot spot at the back but I'm going to try and change some of the lighting and shadow settings to see if this will help. 

Final Render | Hibernaculumis | What If

Part Textured Scene | Hibernaculumis | Work In Progress | Maya

I've started the texturing process and plotting in some basic window shapes. I'm not sure if they seem too clustered yet but I will add them to the other buildings first in this manor before I make a better decision.

Hibernaculumis | Work In Progress | Maya

This is the work that I have completed so far in my Maya scene! With a few small hiccups along the way, I have manage to model all of my buildings which are all looking great! I've mapped out some of the UV's which do need a bit more work on, just to make sure that my textures lie across the surface properly. Finally, I've mapped out a rough version of my city. This isn't my final piece but a great test version which has allowed me to scale all the buildings and set the city layout and the camera angle as well as some basic lighting!

The images above show my progress from when I first imported all the buildings into a test scene and replacing some buildings with better models, to testing lighting and basic UVs. The final image was a test with the matte painting to check the colour of the lighting used in the scene.

My next tasks are:

• to add in windows and doors 
• UV the remaining buildings

Alleyway Scene | Complete | Tutorial | Maya

AO pass, Diffuse pass, Matt pass

Final image after photoshop

Here is the finished Alleyway scene. This was great to make as I've definitely learnt a lot about this process. It was a lot more intensive than I first thought it would be but it has given me a great insight into what to do with my city when I create that in Maya too.

Texturing | Alleyway Scene | Tutorial | Maya

Left - walls and floor complete
Right - wood and poster complete

With the texturing completed (part 4 complete) I thought now would be a good time to post an update before I finish the bump, spec and final composite.

Alleyway Update | Lighting | Tutorial | Maya | Screenshots

The lighting is now done for the alleyway scene. These are the 12 renders I took of the scene throughout the process from start to finish.

Birthday Cake! | Screenshots | Maya

It's my birthday! People normally have cake to celebrate but being a student = lack of money, so I made a 3D cake for myself instead. At least I won't get the calories from it!

Texturing Part 2: UV Layout | Tutorial | Complete | Screenshots | Maya

I struggled a lot with this tutorial, not due to the video itself but due to Maya randomly deciding to start using soft selection for no reason which made it look like lava (see below)

After a bit of help from Charlie, I managed to turn this feature off before starting. I found it a very easy process and can see how it would be helpful in the future but I think I would also need a paper version to work with so I could understand the direction in which the detail would need to go.

Texturing Part 1: Common Shaders | Tutorial | Complete | Screenshots | Maya

This is the work from Monday's lesson. Unfortunately there were several problems with the computer I was working on which resulted in it crashing several times, so instead, I took notes and have done it this evening with some help from the online tutorial.

It was great to learn how to render objects in this way, as I think they could come in very handy in the future. I think they all went very well, although I think the gold render does need tweaking as it looks slightly to orange.

2nd Maya Tutorial | Ray Gun | Extension | Screenshots | Maya

I was so impressed by myself for completing the Ray Gun tutorial, that I thought that I would experiment a bit with the program and create a Steampunk Ray Gun. I remembered all of the tools and how to render it in toon so I tried to apply copper and gold effects to give it more of an authentic vintage look. I have two final render images above, one without the toon line and one with, just because I couldn't decide which looks better!