Week 13: Polygons

After trying to light and render in maya and finally comp in nuke I have realised I most definitely need to brush up more on these techniques. I need to know them and definitely need to familiarise myself with nuke, which at this stage seems like it will be a long and difficult journey based on the past few hours.

But I am happy enough with the outcome over-all.

Week 13: The never-ending Nurbs adventure

Finally, somehow some of the images in the render farm did not render and so I rendered the rest myself...then afterwards realised I'd rendered from the wrong scene... great. Thankfully, the process was not too time consuming, as I was only short about 25 frames. So well I got there in the end:

Week 13: Nurbs

Last minute rendering, I had hoped to receive my renders today, but unfortunately they could only be put into today's render batch :( so, it's all a waiting game for the camera movement.

For the stills with the ambient occlusion however:

I was having a few glitches getting my ambient occlusion to work, turns out it was an easy-enough fix.

So this is the reference image:

Week 13: Polygons

Polygon shoe finished textures:

                                      

Next up: Lighting, Rendering & Compositing.

Week 13: Poster

Handed in my research poster for printing today and I am not going to lie, I am terrible at poster design.



Despite being a creative person, I prefer to use my words when explaining an idea or a concept. This became clear in my text-ridden poster. I really should have made the poster more clear, broke up the text with clear sections and used less text.  Visually the poster could have been improved, however I definitely feel my message was clear and that the images assist in the understanding of the topics discussed.

After a lot of deliberation, I decided to continue with the idea of 'believability' in CG characters but within the team project, my focus would be looking at how to make the character look real in a live-action environment. The character will not look like he/she belongs in the environment, just (hopefully) that they appear to actually be in it. It is this concept that I am aiming to create by investigating the factors involved in perceptual believability.

Week 12: Polygons

Uv mapping and texturing:



I (for some reason) decided to smooth my object before UV mapping, so I gave myself a slightly more difficult job in UV mapping. Trying to understand where the best places to cut the objects for the best results I found rather difficult. It took me some time, but I got there in the end.



Again, another task I felt like I had no idea what I was doing - texturing. However, after some advice from one of my peers I found the whole process was really rather enjoyable.

Week 11: Polygons

Poly shoe progress:

After creating the sides of the shoe I had realised that I needed holes for the laces. Of course I hadn't thought to create them and then duplicate that side and move it over.  So for the sake of position and time, I put the holes in one half, deleted what would have been the completed other side, duplicated and moved it into place. Then I had to tweak and edit the other side to sit as it should. It was surprisingly not as painful as I had originally assumed.

The laces proved to be rather tricky. Getting the right shape and preventing the laves from intersecting each other too much, for example was more time consuming than I had anticipated.

Week 10: Polygons

I finally began my shoe...and let me tell you that everyone lied when they said that modelling in polygons would be easier!

Having used maya only once or twice before, and running miles away in the opposite direction whenever the term 'Maya' was used, I really did feel like I was coming into this completely fresh.

When I began I found it really difficult to get my mind out of the nurbs mindset. Modeling in polygons is very different. 

I had to restart the model several times but after some guidance from my peers I started to get my head around it. Eventually.

Week 9: A little 'to do' list for myself

After Jeanette's class today, I realised just how little time we have left till hand in. In a slight panic, I drew myself up a little emergency schedule:

Week 9: Project meeting

After the script writing class with Mark Grindle, the team and I were discussing our idea. Although entertaining, there were many gaps or issues that needed to be solved and on top of that the amount of work we were creating to ensure the story made sense seemed rather ambitious within the time we have.

we decided to adapt the idea, maintaining similar elements as before but with a simpler story-line.

After a meeting with Phil it was clear that we needed the story to be shorted but still to have a beginning, a middle and an end. It was suggested that we use sharper edits/cuts to ensure we keep film length to a minimum and that no matter how we change the story we ensure the story has a "narrative hook". Otherwise, the story will get lost.

The meeting really helped to clear our heads and we decided we needed to try to come up with a simpler story-line.

Week 9: Nurbs

Creating more props using curves in nurbs:

The chairs in particular were rather tricky. I had to adopt a number of techniques to get all of the shapes i required.

 The glasses, plates, and mugs were really very simple once I gained an understanding of how to use the revolve tool properly.

I can honestly say I learned so much more and at a quicker rate when I was learning how to create the props. In retrospect, it seems to have taken me a great deal of time just to get familiar with using nurbs and curves as a means to modelling but I undoubtedly learned a lot from this project.

Week 8: Nurbs

In the image, there is a curtain in the back. It looks like it is most probably a small window, but it looked as though it could have been a door curtain and so I modeled a door. However, in the image the door/window is tucked away in the corner. I modeled my door further along the wall to a more suitable position.

I was rather looking forward to making the curtain. It was rather interesting seeing how the curves lofted together to make this shape. However, trying to get the curtain to look smooth and natural is proving to be a task.