week14: adjustment of my scene

For this week I just do some adjustment of my scene. I divided my time into two part, the first part I do some changes of my texture. The second part I do some of lighting.
I did a light flog which is insert from the window. First I create a spot light and adjustment the parameter, and then in light efect I choose the light flog.
Finally, My work is looks like this:

week13: Create my texture by uv mapping and simple lighting test

For this week I did my objects textured by uv mapping and put all my scene and image resource in a project fodler as well.
I found some online turtorial for texture and lighting , this is the address for some of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxWsgm4p77A&playnext=1&list=PLD63CF71CC7F29C8E
http://www.treddi.com/forum/topic/8436-interior-lighting-in-mental-ray/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-q40qF1Q0Q
Finally, I create my scene as following:

For this scene the texture is not good enough, Because of some of them as not look in a dirty and old style,especially the pipe, actually i create some of rust for the pipes. But after the lighting, it looks not very clear and looks like no texture. This is a big problem.
Also the light is too dark for my scene. I need to do some more test in the following week.

week 12 texture create

For this week, I divided my time for two parts, the first part is model some object again to make them looks more smoothly. The second part is searching some texture and reproduces them in PS.  I found that I must creat all my texture and bump map by ps, this could my scene looks more realistic and in a right hue which I want to create. 

Now I will show some part of texture and bump map which I created by myself.

This is the wall in the back, and I test it in two hues and them choose the dark one in my scene. I use the image adjustment in Ps to make my texture in balck and white style as a bump map as well.

This is the texture for my floor, this is create by Ps as well. But I still not satisfy with this picture, I think the stone on the floor is a little bit rough and I need to make them more detailed. The picture which is in black and white style is the bump map for the floor.

 This is the texture for the wall in the right hand. I uesd almost 20 layers  to create this texture.

 I also create some of the texture for pipes which are in my scene as well.

week 11 assignment02 modeling

This week I do some works on my assignment 02. The challenge for me is the pipes. In this scene have a lots kinds of pipes and I must focus on the details for them. This is a abandoned factory, the room is empety, no machines no works, except the pipes. That's make them so important. If I can not model the pipes well, this scene will looks not exceting.
I find some online tutorial and do my pipes and scene.This is the picture of my scene looks like until know.

Week10: preparation for assignment 02

I did some research about Maya scene on Internet. I got several photo realistic pictures, and this abandon facture is my favorite one.

The modeling for this scene is pretty sample, the door and the widows could be extrude several time from a box, and the tube also could create a cylinder and do extrude or create it from a EP cure and change it to polygon.

The hue is Beige; this could tell audiences this is a abandon facture. The color is not Beige.

The texture is really hard part I think. The mess thing on the wall is a huge challenge. I did some research in inline tutorial. It needs to take some high resolution pictures of the calcimine which are cracked and pelled off. Also I need to use bump map to develop the pictures and make them more real in Maya.

For the lighten part. I pretty like the light which irradiate from ouside of the window also I think this is a big challenge for me, I try to make some light from the window for my last assignment, but failed. The light could not across from the glasses and into the room. I also want to know how to create the smoke which is located in the left part of this photo. Is it an effect from some kinds of light?

I also find out some othe pictures online for inspiration.

Now I will show part of my research of texture.

Week 9 Bump mapping texture

This week I focus on how to create a bump mapping in Ps and insert it to Maya scene.  I find Stuart Christensen’s online tutorial which is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxWsgm4p77A. It’s very helpful.

This is the screenshot for this online tutorial.

I learned how to create a bump map in Ps in two ways.

The first one is: download a high resolution texture online and place it into Ps. Duplicate the layer and click Image menu and find out adjustment and then choose Desturate to make the high resolution picture to black and white one. For more details, just change the bright/contrast or levels.

The second way is using Invert to change the positive and negative values.

The most important thing I learned in this online tutorial is that for best results, use high resolution images and keep everything matched. Maya loves 2048*2048 or 1024*1024 size textures. But smaller sizes will work well for really small surface.

 

Week 08 create a catfish by subdivision

This week I just focus on subdivision surfaces. I like it, because I think that subdivision surfaces are a combination of some of the best features of both NURBS and polygon surfaces. Why I said that? First, subdivision surface allow arbitrary topology which makes objects are easy to model with. Second, like NURBS surfaces, subdivision render smoothly.

I create a catfish by subdivision surfaces, and the steps are as following:

First: I create a subdiv primitives →sphere, extrude and in polyExtrudeFaces node, change the Divisions to 4 or 1.

Second: extrude the tail, then the top and buttom faces of the tail to create the long pieces of fin. The picture is as following

 

Third: Extrude other fins, and the picture is as following.

Forth part: I create the head of this cat fish, I extrude whiskers, eyes and mouth by insert edge and split the edge tool.

              

Finally, I give my model 3 smooth.  It looks like the picture as following.

Then I just render it out ,it looks like this:

It still look rough, the problem is that the surfaces which I extrude is looks not very smooth after rendering. I will keep going and find out the solution.

 

Week 7 create my character into the scene.

This week I concentrate on create my character. As the sketch show, this week I have a huge number of works to do.

First, I search a lot of online tutorial which are include create a head in curve, polygon and subdivision as well.

The link is as following:

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/tutorials/modeling/c/modeling-a-polygon-head

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/tutorials/P-maya/T-Maya-Modeling-Box-modeling-a-human-head/ID-172/

http://www.hxsd.com/tutorial/jianmozhuanlan/Maya/20090507/18730.html

http://www.hxsd.com/tutorial/jianmozhuanlan/Maya/20090722/20635.html

Also I find some tutorial on Maya modeling handbook. I found a lot of probems and create two or there unsuccessiful head, this is the last one and looks little bit better.  Finally, I create my character in the scene as the picture.

The main tool which I used to create this character is extrude, insert edge loop tool and split edges tool.

Then I textured this character and insert it into my scene which is I showed last week. The problem is that I consider about the floor is too messy and I can’t see the shadow on the floor very clear, this made my scene looks not like a 3D scene after rendering, also I got another problem here, the wall paper is Time Burton style, but I think there is a little bit confuse about which is the main thing to focus on. Mark help me show something new and the scene is looks much better than before.

      

The most two important things which i learned form his demonstration.

First, I need to do a research what is the martial of floor a painting room used in real world.

Secondly, change the number of repeat to make the texture more clear and realistic.  

 

Week 6 modeling my first scene

For this week, I am focus on use polygon to create my first scene and texture them with mapping.

First I create there boxes for main structure of my scene.

Second, I use polygon and extrude to create my painting work on the wall and easel.

Third, I create a polygon box and change the location of vertices and create my color tube. I also use this way to create the messy things on the floor.

This is my scene after modeling.

In texture part, I RMB and assign new material to my item, and then create a new lambert and in the color option I click the box and choose file. In this way I put the texture which I create by myself on lambert. Then just select the object and assign the new material. After this I found some of the texture need to repeat several times for looks better.

Finally, I finished my texture for this scene as following:

 

Week 05: Inspiration and resource collection for my first assignment

For this week I just consider about the scene for my first assignment. I searched some picture online for inspiration and draw my sketches as following:

This is my favorite one. I got the inspiration from Tim Burton’s art work and then create this creepy painting room. The strange painting work will hung on the wall and the floor should have a lot of mess thing. The main thing for this scene is the artist absorb by a huge color tube. In our daily life the color tubes are smaller than a human being and they just used by artist. In this scene everything is changing. This is quit strange and crazy, I love this idea. Also I hope to create it as my first scene.

Now I will show other my sketches.

In this week I also find some texture for my assignment 01, I will show some of them here. They are really big and high quality picture and here I just resize it for upload quicker.

 

Week 04 Use the EP curve tool to create a hair

I find the tutorial in The modeling & animation handbook about how to create hair and do some exercise.

First: Select create EP curve tool and do all my work in front view.

Second: Select create nurbs primitives —--circle, and then select both curve and circle by shift and create the hair curve.

Third: Under the surface menu Extrude and □, and do the options like following:

style→tube

Result position → at path

Pivot →component

Orientation → Profile normal

Output geometry → polygon

Type →Quads

Tessellation methods to count

Count to 40

Forth: Edit Mesh → Merge to center

Finally, I create a new lambert in hypershade and texture my character’s hair as yellow as the picture.  

 

week03 Head modeling

This week I focus on head molding, and I did the research on “The Modeling & Animation Handbook” which is a handbook of Autodesk Maya 2009.

My modeling is from a cube as following: Width divisions to 6, Height division to 6, and depth division to 3.During the molding, I found that Insert edge loop tool; Split edges are the very important tool. When extrude the eyes, brows, nose and mouth we need those tool to insert new edges.   

But I got a problem about Mirror instance in Edit—Duplicate special. When I delete half head and duplicate is ok. But when I extrude the nose and mouth, there is still have a surface in the middle part, and after press “3”, the head is looks so strange.

I also got the online tutorial, the address is that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d0viMxjD_E.

week 02 Insert a reference layer into my maya

Edit my drawing as side and front view in PS, press ctrl+ r using the ruler tool during this step. And then save them as TIFF format. The next step is inserting my drawing in Maya.

I got two different ways to do this step.

First way is that using NURBS plane and a file texture that is mapped onto that plane. For this step, I must make sure about I already created a project folder. The steps are as fowling:

A: create—NURBS Primitives—Plane-option box and rename as front reference plane.

B: In channel box rescale the plane according the image.

C: Window—Rendering Editors—Hypershade.

D: Create—Materials—Lambert.

E: MMB click and drag the newly created Lambert material onto your NURBS plane and double click the Lambert and click the option button behind color. Chose File and open the front image.

F: When move cursor over a view panel and press 6 ,the image appear in my Maya view panel.

G: Also in the same way to input side view into Maya.

Finally, in the layer Editor of the channel Box, and create a new layer and rename it as reference layer.

The second is Image Planes. This is still work in window Hypershade and the steps are similar, for the following two steps are different.

A: Tabs—show Top and Bottom tabs.

B: Click on cameras tab to display all the cameras in the scene in the top panel, and MMB+ drag an imageplane onto the camera frontshape in the work area.

For me, I do not like Image plane, because I think it is difficult to reposition camera image plane.

Nancy's work for week 01

For this week, I just wondering how to design a character by myself and consider something about what kind of character I prefer.

I found a very helpful book called “An Essential Introduction to Maya Character Rigging” in library. This book contains eight parts which are from very beginning introduction. First thing I learn from this book is some common Hotkeys used in Maya. Such as press F1 I could go to Maya help directly. F2 link with Animation Menu, F3 connect with Modeling Menu, F4 means surfaces Menu, also 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.9 have their special meaning and so on. Also I try them under my working surface. I considered if I want to familiar with those complete codes it will cost a really hard time to do more practice, however I still think those code must be very helpful during create my characters and save such time.

The most cool thing in this book is that the owner designed workflow for each step of designing. Now I will share one of the workflow:

Also this book recommends a boy’s work on http://www.zapmyshorts.com/site/zap/1/ . I love the banana one, it’s really funny.

And I just consider about my first character, and just do some sketches. I will use one of them as my first toy idea. Next week I will do more work on modeling. Now I will show my pictures here,Those pictures I do it on PS and Hand-painted plate to create. 

 

And those pictures just paint them on pieces of paper.