Experimenting And Optimization

As the work for the going live project is getting intense, we were introduced to a new problem. How to put hair for the TROLL DOLL. Several techniques were used for the hair  like fibre mesh in Zbrush and maya fur & hair. The only problem that was constant is the time taken for the rendering the hair in maya(37 seconds for a single frame). So I experimented and tried to minimise the time taken for the render. Like rendering the hair in 3ds max, using scanline render and rendering the rest of the object in maya. But initial experimentation in the morning didnt workout really well. After the lunch it was a success. Yes.! the hair was rendered in 3ds max ( 19 seconds for a single frame, half the time in maya) and it could be easily composited in After effects with the other render of the model in maya.!

 Maya Render

3ds Max Render

AE Composition

Stan Winsent School Of Set Modelling

While browsing through many CG Forums and websites, I was always amused by the set modelling and character arts done in many movies and Tv shows. I made a good research about it and found that  Stan Winston School Of Set Modelling was the top in the buisness.

And in the past week many articles about the online tutorial in the Stan Winston School made me to subscribe for the online course and i have started doing the course in the part time.

Going Live

And so the modelling for the going live is almost 99% done and it had some short comings. I took the sylvanian rabbit to model. The model sheet was done by Katherine and while modelling it there were some issues which had to be encountered. Katherine helped me in sculpting the head of the rabbit in mudbox on which I later did retopology and cleaned up the model and did the UV for it. There were problems(sculpting) faced by me while doing it. But with help of my team it came on quite well.

And along side the modelling we are parallely finishing the texture work and also doing the pre vis for the project, which we had no idea of how to go ahead, when Brendon gave us a helping hand in starting the pre vis. Due to which we are doing it in a good speed to finish it.

Animation And Going Live

And the lesson for the week was the basics of learning the curve editor and the fundamental of animation using the bounce ball. The curve editor is the major and important essence for the animation and the class covered it fully and it went on well.

Along with the learning curve is the working of going live for the axis studio. Along with some team meeting and scheduling stuffs the production for the project has been started from this weekend.

Animating More

After the tutorial for the walk cycle. The making of a run cycle and a lip sync for a 3D character ended up quite well. There was pretty much no big challenges faced while trying it

Lip Sync Trail

Run Cycle Trail

The end result were good but still have to refine the facial animation for the lip sync to make it realistic.

Run Cycle

Lip Sync

Live CGI

As my final project and research question has took a turn and the major inspiration for the action to happen is due to the CGMeetUp page in Facebook It is a page where tutorials, behind the scenes, forum with questions and jobs are mentioned. And the recent release of Behind the scenes and making of Iron Man 3.

Iron Man 3

And also most fascinated by the making of the chemical brothers wide open. The reason for why I like this breakdown is because of the effort of the actor, level of composition and match moving. And majorly the camera trips and the camera track done the crew.

making of the chemical brothers wide open

Animation Work - Walk Cycle

With the resuming of the classes in the second semester, and the going live project, the first try in the maya lab was the basic human walk cycle. It was pretty much exciting and simple. We tried the walk cycle along with Sang in the class and later I worked on with a free rigged character from CG Meet Up and tried a walk cycle.

The preview playblast was taken and the end result was pretty much good.

Walk Cycle