In class we built a little piston for the arm and I would like to move the thumb into place and create more of a hand shape.
What I learnt
Nick showed us how to use the Arnold Renderer in the Viewport which was really cool.
There are different options in something called the Debug Shading which has a variety of shading, in the example be
To create the piston I used a polygon primitive Cylinder, I learnt that it you hit the Shift key and drag a shape, it will automatically duplicate the object.
I also learnt that you can adjust the scale on specific axis’s by changing the colourful squares.
After creating the piston shape out of Cylinders that were manipulated in shape and size, we then moved onto rigging.
Rigging
Nick showed us how to rig up the piston by first adding a Locator. I learnt that a Locator is just an area in space that we can anchor objects to, to make them move.
I added to Locators to the top and bottom cyclinder and used the Snap tool to make sure they were in the correct place. Then changed the pivot point of the thicker outer case and the thnner inner case to also be the centre of the top and bottom cylinders, again using the Snap Tool.
Constraints
Next it was time to add constraints. To make it work I learnt that the object that is the master controller is the one that must be selected First, then the object that you would like to constrain. I constrained a locator to the piston and then the other to the outer case.
I needed a little bit of extra help because the different types of Constraints were confusing me so I found this video which helped me understand what the difference between a Parent and an Aim Constraint is.
The object, in this case the piston will maintain its position but will point to wherever the Locator is.
By applying Maintain Offset, you can control the position.
Then we applied a Point Constraint. This time of constraint will apply the translate only.
In order to do my previs, I started out with a spreadsheet with a rough plan of all my shots in each scene that accompanies / fleshes out my story board.
I started out with the scene that I wrote out for my storyboard and then I used that to think about the different shots within that scene. I included what kind of camera angle or movement id like, the music or sound effects in that particular shot, the lighting or “effects”, for me this just referred to the light colour, and maybe if there was a slight depth of field on the camera.
Because I don’t know what it looks like inside a factory, I have taken a few pictures from online as inspiration for the factory.
I also then made a plan of the object that I would like to model or attempt to model. I have given an estimate to the level of difficult and what software I should use for it. I also have found some links to good tutorials to help me. I really want to attempt the modelling as I think some of it could be pieces for my portfolio.
So far I attempted to model a can, the “main character” of my story. I found a really good tutorial on YouTube on how to attempt this. I also brought my own cans and had them as reference. Below is an image I used as a reference in Maya.
I imported it as an image plane to use in Top and Front orthographic view in Maya
I first started off with a cylinder with all but the top deleted, from there I extruded it outwards to create the outer edge of the can. From there I was able to work into the middle and used other cylinders there were also extruded outwards to create the edge of the hole. I learnt that you can Bridge edges together to fill gaps and “fuse” mesh together. I also learnt if you go into perspective view and realise that the mesh is is not flat, you can select all the vertices and use the scale tool in the Y axis to make the mesh all on one plane.
I found that some of my mesh was looking black, this was due to reversed normals. I learnt that you can click on Mesh Display and hit “Reverse” with displays the normals… normally.
Another really helpful tip I learnt was that it is really important to have tidy mesh. Ideally, we always want four points in our mesh. So at this point I went about merging some of the the vertices together and tiding up the mesh. I find it difficult to see where to merge the mesh together to tidy it, I find it is like a puzzle, but after a while I got the hang of it.
This part was probably the easiest, I just extruded the edge of the tops and went into the front orthographic view to follow the shape of the can. It was just a case of extruding and scaling the edges.
I extruded all the way to the bottom of the can and used the tool Fill Hole and then Poke to create the bottom of the can. I then used the Edge Loop tool to create harder edges to better define the cans shape.
Then it was time to add the rim of the can, this was quite difficult and I didn’t find the blue print too helpful at this point so my actual can I had brought was very helpful as a reference. Again, I used the extrude tool and the Edge Loop tool. I again used the blue prints and a the same tools to create the cap.
By this time I was pretty much done with the tutorial I found and the modelling process for an open can. But I wanted to add a slight bend to the cap thing to make it look like it had been used to open the top. To do this I found it easiest to use the Tab key to select the bottom portion of the cap, then use the Shift +> keys to increase the selection. From there I used Ctrl + Shift + I to Inverse the selection so just the top portion of the cap was selected. Then it was just a case of using the Soft SelectionBrush to move and rotate so it looked like the cap was facing upwards.
But then I realised that I also needed to model a closed can. My can again came in handy as a reference.
It wasn’t too hard. I selected the edges, and used the Bridge Tool to remove the hole. I used the extrude tool to make a “seam”.
This is the what the top of both cans look like.
After I modelled the can, I started doing work towards a 3D Story board. I used many of the tools that I used for modelling the cans.
In the first two images I did is the establishing shot of the corner shop. I wanted there to be a focus on the fridge inside the shop so put a material that added an emission, then keyed the emission on and off to look like there was a flicker. I was playing around with lighting colours and a HDRI. I like the warm orange and goes with my colour palette.
Then it transitions to a shot with the fridge. Again there is a emphasis on the fridge.
Then another still shot, a close up, of the two cans in the foreground of the fridge.
Then the next shot, the lighting become pink and I’d like to add a blur or more of a depth of field. I want it to be another close up shot of behind one of the cans facing the other, I am hoping this will personify the cans, to make it look like they are looking at each other. With a change in the lighting, blur/depth of field coupled with romantic music starting to play, I am hoping this is enough to make the audience believe that the Cans are falling in love.
Currently, I am happy with the way it is going but I am realising how much work I have to do.
This image is helping me understand and implement some of these shots into my own scene. George also told us about the rule of thirds and how images look more appealing then the main focus of the picture of image is not in the centre, but following the rule of thirds.
The bottom images is more appealing than the top. The sun is in the centre at the top and the sun is in the bottom third in the bottom image.
Notting Hill Carnival
This is a mood board I made for the Notting Hill carnival short story. I really liked the Afrofuturist look and gathered pictures that represented this. The colour purple has futurist connotations and I liked the idea of the having a yellow in there to be the opposite of the colour wheel.
Can short story
For the Can Short Story, I wanted to included warm colours, lots of blues, green and pink hues that complimented nature. I wanted lots of shots of of grass and nature with litter, to imply that the human impact on earth is critical.
Bird short story
This was my favourite story board to create. I wanted to mimic really colours on birds I found AI generated images from an artist who got that abstract look. I really like the idea of having birds and flowers coming together by having an abstract creature.
I really like all the ideas, however, the one with the most defined story line and the one I can more easily pull off is the Can Short Story. I like the idea of being able to do lots of scenery shots and making the scenes look beautiful yet spoiled by humans. I want to play around with the lighting and the music to really drive the narrative
This week George wanted us to create storyboards for 3 stories and present them.
Story 1: Can
My first story is about recycling, littering and marine pollution. It starts off with two soda cans in a store falling in love but one being brought by a customer and taken away, ultimately being separated from each other.
In the next scene the can is shown littered on the beach and washed up into the ocean. From there we follow the can on a journey in the sea and washed back on to the shore where it is then made into a home by a hermit crab. Then it is finally is recycled and repurposed into a can again, where it is put back in the store again and reunited with the other can. At the end I want to have the phrase, Reunite, Reuse, Recycle, as a play on Reduce, Reuses, Recycle.
I’m looking forward to doing some of the modelling for this project. I’d really like to model the Can and other things that I will use for litter such as bottles. I’d really like to tackle the environment modelling too. I’m looking forward to learning UV unwrapping and texturing.
Story 2: Bird dance
My next story was about a bird being propositioned by several potential suiters though elaborate dancing. The bird turns down the first two and by the time its the third birds turn, it does a very elaborate dance and is the most flamboyant. It wins over the affection of the bird.
This story I think will be something I’d like to create for December as it is a lot more complicated. I think it would be a great opportunity for me to look into modelling with ZBrush and experimenting with the dancing animation.
Story 3: Notting hill Carnival 2123
My last story is about Notting Hill Carnival and how it would look in 100 years time. I love this idea as carnival is a part of my culture (my family are from Jamaica and St Vincent:)) and I love the idea of incorporating science fiction into it. It would give me the opportunity to experiment with environment modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering. Along with the crowds and the intense character animation it might be a personal project that I complete in the future.
This week Nick was teaching us how to model in Maya. This term we are modelling and animating an robotic arm. Today we began by modelling the fingers.
The basic mechanism for the joint was a polygon primitive cylinder and manipulated the subdivisions on the height and caps. We then added three polygon primitive cubes and scaled them to fit on the cylinder
We then added another cube and used edge loops and manipulated the vertices to create the distal part of the finger
We then duplicated that distal part and then used the mirror tool to merge the two together to create the middle and proximal part of the finger
We duplicated the joints and assembled the parts. The distal part and joint next to it were grouped together and the middle part and proximal joint were grouped. We arranged the groups so that group 1 was a child of group 2 and group 2 was a child of group 3. The pivot of the groups were moved to the mid point of each joint. When group 2 and group 1 were selected and then rotated, the finger then curled and moved like an actual finger!
From there it was a case of manipulating the vertices on the ends of each part of the finger so that they don’t intercept with each other.
