Caroline's 3D Animation Blog

Real Time Tech

This week in class we had a lecture with George Adamopoulos. He talked about how to use coding to be creative and made 3D animation. It was really inspiring. It made me want to teach myself a bit of coding too. I really liked the video below and would love to create abstract animations like this

Modelling

This week Shizra asked if I could adjust the model of the mushrooms to look more cartoonish by adding dots on the mesh that have an emission material. The point was to make a glowing light from the mushrooms, that then would be placed around the tombstones/tablets. This would then lead the viewer to the stones.

So I went back into Maya and began to manipulate the mesh.

Firstly, I selected the insert edge loop and added some extra edge loops to make the faces on the surface more square. I then selected four faces to create a big square.

After this I was able to used the circularize tool. After the circularise tool, it did turn those selection of squares into a circle but it looked a bit odd. It took me a while to realise that I had to select the extrude tool to make it more circle.

After this the dot looked like this….

I was kind of happy with this but it looked more like a rounded square rather than a a perfect circle.

So I decided to play around with it more and realised that if I used the tool settings in the extrude tool and selected the offset and then added 1 more division, this meant that the mesh became a perfect circle.

I also increase my selection. There was an inner most circle, and then there was another ring around that. That ring was the perfect circle.

From there I was able to change the material to an aiStandardmaterial. All I did from there was to change the emission.

From there it looked like this….

From there I sent the files to the Google Drive as an FBX. Neeti was able to add it to a scene and as there were two materials, she could manipulate the emission and the glow.

The meeting

I missed the first half of the meeting because it took me so long to create the dots on the mushrooms, but I arrived and was happy like everyone else at how it was starting to come together in Unity.

We took a look with the headset and was really happy with how it was going so far. We asked Neeti to insert the mushrooms in to scene and adjusted the “firefly” lights in the scene.

We also inserted cars that that we got from TurboSquid. I got help from Friendred to get a model that cost quite a bit of money but we were able to get it courtesy of the department

We then used Ria’s headset to test it out and see what it like inside he environment in VR

Tyre

We had discussed adding extra elements into the piece like discarded tyres, but then as the scene was getting quite heavy, it wasn’t used. But here is my process to make the tyres.

In Maya I started off with a Polygon primitive Pipe which I then added edge loops to the centre and rotated the vertices. From there I extruded those faces so they looked like treads. I manipulated the edge loops on the outside to make it move curved. For the alloy I used another Polygon Primitive pipe and extruded the middle inwards.

Then for the middle part I used a cylinder that was then extruded a bit. I added a rubber material for the wheel and a chrome material for the alloy.

This tutorial really helped me out

Reflections

The end is nigh! Feeling good about the project so far. I felt there was alot of pressure as out group members needed the project finished over a week before the deadline. I feel like if we had more time it would be a little less stressful. But Donatella as a group manager has been great at keeping everyone in check.

In Class | Metahuman

This week we used the scan that Serra did of Donatella and imported it into Unreal engine. We used the plugin Metahuman in Unreal to rig the face. This was my first time using Unreal Engine and found the interface difficult to navigate.

After that we sort of exported the face to Metahuman.

This was the scan in MetaHuman. From here we could adjust the face in multiple ways, the skin colour, size and shape of the features, the hair etc.

After, doing loads of changes some how my scan looked completely different

I even went in a adjusted the makeup.

Reflections

This was another fun exercise and a great was to get hyper realistic models. Again, I love modelling, and after this experience I’ve had with modelling for the collaborative project I would like to try modelling people and would like to learn more in ZBrush.

Modelling Tombstone

After learning my mistakes from before, I made sure that I saved lots of different versions of the model. My instructions were to create a tablet and have the name of the area, I started with Minar-e-Pakistan.

I started by importing on of the tombstones into ZBrush. I used loads of different brushes, Planar, noise etc to start sculpting and creating a more organic feel to it.

I found many specialist brushes perfect for creating a rock patterns. I used a Mallet brush to subtract alot of the mesh at the front then used a noise brush to make it look like wore broken stone.

After working out how to create an Alpha on the last model. I knew it wouldn’t be too difficult to work out the lettering. I studied lots of images of tablets like the one below. I liked the way the stone was crumbling away from the surface.

Photoshop

To make the alpha it was a bit of trial and error. I found a font that I thought would look like then pressed into the mesh. I liked this one below. I selected a black background and white text. In hinsight, knowing what I know now, I think I should have done it the opposite way maybe. Usually with an alpha, the dark areas are the low points and the lighter area the high points. But I knew I could change the settings in ZBrush and make is subtract.

I save that image in photoshop as a JPEG and went back into ZBrush.

ZBrush

I imported the alpha into ZBrush and when I first used it with the add properties, it lifted the mess. So then I chose subtract and it pressed into the mesh, however, when I did this, the letters appeared backwards! I needed to go back into Photoshop a reverse the words.

Back in Photoshop

I saved the document so it was just a case of going back in to Photoshop and reversing the layer so the letters appeared backwards. I exported it as a JPEG.

ZBrush

I then stamped the new alpha on the mesh and it looked like the image below.

I then went on the doing UVs. I felt as though I had got the hang of it now. I repeated the process I did with the Obelisk. I duplicated the mesh, reduced the mesh count, UVs, then increased the count so that the original mesh could project onto the new mesh, then I exported.

Maya

Again, I was worried that it didn’t work so tested the mesh in Maya and utilised the normal and displacement maps. I rendered it in Arnold and was actually really happy with the results.

Feedback from my group

My group liked it., however… Shizra as the one in charge of the concept, didn’t want the words anymore. I had to redo the UVs but that was about it because I had learnt my lesson and had many saved versions

These stones were not used in the end for the final project. I was a bit gutted because it was quite alot of work that I had out into it but it was all still worth it as it was valuable practice that I needed. Also, it was a feeling that I needed to get use to when I started working and had clients.

Reflections

I am really happy with the outcome and feel as though, although I need more practice, I still am quite proud of what I’ve achieved using ZBrush. I am really starting to like the software and feel less intimidated by the interface. As I said though, I need a lot of practice and in hindsight the sculptures, with more practice and guidance could look better. I would also like to explore, when I have more time, adding materials using Substance Painter.

In class | Reality Capture

This week in class we uploaded our videos we created at the Tate Modern to the software, Reality Capture. Serra guided us though how to use the software

It firstly, to the video and broke it up into each frame.

In Reality Capture, once we selected Align, it took all those images and created a mesh from them. There were cameras that projected a bit of an image in all different directions.

Here was the mesh that the software created. I thought it was cool that it managed to get some of the other surrounding objects too.

From there we used the Simplify Tool to reduce the mesh.

I then used the lasso tool to select parts of the model I didn’t need. Although I liked the abstract look of the surrounding area, decided just to focus on the one plant I was looking at for the sake of this exercise.

This is the final result! There were some stems of the leaves that didn’t come through unfortunately but I think the result was really cool. I also didn’t realise that there would be colour and the detail from the pot that the plant was in came through too.

Reflections

It was a really fun exercise and may potentially consider it as help for my final major project maybe for more complex object that I can not model. But, I really get a sense of joy when modelling and and have been really enjoying modelling throughout the course.

Collaborative Work

Tablet

This week Shizra want my to model a tablet / tombstone object as a guide for when the player goes up to them, a holographic message pops out the tablet with a fact about the area/ monument they are standing in.

I thought this was a brilliant idea and volunteered to model this.

Reference:

I firstly went on the search for images I could use as a reference. I couldn’t not find the exact reference Shizra showed me but from what I remembered it was an organic shaped stone with writing etched into it.

Maya

With those references in mind, I started in Maya. At this point I had started to get into a bit of a work flow and a pipeline.

I thought it might be cool to created bricks, as a structure for the tablets/ tombstones to sit on. I created a variety of different stones shapes and sizes. I started of with a Polygon Cube and then reshaped them using then Move tool and in Vertex mode it mode the vertices around to create different shaped stone bricks.

From there I started to create the basic shape of the tombstones. I again, started with a Polygon Cube, then scaled up the cube in different directions. I went in to Vertex mode and using the move tool, I pulled and shaped the mesh into the desired shape. I wanted to have some that were more organic looking and some that were more like the shape of a tombstone. I could then show the others which one they liked before making the same mistake again and doing alot of work in ZBrush that I can’t undo.

I used the Extrude tool alot by selecting the faces I wanted to push or pull in, creating the indents there writing would traditionally go.

I also made sure I added loads of supporting edge loops using the Edge Loop tool add stability to the structure of the stones. I knew once I imported it into ZBrush, I needed to Subdivide the mesh into a few million points and if I didn’t have supporting edge loops that would mean that the structure would become “doughy” like the obelisk had become before I added edge loops to it.

The meeting

This week we had another catch up to discuss where we had got to now. I had told them were I had gotten with the tombstones and that I had downloaded some rocks from Poly Haven. We looked at the Dolphins that Donatella had animated and the snails. We also took some inspiration from a game called Journey and discussed the possibilities of taking inspiration from the aesthetic. Shizra concluded that although the look was good, she wanted our project to have more detail and not to have a low poly look like the game.

Reflections

I felt happy with how the base mesh looked in Maya but was feeling very anxious about creating something so organic in ZBrush. I knew to progress I needed to look at alot of tutorials about sculpting stones and rocks in ZBrush. I also was feeling very stressed this week about keeping up with work in general. But from learning from my mistakes before, I new if I tried to save my progress as I went, there was a better chance of undoing some work if it was necessary.

In Class work: Presentation

The day started with us giving on a presentation on what we has done so far as a group. We talked about our project and how we had come up with a name, Lost World and our progress so far. I talked about the mushrooms I had modelled. At this point we had a rough draft of how it would look in Unity.

In Class work: Tate Modern

That same day we travelled to the Tate Modern to take scans of some of the objects to create models using our phones and Photogrammetry. There were several scans I did but I ended up liking the plant object the most. I could not get any closer to it unfortunately as there was a barrier. I also could get behind it. But still thought it was worth try next week when were turned them into 3D models.

Collaborative work

The Obelisk of Buenos Aires

My next object I needed to model was the Obelisk. The tower which would be in the monument of Buenos Aires. I got some reference images from Google and studied the images. I noticed the bricks and the horizontal lines going up. At the top I saw the windows at the top of the tower too.

Reference images

Maya

I wanted to start everything off in Maya as I was started to know my way around it for Modelling.

It all started with a prism, it was quite easy at first to get the basic shape. I extruded the bottom face of the prism to create the tower shape. I used the vertex mode and used the Move tool and the Scale tool to manipulate the bottom.

I added edges with the Insert edge loop tool doing up horizontally that would later use as the lines I saw in the Obelisk reference images. I added two edge loops on each side of the tower this created little squares at the top of the tower. I then used the Extrude tool to make a hole resembling those window spots at the top of the tower.

I then used the Bevel tool on the horizontal lines and then scaled those bevelled edges inwards to create those indented lines on the tower.

This is what the tower looked like when rendered in Maya with a fog.

The tricky part…

From here I was happy with what it was looking like so far. But needed to add texture to make it look like stone bricks with damage. So I needed to take it into ZBrush. I had only used ZBrush a couple of times and was not confident in using it. But it was long overdue to use it.

I needed to work out how to do the brick texture first then add damage.

I found a few tutorials on YouTube that helped. I liked this tutorial…

I realised I needed to create an alpha.

Substance 3D Sampler

I found an image I liked with nice texture and similar width bricks to the ones on the tower, and imported that image into Substance 3D Sampler. In Substance 3D Sampler it converted that image into a height map. That is what gives the actual depth of the image. I was able to export it as a TARGA file. I wanted to use this as a alpha brush in ZBrush. But first I needed to take it into Photoshop.

Photoshop

I imported the file into photoshop. It was black and white which represents the receding and raised parts of the texture. And then, on a separate layer on top of the brick texture layer, I used the Paint Bucket tool to fill that layer with black. I then erased that layer a bit in the middle with the eraser tool. This is what the bricks looked like in the end…

ZBrush

Before I used the Alpha I took the model into ZBrush but saw a few problems.

When I first took it into ZBrush, I needed to add subdivisions to create more polygons so I could sculpt detail into the tower, however, the this got rid of all of the sharpness of the tower and made it “doughy”. So I went back into Maya and added more edge loops which created support.

But then there was something wrong with my mesh, the second time I imported it. I think the issue was there were a few n-gons at the top of the tower.

Back in Maya…

Back in ZBrush I used the Brick alpha, I also used some damaged texture brushes. I also went into created a surface noise texture. I was really happy with how it was looking so far, so took a picture and sent it to the WhatsApp chat to check what everyone else thought.

Constructive feedback

So the members of my team really liked the look so far minus the brick texture. They thought the images of the Obelisk didn’t have it so the model didn’t need it. I was glad they were happyish but I also had do undo hours of work texturing in ZBrush. I didn’t know a way I could remove the brick texture and keep everything else so had to start over. I was a bit gutted but I have now learnt how to create and use alphas in ZBrush.

So started over again, I did the same process but didn’t add the brick texture. I went it with lots of details like the noise texture, lines that resembled cracks, dents and crumbling. I added noise to the crumbling area which i thought was a nice effect.

UV mapping

I learnt that in ZBrush, to add texture I needed to subdivide the mesh several times to add high details. But this meant that by this point the mesh had over 2 million points. Not realising how dense the mesh had become I took exported my model from ZBrush and imported it to Maya, and inevitably, Maya crashed. I knew this would be too much for Unity as well. So, I went again on the look out for some juicy tutorials explaining how I can reduce the mesh count.

I liked this one and it explained the whole pipe line.

I firstly had to duplicate the tower and with the second mesh, I hit the Zremesher button and it significantly reduced the number of points in the mesh. It went from over 2 million to 50 thousand points. This meant that the details were reduced. From there I did the UV map by clicking on the zplugin tab and going to UV mapping, and selecting that. ZBrush then creates the UVs.

From there I had to regain that detail into the topology, so I divided the mesh again so that it was up to 2 million points, then from there, was able to Project the topology of the first model on to the UV mapped model. This took about a minute. From there I could export the UV maps like a normal and displacement map and the simplified model.

Back to Maya…

So I was SO worried that it didn’t work so I wanted to take the model into Maya to see what would happen. Firstly, Maya didn’t crash immediately which was a good sign! Also it wasn’t slow at all which indicated to me that the low poly mesh was usable. Then I used the normal map and displacement maps to add the texture details back and thankfully it worked! No crashing!

I did a quick Arnold render and this is what it ended up looking like 🙂 I wasn’t asked to add a material for the colour at the time and was told that it could be changed in Unity. So I exported the model as an FBX and added it to the Google Drive for Neeti.

Reflections

I was very happy with the results of the tower and after showing my other project group members, they were happy too.

I was also super happy that I got to finally use ZBrush and understand the interface a bit more. There are so many tutorials online that are free so that was incredibly helpful.

In the future, I think I need to check in more with the other members before I go on a whole adventure like when I was doing all the brick texture with the alpha I created. It was hours of work that was not needed. But I don’t regret doing it because the alpha is something I can use in the future and I had learnt a new skill.

I now also know that I need to prepare the models before you take them into ZBrush, for example, checking the Topology and making sure there is plenty of supporting edge loops.

And know I also know how to make UV maps and export lower topology.

Project Work

This week I used Maya to model the mushrooms. I looked at a few reference online before I began and really liked the look of these ones

References

Tutorials

I found some really good tutorials on how to model mushrooms as a rough guide. This was the one I found most helpful:

This person used Blender (I wanted to use Maya) and it wasn’t exactly the style I was looking for. But I used it as a rough guide.

Modelling

I went in to Maya and started with a cylinder which I subdivided and in height. I deleted the top face and extruded outwards like a mushroom head. Once I got to the top I used the tool Fill Hole then Poke to create the top.

At this point the basic shape was complete. I then moved on to the “gills”. I used the Multi Cut tool / Insert Edge Loop tool to create more edges in the circumference of the cylinder. I took the edges that were on the underside of the mushroom and pulled them down using the Move tool. I did at first use the Extrude tool, but that just extrude the edges so it didnt look quite right.

I experimented a few times with it, I had to keep undoing and trying different ways, eventually, I like how it looked below. I had to do some mesh clean up by merging some vertices to remove the N-gons and have quads again.

As I liked the imperfect look of the parasol mushrooms, I went in on Vert mode and used the Soft Select tool bend and manipulated the mesh to make them more like a gnarled imperfect mushroom. I duplicated the original mushroom and change the mesh using the Soft Select tool to make 4 different varieties.

Texture and lighting

Although my group member said that I just needed to FBX through, without a material, I still wanted to experiment and see what kind of colours and textures I could come up with.

I just had a play around with the texture and lighting. I am new to texturing so was a bit unsure on how to proceed. But I managed to get an image of the top of a mushroom and use it as a bump map. For the other mushroom played around and liked this honey material.

I also added a HDRI of a forest to the scene and a pink light to add interest.

After this I exported the file as an FBX. I added this to the Google Drive.

Meeting

In this meeting we shared our progress and prepared for the presentation. I really liked what Neeti had done so far. She had done a mock up scene for us to look at and so far it was looking really cool. We liked the particles but decided to have them going up instead of down. Shizra also showed us more concept art for the Buenos Aires scene. I shared the image of what the mushrooms looked like so far and the others seemed happy. Donatella then complied all the documents and created the presentation. We organised what we were going to say as well.

In Class

In class we talked about the challenges we all had with collaboration so far. For our group and for many others, it was finding a time to meet that didn’t clash with lectures and suited all our timetables.

Other than that I feel as though I understand what my role is in the group and understand what we need to do to achieve our goals for the project.

In class, we looked at our drawing that we created from the exquisite corpse and create avatars. I used inspiration from the brain drawing and created this brain in Blender. I used the Grease Pencil tool and then drew wiggly lines all over the mesh I created. Then I converted the lines into polygons and increased the diameter. I added a subsurface modifier to smooth out the mesh. I then right clicked and selected shade smooth. I did one side and then just added a mirror modifier.

After this I changed the material to a pink colour and decreased the roughness and increase the sheen. I added a blue plain and added 3 lights to the scene.

I then put it into Aftereffects and added a glow effect and contrast and brightness. I added some royalty free music. This is my brain avatar.

Reflections

This week I learnt loads about modelling in Maya through trial and error. I learnt alot about trying to fix mesh so that it didn’t have N-gons. This meant alot of merging vertices to create 4 points. It was also very interesting to get an insight in to VR and what and how they created scenes in Unity.

We had our first meeting on the Tuesday following the meet up. We met over Teams dues to the trains strikes.

In the meeting we discussed the concept, the ideas and our individual roles in the group.

It was a time to have a discussion of our ideas and formal discuss the topic and the timeline we had.

My role was to model some of the access in the scene and source the assets from a third party. This included:

Mushrooms

Rocks

Monuments

Cars

Donatella created a Miro board where we could write our thoughts and ideas about potential names for the project. I utilised the Miro board to write down three key words that came to our minds when we thought about utopian and dystopian themes.

I felt as though I knew what I was doing after the meeting was concluded. As the project manager, Donatella had clear instructions for all of us and what we needed to be doing next.

I am looking forward to seeing the prototype Neeti comes up with and using a VR headset.

Thoughts

I felt like what I need to do was pretty clear and was looking forward to modelling and improving my skills.

This week in Serra class we learnt about the importance of collaboration.

We looked at interesting ways and techniques that other creatives worked together, like the gamification of collaboration. We looked at an example of the characters Rick and Morty and how individual animators used their unique style of animation to put together one piece together. Although their individual styles were totally different they came together to create something really interesting.

Serra used this example to show us how important collaboration is and techniques to help collaboration be successful.

I learnt that that to have successful collaboration you need,

Clear communication

Openess

Transparency

Exquisite Corpse

We did an exquisite corpse with each other. The rules for these were to fold the paper into three pieces and to only draw on one of the folds, after that we had to leave a bit of a line after the fold to indicate where the next person should draw next. We were given a theme for each paper and told to draw the first thing that came to our mind.

Class Game

We then had to team up and create a game for others in the class

I chose the game where we had to use the pumpkin Instagram filter and every sentence you say has to have the word pumpkin in it. After you record it you send the picture to your friend.

Choosing a group

Before we decided on groups we looked at potential topic ideas given to us by our lecturers on a Padlet board. Out of all the topics, the one that stood out to me was Utopia /dystopia. I chose Utopia and dystopia due to my love of scifi/dystopian films/ tv like Alien, Mad Max Fury Road, Futurama, The Matrix etc.

After we chose what subject we wanted, the plan was to meet with the other courses in those groups. On the Friday we had a session where all the courses got together and found other people who also liked the same topics we chose in the Padlet. We quickly found a group that wanted to do an immersive experience with the dystopian theme at the forefront of the narrative.

We loved Shirza concept idea which was a dystopian immersive experience where the user walks around specific monuments of areas/ cities around the world. They discover amazing creatures and have music and lights guiding the journey.

The group was Myself, 3D Computer Animation

Shizra Manzar, 3D Computer Animation

Donatella Mikulasch, 3D Computer Animation

Neeti Kumar, VR

Ria (Yazhe Li), VR

We quickly set a WhatsApp group and had a meeting set for the following Tuesday.