Render images of Toon Shader and Ramp Shader experiments in Maya !

Render passes and Image Based Lighting....

Eyes in Maya

The first time I tried to insert a spherical eyeball into my model I ended up inside the eye!

Success this time!!

Face modelling in Maya

Starting to get to grips with Maya !

And have noticed that I am looking at everything and how it would be constructed in Maya and thinking.... "hmm, ok, so that would be a polygon cube, sphere, plan, Nurb curve, extruded, rotated, scaled down, extruded again etc etc." haha !

Face modelling today, using a Polygon Plane....

Modelling a female torso using cylinders and spheres...

Maya - Paint skin weights, blend shapes and FK IK rigging

Maya skin weights....

Each joint has an influence on the surrounding geometry, and this influence is represented in black and white; white = lots of influence, black = none. A colour scale can also be used, as it's easier to see than black and white. (colour range shown below, both in the paint skin weights dialogue box and the model in the viewport.

After the character is rigged and the rig is then bound to the geometry, we tested moving the model. If any distortions were apparent, then we used the paint skin tool to correct the influence, by adding or replacing.

Good link here to Autodesk and more about Paint Skin Weights !

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Maya/files/CST-Paint-Skin-Weights-Tool-htm.html

Maya Rigging

Creating IK handles -

I learnt a valuable lesson...

I omitted to delete history and freeze transformations, before contraining my IK handle (green box highlighted on the wrist of the character below). Therefore the axis values were not set to zero; meaning that it's pretty impossible to get back to a 'T' pose.

I am going to practice and create the right hand side of the arm rig - and remember to delete history and freeze transformations!!!

What are IK handles and solvers?

"Maya provides inverse kinematics tools called "IK handles". The effect of an IK handle on a joint chain is determined by the type of IK solver that you choose.
There are three types of IK handles with corresponding solvers: Single Chain (SC) Handle, Rotate Plane (RP) Handle, and Spline Handle.

• Single Chain (SC) Handle and Rotate Plane (RP) Handle can be used to animate the motion of an articulated figure's limbs, and similar objects.
• Spline Handle can be used to animate the motion of curvy or twisty shapes, such as tails, necks, spines, tentacles, bull-whips, and snakes." http://accad.osu.edu/~midori/Materials/IK_solvers.html

Maya interface whilst rigging.

Hypershade (on the left) for creating blend switches between FK and IK and Outliner on the right, showing the hierarchy.

Research Poster

Assignment:

"You are required to produce a poster which communicates your research interests in visual and/or text based formats and demonstrates your understanding of academic research relevant to animation/ creative practice and your own academic investigation/ research."