Dollshouse texturing, UV mapping, UV texture editor

The dolls house texturing is finished!!!!

Wow - what a learning experience with UV mapping; which I have to say I really enjoyed, once I broke through the pain barrier!
I spent yesterday tidying up the layers in Outliner and naming them, so it was easy to see what was what...
And made sure there was no duplication of the topology....
All looks good and I also learnt the difference between Blinn (a level of shine to a material's appearance) and Lambert (matt material)....
so the outer walls of the Dollshouse had a Blinn finish, to show the plastic effect, and the interior walls had a Lambert material....the textures (wallpaper) were applied in the UV texture editor - which came into its own, when selecting multiple faces to change to a Blinn material....

Here's a few render shots of the final look....I quickly created one direction light, which points straight at the dolls house, to simulate sunlight...it's a rough mash up for now, just to make sure that the textures all come out in the render....really looking forward to seeing it once it's lit properly!

Maya interface, showing the model area, hypershader, UV texture editor and the render view.....the workspace is pretty busy....time to get a second monitor at home I think (haha)

Cam Kennedy, Banana Man and Superman

Great talk by Cam Kennedy, as part of the launch for the new Masters Comic course at DJCAD....
STV were there for the launch and both Katherine and I held up cardboard cut outs of superhero's for the photographers....

I was sat in between Banana and Superman!

Cam Kennedy was very funny, straightforward and highly experienced. A real privilege to hear him speak at length and in detail about his career..

Mock conference presentations

Reflective Practice: Mock Conference presentation.

Here's a few snapshots of the presentation so far....I will include a bit more information about my interview with Barnardos Rollercoaster service in Dundee, in the next couple of weeks; prior to the final conference presentation on March 31st....

Love the buzz of presenting 'live' and great feedback from Jeanette Paul, with ideas about seeing if the counselling service at Dundee University, or the DUSA may be interested to utilise this film, once it's made.....

Exciting times!

UV Mapping - new understanding!!!

UV Mapping breakthrough!!!!!

So, what was taking me about 8 hours (no joke) to UV map one room, floor etc has now been reduced to 10 minutes!!!

And, the rotation Axis when trying to 3D orbit the model, sometimes was far away, so everytime I tried to rotate, the model would whizz off the screen. Before smashing the screen to pieces I found a forum, full of exasperated modelers screaming obscenities at Maya.....hahaha...

Turns out I just needed to hover my mouse over the object and hit 'F' key.....lol

Ha! Maya....I'm getting to know you!

I followed the tutorials given to us by Sang plus the youtube link below...and really began to get my head around the UV texturing process in Maya...

A few images below showing the various stages...

Applying a checkerboard, including numbers, so I could see the orientation of the UV map elements, when they are placed into the 0-1 space.

Then taking a UV snapshot, saving as a .png file and sending to photoshop. 

Then, in Photoshop, opening that .png file and placing textures (in this case 'cream plastic' and 'twee wallpaper' in a layer underneath the .png UV snapshot.)

I can then scale and tile the textured images so that they cover the area of the relevant UV map.

Then I save that out as a .tiff file and open Maya.

Then, with my UV Texture editor open, I select the objects (double checking that all pieces are visible in the UVTE) and apply a lambert material.

In Maya I then assign my .tiff file to that lambert material and it worked!!!

                                                

Critical Review - Hail Caesar: Coen Brothers

So date night this week was at the Perth playhouse and we watched the latest Coen Brothers film: 'Hail Caesar.' 

I've seen O Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, The Big Lebowski and No Country for Old Men, and was excited to see this...

Visually it sometimes seemed to be a good excuse to bring back some traditional Hollywood sets/scenes/designs, and the references towards the choreography of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, plus the synchronised swimming routines of Esther Williams were very clear. It took a while for me to get used to the 'style' of the film, as the colours and sets looked dated; which I would argue is a deliberate move on the part of the art department and director. 

The colours and props, particularly in the Roman Army scenes, seemed to brash and looked cheap through the eye of a high resolution movie.

I particularly liked the beach house location, as pictured below, and found the juxtaposition of George Clooney in his Roman armour, comical against the fifties decor. From a storyline point of view, it was interesting to see his become absorbed and convinced by his captors....

Whilst it was interesting and layered with a few simultaneous storylines, it took a while to figure out who the protagonist was, and which storyline was prominent. I personally found it confusing and didn't engage with or root for any of the characters. Neither did I particularly want to discover 'what happens next'.

That said, I did enjoy the private moments the lead character had in the confession box and his inner moral dilemmas that were revealed....

The Beach House location

Navy Dance Routine

Gene Kelly Navy Dance Routine

Synchronised Swimming Routine with Scarlet Johansson

Esther Williams original Hollywood reference

Premiere editing and effects

More practice using Premiere -
This morning I've been editing youtube clips (downloading as MP3) and importing into Premiere; and editing them to make a succinct clip for my reflective practice conference lecture coming up in March....

Sex Bomb Ice Skater - reflective practice

Well this is an unusual reference to review, under reflective practice!

Two thoughts...

1: His character's persona is great as reference for our He-Man character !!
2: The pressure is magnified considerably; as one tiny fault will shatter the entire 'confidence' portrayed by the character