Photoshop Digital Tutors and the Christmas holidays

Enjoying a quiet moment here and there throughout the Christmas holidays to run through the Photoshop course on DigitalTutors...
lesson 11 of 88 (!) completed haha...

So worthwhile....crop and rotate shortcuts and the ruler tool!!

Digital Tutors - photoshop layers to create a 'render' on a 3D model

So yesterday I got to use the machines in the 3D make lab....top secret Christmas stuff...more pics to follow!

And today, ahhh Digital Tutors!
Just starting an 11 hour photoshop tutorial....starting at the beginning. Oh wow. Shortcut heaven...

This is using the layer settings, hard light, multiply, colour to apply a simple 'render' look to an existing 3D model...

love the colour of her hair...needs some more work on her eyes though haha

Toon shader and Ramp shader effects in Maya

So our presentations were today - for the finale of Semester 1.

Wow, what a few weeks....I've found my way around the university and the Maya interface....both a huge labyrinth of creative exploration.

Very exciting!!

Here's some of the ideas I have been playing around with in Maya...

Toon and Ramp shader effects in Maya, and some of the results have been a lot of fun...

Here's some images, using an ambient occlusion node, which is applied to a plane in hypershade...

Hypershade - now there's an interface that's a labyrinth all on it's own....

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."