final

ncloth issues

the simulation runs fine until the arms are animated to the side  (picture 1) then the cloth gets pushed into the character

further on the simulation the arms are crossed over the chest creating the second issue (picture 2)

since the cloth is already obstructed by the geometry if I try and increase the pushout or anything from there it goes crazy (picture 3)

skin texturing finished

here are some renders from the final skin composite. the specularity still seems a little bit high but thats only because it has a direct light source hitting the chest.  I studied some references carefully and skin does actuallly shine like that under direct light- the legs are recieving much less direct light than the chest and are thus more diffuse.

regarding the seam issue that you can see here-

 

I already solved this issue I just havent updated the maps, its just a setting you click in zbrush when you are going to export your color maps, there is a fix UV seams button

also these images are rendered in a 32 bit linear color space in openEXR format so I had a lot of control over the final look in photoshop, and these are just one of many possible looks for the skin

WIP 3/9/11

I have what I can consider more or less concept art for the main character finished. I hesitate to say concept art because these are both completely done in 3D with (almost) final textures, but the eyes were added in post due to time constraints and the desire to get a mock up ready

The shaders also are not finished. I am using the miss_fast_skin shader for mental ray, and the the dual channel specularity built in to the shader does not have the best results (as is evident by the huge highlight in the chest area), it is best to output the SSS color of all layers into the additional color of an MIA material and derive the specularity from that shader as it is physically accurate. But once again, these were done mainly for testing purposes to make sure the model looked accurate with physical features

the hair was done with shave and a haircut, rendered separately in maya software, and everything was rendered using a linear workflow, just out of good practice

This is the original image and (relatively) close to the original render with some color corrections, white balance correction, gradient overlays, light tweaking etc



since the animation will take place largely underwater I wanted to do some color tests to see how close I could get to an underwater environment from just from color correction and a few added textures, here is a test





here is one showing the wireframe. the purple lines are nurbs curves guide hairs for the shave system

WIP 3/2/11

reworked the facial anatomy of my main model

old-



new-




finished texturing, ready for map export and SSS setup


entered the gnomon 3D image contest for February in order to obtain precious learning material

theme- candle lit

BFA show equipment requests

Ideally I would like some kind of display for playing back an animation in a continuous loop, like an LCD or plasma display. If there are none available I can use a projector but ideally I would like some kind of stand alone playback device, using a laptop or computer or dvd player etc to play back the device, which I would have to secure in some way. If I were to use a projector I would need a space to mount it somewhere, as well as secure it. In either case I would need access to an electrical outlet. Ideally I would like to be in the main area of the great space where there is access to natural light for the purposes of displaying framed prints from the final animation.

wall space for mounting framed animation stills

lighting for prints

access to electrical outlet

2/24 project update

lighting and modeling test render. jellyfish made using a revolved nurbs sphere converted to polygons, tentacles are made of a hair system also converted to polygons, both to be converted to nCloth for procedural animation. rendered in mental ray, used mia_material for a shader, still need to fix the fresnel reflections in the jellyfish. glows made using a surface luminance node outvalue to vchord of a ramp to glow intensity of a lambert as a workaround to artifacting from glows in mental ray. still might comp it in post however



lighting tests using mental ray glow as described above (right) vs. mia_light surface attached to additional color of an mia_material (left). light surface shaders create artifacting when used with a final gathering solution, so I will probably scrap that in favor of a photometric light with an IES profile outputted to a blackbody shader to control color temperature to control the jellyfish illumination/bounce light



sculpting finished on final character young version, still have to make older version but that will be a different model with just the head visible to allow for more polygons. current model is just over 13 million



laid out UV's, started texturing using a mix of photographic textures and polypainting. some elements like the hair will not be present in the final texture map. this is a low res map (1k) exported from subD 1 level so there is very little detail here, just for examples sake

sculpting WIP

base mesh modeled and posed

sculpting 50% finished

Equipment, budget, timeline & other concerns

Equipment
Workstation- Dell I7 920 6gb DDR3 windows professional 64 bit
Dedicated render node- Custom I7 930 4GB DDR3 windows proffessional 64 bit via videomach
1 TB HD repository

software
maya 2011 w/ blastcode
Eon vue xStream 8
luxology modo
Zbrush 4
Realflow 5
photoshop cs5
after effects cs5
trapcode suite
magic bullet suite
adobe premier pro cs5
adobe soundbooth
reason adapted
pro tools mbox suite
(possibly Nuke)

budget- none. however I do plan on competing in the february gnomon 3D image contest in order to win some training DVD's that would otherwise be costly

january 25th- begin research on following topics- blastcode suite, hybrido solver in realflow, rigging and character animation in maya 2011, nCloth, underwater dynamics, maya fluids vs. fumeFX (max), Nuke vs. After effects, 32 bit linear workflow

February 8th- character modeled and textured, all maps exported to maya, shading networks set up, begin work on secondary models and continue research

February 15th- character rigged and animation begun, secondary models finished

February 22nd- begin working realflow, blastcode, nCloth and/or particle simulations

March 1- at least 1 scene finished, being rendering 24/7

March 15th- continue rendering, begin working on look development & post production

April 1st- post production, implementation of practical effects, begin work on soundtrack, send out print commissions

April 5th- soundtrack recorded and polished, final touch ups, title sequence & credits IP

April 12th- absolute final touches finished, video exported and compressed, stills framed,

April 14th- Installation

tentative schedule due to change drastically based on extreme failure in one or more categories

Proposal

For my thesis proposal I want to explore a conceptualized surrealistic CG-animated short about dreaming, or that state of the unconscious. I want to explore the extremes of a visual spectrum of story telling by focusing on aspects such as look development, camera work, particle interaction and visual storytelling.

The loose concept will be that of a woman falling through space while interacting with various elements, falling through different layers and aspects of space. The main protagonist will be a woman falling through space in super slow motion, perhaps 2-300 frames/second animations. The background elements will interact with the figure, morphing both its position in shape as well as its materiality. The interaction and visual presentation will be both surreal and hyper-realistic at the same time, shifting between an alternate reality and back seamlessly.

I want the entire short to be one continuous shot where there are no cuts but instead shifting foreground and background elements as the character falls through different levels of time and space. I want to include usage of surrealistic imagery, such as the figure falling through the skin of the sea as it shatters beneath her like a plane of glass. Varying interactions like this will occur as the figure descends further, eventually crashing through back into reality in the form of a safe and familiar environment.

I will put a lot of time and though into lighting and camera work, creating a work whose narrative lies in the visual look of the film, as opposed to cause-event linear storytelling. A particular focus will be the seamless shifting between realism and fantasy, as if to personify the blurry line between fantasy and reality upon waking.

Technical aspects

I will be using zbrush and mental ray to model and shade the character, realflow to simulate ocean, water, smoke and other particle interactions, blastcode to simulate shattering and breaking, maya to simulate particles, soft and hard bodies, ncloth, dynamics, rendering, etc. I might use Vue to render background matte paintings for some shots. I will be compositing in either after effects or nuke, time allowing.

I am using ballet photography as reference points for the character animation, in super slow motion shifting from position to position in order to fully explore the movement of the human form

test post

http://hshapleythesis.blogspot.com/

http://www.cameronjbrand.com/ad406/

http://moruathesis.blogspot.com/