Visual Development: Lesson 4

Visual Development (VSD)

Lesson 4: Compositing

Oh how I missed Nuke

This project, was really fun and really simple. We needed

to render out our last project in passes with each light in

a different layer. Then we needed to bring them into Nuke

and relayer them together, all while giving any color corrections

we may feel are needed. I made my warm light warmer and more

orange in color, my cool light was given a soft blue color

similar to the sky. And my key light was made softer and less bright.

After all the color corrections were made we had to add

a vignette and a blur to it. There we're any boundaries, it was

all mostly to make us explore in Nuke and to really just have

fun with our project. So I made two renders, a more serious one

and then one that looks like it belongs on instagram. 

It was all fun and I loved being in Nuke again, its a program that

I understand with ease and was happy to be able to learn more

in it. All my changed were subtle but all of that adds up to make quite a

different image than what I started with.

Visual Development: Lesson 3

Visual Development (VSD)

Lesson 3: Shader Project

Give it Texture

Make it Pretty

Still the same scene from the last project, now we're

just trying to make things look a little more real. Continuing

with layered textures and other new techniques in the

hypershade. We needed to take the object(Scraper or Gear)

and give it texture, not just the image we placed on it before

but an actual texture you might be able to feel. Rustic, used,

while still keeping some parts clean and shiny.

Once more we needed the box, but again we needed to give

what we added to it texture. The sticker needed to be shiny and reflective

while the stains needed to have a fitting texture, whether it was

meant to be paint, oil, dirt, etc we had to correctly texture it

with what we chose.

The final part of the project was just evil. Not sure if

it was because we were working with glass or that we 

needed to make clear glass but then find a way to cover it with dusty 

fingerprints all while giving it a shiny label. Took many layer textures

all with alphas and bumps and proper colors. It took a couple

tries to finally get it all to work, but I'm rather pleased with the result.

After the bottle we had to make a liquid based off of our own choice

of soda. I picked Baja Blast, one of the few mountain dew flavors I

can enjoy, mostly I like the color of it. It wasn't hard to get the

liquid to work right, then again our teacher was great at explaining

what we needed to do and what to look out for. It's hard to see but there

are bubbles added into the liquid to give it the appearance of

carbonation.

Over all I was most proud of how this project turned out, other than the

massive render times when it came to the bottle, I think I did rather 

well in creating my items and their textures. 

Visual Development: Lesson 2

Visual Development (VSD)

Lesson 2: Diffuse

This was a slightly more complex project. You picked

either the scraper or the gear, obviously I picked the

scraper, and laid out the UVs of the object in preparation

for texturing. The scraper was meant to be harder in UVs

yet easier in creating the texture. Several techniques were

shown to us to make the UVs easier, seeing as how the scraper

was on an angle, planar mapping came into play quite a bit.

The next part of the project was to take these UVs, and

give them a texture. I was thankful that we were provided with

images of the real objects to use to make the textures, my skill

in photoshop isn't quite up to the ability to make an entire

texture from scratch just yet. But this did open me up to more

tools in photoshop, the transform/warp tool came in handy to

making the images fit the shapes to how I wanted. Also I

was given the chance to explore more with the clone stamping

tool, I think I did better than last time I used the tool, but I

still could use some practice.

The last part of the project involved taking this lovely box,

cardboard texture provided, and place a sticker and at least

one stain on it, I decided to do two. This sounds simple,

but it was a much harder process than I had thought. We got

to really dip into the process of layered textures and playing 

in the hypershade. This sticker proved to put up a fight, but after

finally getting it and the cardboard texture to play nice with each

other the stains were easier, because they were a similar yet easier 

process. 

Over all I was happy with this project, wish I was able to find a sticker

image that didn't have so much white, but I didn't want to waste too much

time when there we're more important parts of this project to still do. But 

my UVs turned out nice and clean, my texture was decent, looked better

once applied to the object, and the box turned out as it should.

Visual Development: Lesson 1

Visual Development (VSD)

Lesson 1: Lighting

Lights!

Camera!

Render!

Part one of the project, fairly simple, we were

given a reference image that we needed to match

with a set of instructions on what lights we might

want to use for certain areas.

This is the second part, after we were taught about

Linear Color Management, making things brighter 

and more like real life than they would be in the default

settings. Something I'm amazed they waited so long

tell us about, but I do like it now.

Over all I was happy with this project, as my images both

came out nearly identical to the reference. A great improvement

from my last class that had me do lighting. Happy to see that

I've grown in the past year.

Visual Effects 1: Lesson 3

Visual Effects 1 (VEF1)

Lesson 3: Soft Bodies

This Is Halloween!

(Ok, so it isn't yet, but I'm eager)

Soft Bodies, were simple and though they are similar to

Blend Shapes (Rigging Term), they are less of a pain in the butt.

It was fun to set up this scene and even more fun to make this

pumpkin move and dance without it needing a rig.

The only issue I ran into was the fact that as I made

the pumpkin collapse, the interior would bleed out through

the exterior. It wasn't hard to fix, but it was being a little

difficult.

Pre Pro:

And

Here

 We

Go

Once more, such beautiful storyboarding. 

The whole point was to make something appear bouncy or to be melting. 

It took a couple hours for me to settle on an idea that I liked,

my first thought was of course a jello or gummy like substance,

when I realized it had been done a lot my next thought was

chocolate. Make it make and create something fun with it,

I struggled with deciding on what, and while looking around for

ideas I ran into this pumpkin model and immediately had

the thought of the pumpkin melting or rotting away. As

you can see my end scene ended up being a little more fun than that

but the process to getting there was certainly fun. 

Character Animation 1: Basic Walk

Character Animation 1 (CAN1)

Basic Walk

These Boots are Made for Walking

This project was again another walk

project, but there were a few creative freedoms

allowed in the beginning and end, but only

if you really got the walk down. After 

days of working on my walk and tweaking

all poses and the graph editor; I felt 

comfortable enough to add a fun little ending

to it. It was all hard to do and shows me

that I still have a lot to learn in the world

of animation, but I'm still considering it for

a future career.

Pre Pro:

Testing possible poses

Story Board: