Maya Tutorial: Cartoon Character

On the final Maya tutorial I carried on finishing my cartoon character. Funny thing I thought I have finished most of this character but in fact I forgot to add an eye control and adding blend shapes So I began making them which wasn't too hard because I have already did them on a different character. I also added a throat to him and some teeth and a tongue to give him a bit of life, as well a face camera which is used to help animate the character's face close up and in more detail. I even created a turnaround for him to show off my character around all sides from a solid mesh to a wire frame model.

















And that is all of them. I am really glad I finally finished all of my tutorials, I will try to get them done as fast as possible for next year.
So during the summer holiday I am going to try and finish making my Albert animation as well start on my 8000 word essay, I am aiming to do 4000 on in holiday and 4000 when I get back wish me luck :)

Maya Tutorial: Finished Car Model

As you know for the past few weeks I was finishing up some of my old maya tutorials. The next tutorial I was finishing up was the car modelling tutorial. I carried it on where I first left it

The first image shows off the roof and the front window I had made for the car, I made it out of a cube and reshaped it too resemble the roof. For the window I just separated it from the front of the cube and edit it to look like the front window.



Image 2 to 10 shows off the details I have added to the car like extra bumper details, licence plate, front radiator, front and back badges and head lights, door handles and side mirrors.
When I started adding the details to the car I really hand no idea how tough it was, so this was actually a good learning experience for me when understanding the amount of work that goes in to making the body of the car.



















The final part of the car tutorial is to make the wheel for it. Funny enough this felt quite easy to do when compared to the other parts I have done for the car.


When I finally finished making the car it felt like a huge weight came off my shoulders since I left this to last for a very long time.
With this tutorial done I can now start on the very last one of the second year which is finishing my cartoon character.

Maya Tutorial: Mental Ray Renders Unit 3 part 3

The Final part of the Unit 3 Maya tutorial is playing with the lighting of a rendered scene, the first is a HDR (High Dynamic Range) Render. A HDR is meant to give an image more colour variety which makes it more attractive. Here are some rendered out HDR images which uses an 'Image Based Lighting' to light up an area using an image.

HDR Normal Render

HDR Airbase Render

HDR Meadow Render

HDR Suburb Render

Next is to simulating a sun light with a sky to an island scene using a 'Pysiscal Sun Light' attribute. This part of the tutorial shows off the different controls in the attribute to manipulate the lighting of a sun and editing some extra its to it like increasing the contrast or playing with the red and blue colours. Also editing the quality of the shadow of a scene by giving it a hard or soft feel.

Physical Sun and Sky: Normal Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Adding Sun and Sky Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Moving Sun Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Increasing Sun Size Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Adding Haze Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Editing Red and Blue Colours Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Editing Saturation Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Normal Shadow Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Shadow Render

Physical Sun and Sky: Softening Shadow Render

In the final part in the lighting tutorial is to make a spot from where the light comes out from, this is call a portal light. I applyed a 'Pysical Sun and Light' attribute and added an area light. the render produce an nice calming atmosphere.

Portal Light Render

With this I am done with the Unit 3 Maya tutorial but I still have a couple left to do so please be patient. I believe the last tutorials are the car model and character tutorial.

Maya Tutorial: Mental Ray Renders Unit 3 part 2

The next unit 3 tutorials explore the uses of render layers and other rendering tools in Maya and editing the rendered out images in photoshop and after effects.

Basic Software Passes

Using Render Layers

Composited in Photoshop

Composited in After Effects

Using Render Layers 2

Using Contribution Passes and Mental Ray

Maya Tutorial: Mental Ray Renders Unit 3 part 1

The unit 3 Maya tutorial has a bit more variety. The first part of the unit 3 tutorial teaches displacement maps. Displacement maps acts like bump maps but actually reshape the mesh. The next few images shows different ways of using displacement maps. The first two images shows different ways of applying a displacement map while the next three images shows the many uses of adding displacement maps to a mesh.

Displacement Map

The second part of the unit 3 tutorial explain the usefulness of final gathering. They are used to calculate on which areas get more light and which areas doesn't which can be helpful if you feel that a certain area is not getting enough light or shade.

Render

Final Gather Points

Final Render

The last part of the unit 3 tutorial is global illumination, which is adding the right amount of light in a room to give it and producing a ray of light out of a window or any hole.

Global Illumination

All of the tutorials are very helpful in giving me ideas in rendering out scenes for my animation.

Maya Tutorial: Mental Ray Renders Unit 2

This tutorial looking at different forms of adding a blurr effect to a render.
The first part is adding a blurr that make objects look like they are moving or showing depth. The first batch of images shows the process I was following in adding a blurr effect to the planes and cartwheel.

Planes

Cartwheel

The final set of images shows the process in adding depth to objects that are far away or close.

Depth Process 1

Depth Process 2