Maya Tutorial: Mental Ray Renders Unit 1 part 1

The first part of unit 1 is to look at the quality differences for rendering shadows between a Maya Software Render and Maya Mental Ray Render. Looking at the results it seems that the Mental Ray Render has more of a natural dark shade which looks better when compared to the Software Render which is more brighter appearance.

Software Render


Mental Ray Render


I was trying to do the next part of the Unit 1 tutorial which is Optimzation but for some reason the file I acquired is not working. When I get a working one from Alan I will the second bit of the tutorial.

Maya Tutorial: Detailed Modelling part 2: Body

Here is the progress of making the detailed human body. This was a bit tricky because I had to add some more extra detail to chest, shoulder, abs and leg. My only problem with this tutorial is that in the final tutorial it seems that Alan started with a more cleanly shaped leg instead with the leg he left off in the second to last tutorial. Overall I felt I have learnt a lot in detailing a human body, can't wait to see what the next batch of modelling tutorials will hold.

Maya Tutorial: Detailed Modelling part 1: Head

Yesterday I have finished all the tutorials for the detailed head modelling. I also took screens shots to show off the progress of making the head.
Although this was a very long process it did teached me the type of hard work goes into detailing a realistic head.

E4 Sting Competition Progress 03: Finished Animation

Yesterday I have finished my E4 Animation.



I am proud of how it turned out but I am a bit worried that it might not be good enough to send to the E4 Sting competition.
Leave some feedback on what type of improvements the animation might need.
Thank you

Maya Tutorial: Particles Dynamics part 3

Here are all the unit 4 Maya tutorials including the fixed cradle dynamics. This was an interesting experience learning different ways to make particles and playing with physics.
They are all Pre-vis because rendering them would take a long time and don't have time to wait.

Maya Tutorial: Particles Dynamics part 3 and Match Making part 1

Here is the first set of the of the forth unit Maya tutorials however the cradle tutorial did not make it in because it still needs fixing but there will be more to come. I did asked help on the main group blog but no reply.
*Update* I looked back at the cradle tutorial and I forgot to add a gravity field on to all the balls, man I feel silly.



Also I have finished the first match making tutorial and although it went okay I did have some bumps. One in particular was the layering out the benches in different locations. I tried to make all my benches match with the image, but when Alan shown the match making scene when he finished modelling it I notice he deformed some of the benches. It would of helped if he explained it in the tutorial or maybe he did when we had our first lesson on this subject and I forgot.



all in all everything did went well and there are still more tutorials on their way.
Please leave feedback.

E4 Sting Competition Progress 02: Animatic and Pre-vis

For my E4 Sting animation I thought of having the E4 logo carving an even bigger E4 logo on the moon with a laser cannon. It is meant to capture the cocky side of the E4 logo that it feels it can brand anything.


The first video is an animatic storyboard of my E4 Sting animation.



The next video is Pre-vis, which is just a rough demo of the final product of my animation for the E4 Sting competition.


Please leave feedback.