Murray Sinclair - Blog

Another update

2010-12-13T06:58:00.002Z

BRINK Update

2010-11-30T06:10:00.001Z

Small changes - crits welcome!

Brink Head W.I.P

2010-11-28T21:47:00.003Z

Could not help myself. Started this last nite - Slapped on a dirty projection. More to come.

Hardsurface Modeling

2010-11-22T05:58:00.002Z

Just some stuff I have been working on. I really not getting good results with hardsurface normal maps so trying to find a soild workflow any tips from you guys would be great!

AM Still here

2010-11-19T03:26:00.003Z

Been working away on a few things one was my Halloween mask which I ran out of time to make but here is some shots.

Also made the generic fire hydrant as a base assets to be used for testing hard surface normal maps and the various methods you can create them.

Few other things but will show them later on.

lazy post

2010-09-21T22:45:00.003+01:00

Bit quite round so been posting updates over on the forums but here is a another update

Update

2010-09-08T06:30:00.001+01:00

Photoshop Mock-up

2010-08-22T00:44:00.002+01:00

I want to take the sculpt into a full character so went all 2D not my strongest point but happy with my hack skill :P

More Mudbox Fun

2010-08-21T20:36:00.002+01:00

Just for fun

2010-08-09T04:03:00.001+01:00

Need to do this more often

Turntable

2010-07-21T22:08:00.002+01:00

Not been working to much on the lower body still trying to get everything looking close to the concept.

Rigged

2010-07-15T20:03:00.002+01:00

Hello again, been awhile not made to much progress but have made some important changes. First of I change the length of arms. They were far too long, also changed the topology of the jacket around the collar area. Another change was I wanted to try importing a rig from Maya into Mudbox to help with sculpting.

The plan is to use a layer to hold a Pose and then Sculpt in that pose and once finished remove the Layer to bring it back to T-Pose while retaining the details. Mite not work out that way but worth a try. If not am sure I can just use displacement maps from one pose to another.

Update

2010-07-07T23:08:00.003+01:00

This is how he stands atm on the bottom level which is around 10,000 tris. Mite start doing the shotguns before doing any detail just to do something a bit different for awhile

New Topology

2010-07-07T19:39:00.003+01:00

I have redone the topology of the head, I know its not perfect but I will fix it once I have finished up in Mudbox.

Head and Hair

2010-07-05T06:49:00.000+01:00

Spam

2010-07-04T05:51:00.001+01:00

I just got a email from Google spam department, informing me that they noticed spam like activity on my blog :P I will try and make the next update a big one

Now your getting it! :P

2010-07-04T04:49:00.004+01:00

STILL not happy with the proportions but made some changes for the better. I been using photoshop to mark of areas and then tweak them in 3d till it looks good from all angles. Just goes to show how far off I was with my initial base mesh :P I also changed the base mesh for the feet and went one with toes just save me so much time.

2010-07-03T10:54:00.006+01:00

Think I am now happy with proportions and any changes I make now will be more focused on details, honest

Fixed

2010-06-30T21:00:00.002+01:00

Rite I think I have fixed the major problems and can now move on and get into the smaller forms :P

p.s Sorry for posting every silly little thing I do I know these are small updates BUT I like to track my progress so I can look back afterward and see my workflow and find out what went well and what went bad, one thing I learned I liked to do at school.

Used to hate it when my teacher would say " Its not what you end up with its how you go there that matter" now I see what they mean, kinda :P

Your doing it wrong!

2010-06-30T10:38:00.002+01:00

I been looking at this and feeling it was off so I took it into Photoshop for a closer look, very quickly I could see what was wrong. I will spend some time fixing the basic proportions before I do any sculpting!!

Starting - Level 1

2010-06-25T00:40:00.001+01:00

Going to try and get as much as I can out of each sub-d level as I can before moving on, still more to do on this level but wanted to post anyways :P

Ready Set Go!

2010-06-16T06:49:00.008+01:00

First off, I wasnt really happy with how the model was subdividing so I went in and changed the base mesh around the collar area of his jacket. I went in and changed the topology and added some tight loops to make sure certain parts would give a crisp hard edge when smoothed.

I did a dirty uv map ( about 2mins ) just to split of the shells so that I could use the

"auto groups with UV" function in zbrush to make some Polygroups. This will help when I want to isolate a specific part of the mes.

I looked into using Mudox but I found it struggled at higher sub-d levels maxing out at 4 division and going slow, where as Zbrush could run smoothly at a much higher sub-d level (7)

I do meet the hardware specs for Mudbox, with a NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M gfx card but it still goes really slow. Its a shame because Mudbox has some really nice features which I would have liked to give a try!

Anyways, I am now ready to get sculpting!

May have to take a break first as my eyes are over worked these days :(

New Base Mesh Done!!

2010-06-14T00:17:00.003+01:00

New base mesh done! All quads and split up into four separate maps. I am tempted to use Mudbox over Zbrush for a change but I need to find out if it is possible to make selection mask via uv shells or some other methods. I really use the poly group masking allot in Zbrush and find it useful and hope mudbox has something similar. Anyone know?

Cheers!

Murray

Roughing the Proportions

2010-06-12T05:23:00.003+01:00

So I took my base mesh into zbrush and tweaked the shape a little bit more. He is currently sitting around 9 heads tall the reasons being that these guy are said to be around 8 foot tall in the comic book.

Next step is to fix the base mesh ready for sculpting, rite now he is split up into septate parts and this can be a pain more so with the legs and arms when transposing. Once that part is done I can start with the sculpting! Woop!

New proportions and silhouette

2010-06-08T08:35:00.002+01:00

Hello again. Started working on this guy again and wanted to start with getting the basic forms in, the old model was rather flat and lacked the same proportions as the concept art. So I went down to my lowest sub division level and exported it to Maya there I set up a camera with roughly the same perspective angle that the concept was drawn in. Once that was done I tried to match the silhouette best as I can. Fairly happy with what I have got at the moment. Will tweak some more soon before moving on to fixing the topology to be ready for sculpting.

Going to have fun with this one! :P

Till next time

Spring cleaning.

2010-06-06T02:03:00.002+01:00

I was cleaning up my hard drive and was looking at some old work and have decided to rework this piece for my folio. It need allot of work but I think this will save me allot of time rather that starting from scratch. I am still aiming for the end of the year to have my folio ready!

Bake test

2010-05-31T06:09:00.003+01:00

Hello,

I was planning on wrapping this guy up this weekend but I was getting a some errors when doing my baking tests which held me back working on the high poly more in case it was something to do with the mesh. Also it was really nice out all weekend so tired not to stay inside that much. Well I just finished fixing my problem and doing a quick bake test. So far so good few errors in the maps but nothing I cant fix.

Still need to figure how I will mite do the skirt. Was thinking of doing it all in 2D just to test the work flow.

I do think I will spend a bit more time on this guy and redo some of the poly flow. I debated adding claws to his feet. I tired them but goz didn't like it so much and seemed to much effort for not allot of gain. Can always add them as a separate mesh later.

I am also toying with do another two variations of this guy, one ice and one earth. Should be fun!

Topology

2010-05-27T23:18:00.002+01:00

OK so this was my first time using Topogun and so far so good. Really found it fast and only jumped back into Maya for a few things. For example fingers and toes where made from primitives and duplicated along so the where the same size a shape.

I am happy with what I got most of it clean, still will change some bits here and there it help deformation but this is close to final mesh. He is sitting at around 3100 TRI's and am sure I can trim that down at the end.

Next stage is to layout UV'S then refine the shape and texture inside zbrush and photoshop.

After that bake the maps out and call him done!

2010-05-23T04:20:00.002+01:00

Last nite I wanted to give a go at doing my own time laps of a project from start to finish, so everything was going well and about 3hrs in went to save just in case my screen capture crashed... well it crashed on save :(

So here is was I got so far, only used Zbrush so far and will take this out to Topogun for re-topo and then do some UVs before baking out textures from the high poly.

This wasn't meant to be a folio piece just a bit of fun and practice of my current workflow but may put the time in to make this a little low poly piece for my folio!

The original concept is by the fantastic PATRICIO MARCELLO BALANOVSKY

High Poly

2010-04-17T20:20:00.005+01:00

I have done the high poly and baked out all the normal and AO maps but getting some doddgy normals. I will try and rebake some of them and try a few different methods. I been using xnormal for its speed. I want to move on to something else so mite leave it for later and come back to it later on.

Spring Break Zbrush Class

2010-04-14T04:42:00.003+01:00

Hello again,

just wanted to give a update on the spring break class I took where I was teaching Zbrush to a group of 10 kids . This is the a image of what they produced from my Texturing and Rendering Lesson. I was impressed with how well they picked it up and some of them even had time left over so I showed them the transpose tools.

They also made there own cartoon creature which they started from Z-Spheres and took all the way to texuring and rendering in under 2hrs!!! I was amazed. By the fourth and final day they where I suggested to them that they bring in a sketch of their own and try and make that in 3d, again I was amazed how well they got on.

If I find time I will render out the rest of their work they produced and post it here!

Block in texture

2010-04-06T00:46:00.003+01:00

Hey textures has never been something I have been great at. Avoided them so far. I know this guy doesn't really have allot of texture detail to him but still going to be something new for me. So I decided to block it in try out different approaches quickly then when I find something I like I will get into making a tidy texture map!

Something else I have learned was I never knew you could anti alias your view port in Maya and Max!

UV Layout

2010-04-02T02:38:00.003+01:00

So I have moved on and done my UV layout for this guy. I am sure I could optimise it more but I am happy that he has almost zero stretching as I want nice clean maps. I am hoping to get away with 1024 texture map in keeping with my low poly count which is down by 184 poly's so he is now sitting at 5240 tris.

I also changed the design a fair bit. I was looking at the 2D concept and thinking how he has short legs which I think will make walking difficult so to help him get around I have given him a jet pack! Which I think he suits.

I do plan on rigging this guy so I am thinking how he is going to function and will be adding some edge loops to allow better deformation.

Looks like I mite get this finished by the 8th!

Cheers

Update - I guess

2010-03-29T03:51:00.004+01:00

I have been trying to do some work while I was back in Scotland for a while. I told myself I would wrap this up before I go back on the 8th so I got a week! Well I have done all the hard work I guess I worked on the mesh trying to strip out polys and have got it down to 5424 tris. I have done the UV Layout so it on to texture work. I will use Zbrush for the head but the rest of the high poly work will be done in Maya.

2010-03-08T00:38:00.000Z

Intro to Zbrush

2010-03-07T03:56:00.004Z

Hello again. Next week I have been asked run a class for teens during spring break. It wont be a surprise that I have chosen to try introduce everyone to my favourite package Z-BRUSH !

I am going to try and teach them the basics and lead them to create a simple cartoon character
( not my concept ) . I will be creating a PDF for the class as well as a video time laps which I will post here.

Really looking forward to teaching and will post the results of what the kids produce !

Base mesh almost done

2010-03-02T06:23:00.005Z

Just chipping away at this when I get a spare minute or two, should be done soon. Here is my base mesh, trying to keep him under 3000 polys -Not sure if I am going to animate but if I am I will need to change his legs as I can imagine how he will walk as they are now.

.

Long time no post!

2010-02-26T06:19:00.012Z

Hello again,

Been far to long since my last post and to tell the truth I kind of missed it. I like my blog as it allows me to keep track how how I am progressing and what I have learned even if its is for my owns sake :P

So what have I been up to? Well I have been doing some 3D work mainly with Z-brush and Z-Spheres 2. Each Monday I try and catch up with my friend Zanek over Skype. We have a Zbrush session while we chat and the idea is if we mange to do this ever Monday then we will slow but surely get better with Zbrush. I really look forward to this and like to call them "Z-Brush Mondays"

I have also been trying to do the E.D.A.H ( Every Day An Hour ) where you spend an hour with Zbrush. So far I haven't been entirely faithful to this but some good things have come from it and I am definitely getting faster.

So here you can see what has come from Zbrush Mondays and E.D.A.H :

My first attempt with Z-Spheres 2 / 6hrs Sculpt

This started out by making his body in Z-brush using Z-Spheres. I was surprised at how clean the mesh was when converted to a poly mesh 3d. The other parts have been made in Maya. I plan on making him a low budget game character and hopefully doing a high res render.

I seen the DVD cover of ICE ACE and thought "Sid" would be a great project for Z-Spheres. I knocked this out in 30Min's!! Was really happy about that :)

This was another Z-Sphere Test . Would have taken further but the file got messed up :/

Dino, Maybe get developed further who knows but to much detail needed and I am enjoying doing the fast block in atm.

So what have I learned? Z-Sphere are amazing once you get used to them they are so fast I can imagine blocking any organic mesh without them. More to come!

:)

Zbrush 3.5! I love Zbrush

2009-09-11T22:22:00.004+01:00

If you don't use Zbrush now is the time to start! New update , new tools and new possibilities !
Have a look here!

Crab Anyone?

2009-09-08T01:38:00.002+01:00

OK just a little project to help me get warmed up for my main portfolio project. This Project is based on an art test for blitz games which has is to create a game ready asset with limitation set withing a professional brief.

Here is my Initial Base mesh

Soon i will be in Zbrush to fix the form and proportions then back into Maya to redo the typology to better suit the form Will be doing updates when I can.

Cheers

Dare to be Digital 2009

2009-09-06T23:22:00.014+01:00

Just wanted to posted some info about what I was up to over the summer.I took part in this years Dare to be Digital Competition

Whats is dare?

Dare to be Digital is a video games development competition for extremely talented students at Universities and Colleges of Art. Teams of 5 students, usually a mix of artists, programmers and audio, assemble in a development hothouse for 10 weeks to develop a prototype video game, receiving daily support and weekly training sessions from industry specialists.

At the end of the competition, the prototypes are displayed at a special talent showcasing event in Edinburgh, Dare ProtoPlay , alongside the Edinburgh Interactive Festival in August. The general public as well as industry experts get to play and vote for the games. Prizes are then awarded to the winning teams at a special awards ceremony. Later in the year the winning teams attend the BAFTA Video Games Awards to compete for the coveted "Ones to Watch Award".

A short video of Dare can be seen here!

My team was called Pixel Pirates and we made a Prototype called Colour Coded.The Game is a 3D platform-puzzler where you must manage a group of naive explorers through various crazy physics based puzzles. You must apply paint to objects using you your paint brush and 4 colours, each with their own physical attribute.

Be vigilant to allow safe passage for the Explorers! You must help them find their ship so they can travel to new worlds!

What did I do?

My main role with in the team is was to create and design all the 3d assets withing the game , character, environments and it props. I was also acting as the team lead for the 10 weeks.

How did we get on?

Colour Coded was one of the three game that won Dare to be Digital 2009 and the team has been nominated to for the Ones to watch BAFTA award!

Some of the Media Coverage the competition and the teams have received.

BBC NEWS

1: DEVELOP MAGAZINE , 2: DEVELOP MAGAZINE

GAMES INDUSTRY BIZ

1: 4MATIONS , 2: 4MATIONS

DARE SITE

BITMOB

Protoplay pictures on FlickR

More information and future updates can be found on out site www.colour-coded.com and if you would like to get in touch with the team email at

hello@colour-coded.com

Final Update on Comic Project

2009-09-06T15:36:00.005+01:00

Hello

Been a while since Ive been on and thought It was time for an update on what I have been working on. I never posted the end result on here so here are the four completed panels

Below is an example of how I adapted the original comic :

These images where part of my research into the future of comics to which lead me to create a concept called the 3D Canvas, which a prototype can be viewed here www.the3d-canvas.com

I posted my work public in various forums for feedback which can be found here :

zbrush fourms,
3d total fourms,
comix talk

My comic imbeded into the Infinite Canvas Model can be viewed here

A copy of my final presentation slide show can be found here

I would just like to say thanks to my Dad for all his help and support and to anyone else who offered advice/feedback you know who you are.

Cheers!!

PANEL 1

2009-05-08T22:50:00.004+01:00

PANEL 4 DRAFT

2009-05-06T19:16:00.004+01:00

Panels 1 - 2 DRAFT

2009-05-05T22:22:00.005+01:00

PANEL 2 BEST

2009-04-27T18:35:00.001+01:00

PANEL 2 FIRST DRAFT feedback please!

2009-04-26T17:30:00.003+01:00

IRON

2009-04-23T13:37:00.002+01:00

INTERFACE MOCK UP

2009-04-22T20:59:00.004+01:00

POSE 17-18

2009-04-19T22:53:00.004+01:00

POSE 15-16

2009-04-19T22:53:00.001+01:00

POSE 14

2009-04-19T22:52:00.009+01:00

POSE 13

2009-04-19T22:52:00.008+01:00

POSE 12

2009-04-19T22:52:00.006+01:00

POSE 9

2009-04-19T22:51:00.009+01:00

POSE 11

2009-04-19T22:51:00.008+01:00

POSE 10

2009-04-19T22:51:00.006+01:00

POSE 5-6

2009-04-19T22:50:00.011+01:00

POSE 4

2009-04-19T22:50:00.010+01:00

POSE 7

2009-04-19T22:50:00.009+01:00

POSE 8

2009-04-19T22:50:00.007+01:00

POSE 3

2009-04-19T22:49:00.005+01:00

POSE 2

2009-04-19T22:49:00.004+01:00

POSE 1

2009-04-19T22:48:00.001+01:00

Zdepth works

2009-04-17T17:38:00.003+01:00

Ok so after listen to the feedback for my post on the Z brush forums I manged to get a z depth render.

Zdepth render in Zbrush

2009-04-17T00:20:00.003+01:00

Today I was trying to find out how to add Zdepth to my images to hopefully make the images more dynamic.

But for some reason I am having little success after some experimenting I still had poor results so I made two posts on the Z brush forums. Both found here and here . I have been given advice on what the possible problems could be and will try them out and post and update soon.

Best one yet

2009-04-14T11:14:00.003+01:00

Production is now my main priority no more test or experiments just making the panels. I did this yesterday and will continue working on it today and hopefull will have my first finished panel !

Stereoscopic Test

2009-04-03T12:46:00.002+01:00

As mentioned yesterday I wanted to see how feasibility it is to make this comic Stereoscopic. So I have made this test image, only thing is I don't have 3d glasses to try it out. So if anyone does can you have a quick look at let me know if it works or not.

Cheers

Comp Test

2009-04-02T14:56:00.003+01:00

Here is a quick test of trying the render out a panel. The reason for this is so that I could establish a suitable work flow. I have identified problems and due to limitations with z brush "camera" and there is NO documented solution.

This will still be preferable to using Maya so I will have to continue with Z brush regardless of the problems it will pose.

I am also looking at the possibility of trying to create a stereoscopic renders so the viewer will get a true sense of this "3d canvas" and I think I will really add to the production.

I am currently researching the techniques used to produce stereoscopic render in after effects but this is just to allow me to have the choice to add it as an after thought if I have the time.

The modeling is almost done, just the details to be done so I will begin making the panels!!

Base Mesh Update

2009-03-31T18:50:00.003+01:00

Hello, here we have the base mesh blocked out, still need to do allot but just wanted some feed back on what u think can be improved before I go ahead and detail him.

Cheers for any feedback you leave!

Update

2009-03-31T13:18:00.002+01:00

Work on the second character hoping to have the base mesh finished in the next few days as time is running short then I can get on with rendering out the panels!!!

Quick Test

2009-03-27T18:49:00.003Z

Below are two images one is the the stand alone panel test and the other is a quick look at how is sits in the "3d canvas" Ive found it is very awkward to get environment renders out of zbrush you don't have control over the camera point of interest as it automatically will be on the center of you re ztools to over come this I will do measurements on Maya and make my in tented focus point the physical center of the scene then when I export to zbrush camera movement will be allot less cumbersome.

Other problems I have found are related to performance, I only have 2GB of ram on my laptop and ideal I would be using a 64bit 0S and 4GB ram to get the most out of zbrush. I may have to bite the built and upgrade of the problem continues.

Panel

Comp in "3D CANVAS"

Testing higher res renders

2009-03-26T17:04:00.000Z

Mat Caps

2009-03-25T22:49:00.002Z

Just trying to find the correct mat caps and colours i like.

Zbrush Test

2009-03-25T15:54:00.002Z

I am much hapier with the renders from z brush and I think I will have to use z brush for all the panel work and maya for environments and camera pans.

Week 5, Tue 24th TASKS

2009-03-24T12:00:00.009Z

OK so I still have two task outstanding from yesterday Create Maps and Rig using TSM , but
I did manged to do which wasn't on my list successfully export a camera and null object into after effects. The reason I was having difficulty before was to do with the name of my camera being camerpan1 but AE needs persp1. This will hopefuly save me alot of time in post production when add elements in AE such animated text to the rendered camera move from maya.

So my tasks for today are :

- Rig using TSM
- Create Displacement Maps for whole character
- Test render the maps
- Composite Materials in Photoshop

Update: Spent some time trying to get displacement maps to work and still not getting correct results. I think it may be due to the type of details I am trying to reproduce I based me test on the hair with the results shown below which are I guess I can call acceptable.

As you can see the Maya render matches the z brush render quite well, not perfect though. In this instance I used AUV tiles for the uv layout and I cant seem to see any artifacts.

I am going to make a post with Notes covering the pipeline for creating displacement maps in z brush and rendering it out in maya, this will be helpful I will be using the work flow alot through the production.

UPDATE: Ok so I have almost finished the high poly sculpting inside of z brush, later on I plan to generate the displacement/normal maps and try and render them out as best I can inside of Maya.

Later I will take the best render I get I will make a comp with it inside of photoshop.

Hopefull I will also have time to begin rigging!

Here is render of the high poly in z brush.

Update here is the Maya render using displacement maps with AO shared, Not to many artifact but I have discovered that the artifacts are due to the mesh having non quads. This can be fixed by subdividing the mesh once ( hopefully )

UPDATE: Deformation Test

Not really happy with how these are rendering out and don't really have the time to do much more to them, It make me really consider trying to use zbrush for the panel renders and Maya for the environment and camera pan renders. Not much time left to do a test to find out either.

5 week PLAN

2009-03-23T17:31:00.006Z

OK so I only have 5 weeks left to get this done so . Each day I going to set some task that I must complete if not then I have to carry them over to the Saturday.

So far I manged to make the base mesh but I am having problems with rendering out displacement maps in maya. I was able to create a 32 bit Floating Point displacement file and used a script to convert the .tiff file to the .map file in which mental ray requires/prefers but my renders are not coming out as expected. Hopefully by the end of the day I will have a solution.

I will also have to see if you can plug in a displacement map into an ambient occlusion shader.

Regard to my last post with exporting the camera from maya to AE I have submitted a post here asking for help but have had no reply's as of yet.

Publish Post

Update: I have had a reply to my post ! Will give that are try later!

Update: So I have been trying to get displacement maps to work using Scott Spencer tutorial but first attempts didn't work, so I tried this tutorial and manged to produce some ok results . I used the the following values for the Alpha Gain 2.200 and Alpha Offset -1.100. It has been recommend to keep the Offset - half of the gain value ( no idea why ) to get nice resluts.

The resluts are show below as you can see there is some artifacts in the middle render. This may be just the problems with the UV seams as I used Maya auto unwrap for speed sake will try again with a proper uv layout.

Maya Test

2009-03-19T20:57:00.002Z

ok so here is the test done in maya this posed many problems with matching up muiltiple perspectives from the camera move in maya to that in after effect will need to see if there is any workflows to export camera data from maya into after effects to make this easier.

Another Test

2009-03-18T21:39:00.004Z

OK did another test today this time using tsm to pose my guy then renderd out in zbrush, with some photoshop love. Then over too after effects and then did another "demo" of what my idea for the final hyper would be like. The video is animated to the words ONE TWO THREE FOUR

ONE AND FOUR are place holders for other panels and
TWO AND THREE are place holders for the dialogue " eat - this "

I also added a wiggle to the camera movement which make the pause on the panel a bit more interesting on the eye.

Feedback so far has been on how the pause should be held for a bit longer to allow the viewer to the read the text I will try this and see how this effects the tempo. Also I was considering more time on the lighting and colour within the panel to make it read better , as till now I have been foucusing slighty with detail but as a Faye pointed out that in the short amount of time its on screen you wont have time to look at the detail . So will try and new test soon with better lighting and colour in maya.

Test

2009-03-17T19:48:00.002Z

Did another test and wanted to try and get some dialouge in there, first impression are that it is clear to see that the text will need to be animated rite to give the comic some kind of continuity with the tempo.

In this test I had the idea of making the camera view flat to match the comic as if it sitting flat with no perspective but I find it very dull to look at and goes against my idea of the "infinite canvas".

The still camera is also very boring. More tests to come :P

2009-03-17T19:45:00.002Z

Still from the work flow test I did today using transpose master then comp in after affects.

Test w/Text

2009-03-17T03:09:00.002Z

Just did two test within affter effects, to get a feeling of what the final product will look like and also good to try out the work flow from maya/zbrush to final shot. I also did some small text animation results where not that great more testing to come over the next few days.

2009-03-17T00:33:00.003Z

Print Press

2009-03-10T20:19:00.001Z

Long time since my last post but getting back into the swing if things today. Started to build the environment in which the comic is staged in. I am aiming to finish this by the end of the week.

List of Hyper/Motion Comics

2009-03-03T23:02:00.002Z

Comics

I also came across a demo of the Marvel Digital Comics Viewer here. I will try and reproduce some of these features for my own hyper/web comic.

HTML TEST

2009-03-03T18:40:00.009Z

Pulp Fiction Hyper Comic Test

2009-03-02T15:55:00.003Z

P.O.A

2009-02-28T13:44:00.004Z

Production Assets :

City Streets
Tower Building
City Press Environment ( print machine )
Iron Michele
Deadpan Louie
Smitty ( maybe not )
Shotgun
Pistol
Dead Pan Louie
Daggers
Light and Render 19 Panels
174 to words to animated ( kinetic typography )
6 splash animations
Sound affects

Post Production :

Make an Interactive comic in flash ( plan out what interaction is require and possible )

Make a comic demo video in after affects similar to this ( make a list of what I want )

I will need to basically find some kind of way of making this kinda of video interactive,
videocopilot or Armageddon media may be able to help me with the After Effects part.

Regarding the animated text I may have found something on Lynda.com that will go thought the process.

http://www.cartoonsmart.com may be able to help me aswell as flashkit.com

Would be nice to have some kind of into like previously in Iron and the Maiden in the style seen here.

I have heard of 2 new terms describing a new breeds of comics I am now aware of Web comics hyper and motion comics.

Interactive Comic Test

2009-02-26T14:50:00.007Z

Manged play around with QTVR and this is what I manged to make, very basic will need to play around with the technology more to see what it can do.

Please have a look and leave a comment on what u think . Click here to view it ,
you may have to give it a minute to load in.

Also have a look at this link and you should find my short test with this new app , its called Pulp Fiction Test by Murray Sinclair

The idea is to make that has navigation similarm to what is seen here but will my 3d style to it

Thanks

Panoramic

2009-02-26T11:46:00.004Z

Hello , finished yesterday with not alto to show but made some progress in Learning how to
create a Panoramic image of my set from Maya. The work flow I used was to create 12 renders each render being rotated from the center of the room at 30 degrees at a time. Then the Images where imported into Autodesk Stitcher Unlimited .

The reason I have chosen to create t a panoramic image is to hopefully allow the reader locate the position within the scene when the camera (frame) changes.

2 Panels

2009-02-25T02:13:00.005Z

OK so now I have two panels to work with. I will need to think on how I intent to move the the camera from one panel to another also know as the "flow" in comics speak.

Any ideas will be great.

Another Test

2009-02-24T17:08:00.001Z

Lighting part2

2009-02-24T12:13:00.005Z

I have done a little more work and have updated the compassion image with the inclusion of a
the ambient occlusion render ( looks a bit better ) also have done a quick panel test under this more "realistic" type of lighting.

Lighting

2009-02-24T01:42:00.003Z

I am still getting to grips with lighting, and here is my comparisons from a shot in the movie. I think I have done an OK job considering the time I spent on it but I don't it will look good as a comic.

More Rendereing Notes

2009-02-21T15:14:00.007Z

Tips -Found in the Render View > Render > Render Selected Object will be useful troubleshooting or fine tuning at specific object.

I.P.R is Interactive Photo realist Renderer . IPR allows you to update some changes in real time that you make in the view port. IPR is limited to certain changes , it cant update change to Irradiance particles and Importons what It can update is changes made when objects are moved, lights F.G and G.I which is very useful.

Another very useful feature is called Comment Images to use this feature Left Click on the Keep Image in the Render View . Allow you to compare renders while having a useful comment along with the render information e.g " change the Scale to 3 much more darker "

Snapshot will render a wire frame

Attribute Editor pop out Setting and Preference > Preference > Open Attribute Editor in New Window.

Depth map Shadows are faster than Raytrace shadows but are not physically acurate.

Raytrace shadows can look even better when you increase Light Radius and Increase the shadow rays but will increase render times.

Changes

2009-02-21T01:08:00.003Z

Suggestion was made to make the background less saturated and I made the angle of view wider.
Better or No?

3D PANLES and THEIR FLOW

2009-02-20T21:36:00.005Z

People are finding it difficult to understand on how I intend to present my comic so what I have done is this quick mock up. As you can see the panel is in focus and the background which is an out of focus render of environment ( without characters ).

The reason for this is hopefully it will give the viewer a sense of positioning with in the comic. Making it easier for reader to understand where they are looking from when complex/interesting camera view are used.

Hope this make sense, if not please comment and I will try and to explain it more

p.s I will aim to have this render out and animated into a web comic by next Friday.

GLOBAL ILLUMINATION

2009-02-20T13:57:00.021Z

G.I work using photons ( packs of light energy ) they can come from a light source. Point light cast photon light out in all directions . To reduce render time use a light will not only suit the intended results but will also not waste photons.

The results taken from a G.I render will be dependable on the scene size. To achieve best results you have to play around with the Photon Intensity and Exponent values found under the Caustics and Global Illumination tab.

Photon Intensity will determine how much energy each photon emits ( higher > brighter ) the Exponent determines how quickly the photons energy will live for allowing it to travel further. The lower the Exponent value the longer the life span.

Photon Colour can be changed to achieve various affects within you're scene. Changing the photon colour will add a tint ( atmosphere ) to the final render useful for setting mood or eluding to the idea of the main light source that is providing the Indirect Illumination.

By changing the Photon Colour to something that is really bright you can have the same effect as changing the Photon Intensity.

To help smooth out the blotches in you're render you can increase the number of Global Illumination Photons . Increasing this number will also increase you render times. You can also can the G.I Accuracy found in the Render Global's for Mental Ray and Indirect Lighting Tab ( maya 2009 )

The Scale value can be changed to increase the brightness of the cast photons It will change photons energy. It will just change the effect the photon have on the Indirect Illumination.

The Radius affect the distance each photon can reach out and grab information from the surrounding photons allow it to average the results when the value is set to ZERO Maya will determine what value It thinks I best for the size of you re scene. You can experiment with this value of you like the higher the number the smoother the results but will increase render time.

Changing these values will improve the render but will not completer remove the blotches. To do this you will need to enable final gather but this will cause a noticeable increase in render time and will darken out you're render.

The darkness I due to the fact....... I HAVE NO IDEA!!! need to find out why.

Map Visualizer allows you to see the photon distribution within you're scene inside of the view port.
This is use full for trouble shooting. it does this by saving the G.I photon map file " .pmap" . This can be used to store the some photon information but not all so basically you can change Scale Radius and Accuracy without recalculating allowing you to fine tune you render quickly , but you cannot change the Photon Intensity , Photon Colour or Exponent without recalculating.

You can affect the indirect lighting on a per object basis by changing the the Photon Attributes on the desired object . If you change the colour it will not change the objects colour but it will change the colour of the indirect lighting in which bounce of from the object/material.

Using mental ray material has it own rule when working with photons. All of the MIB materials need to have a extra node to be able to receive photons and then this node will need to be tone down to look good.

Work follow that seems to work, is set up either you direct light first till you are happy then add you're indirect lights from you chosen source , preferable using another light that the one you are using for you're direct illumination.

Final Gather

2009-02-19T13:55:00.027Z

By changing the Ambient Colour of a Material you can effectively make that object an indirect light source.

Changing a Materials colour brightness you can affect the over all lighting of the scene making it dark or bright.

The Irradiance attribute can be changed to have a similar effect found when changing the Ambient Colour ( find out more uses of this )

The Irradiance colour attribute controls how much the material will use the surrounding indirect illumination lowering this value will mean the object will use less FG illumination and look darker.

Attributes to be aware of related to Final Gather speed vs Quality.

- Accuracy will change the number of rays each point ( green dot ) will use
to calculate the Indirect Lighting.

- Point Density will affect the number of points that are used to send our the rays ,

- Point Interpolation changes the amount each point will sample surrounding points
to average it results. This can be used to help improve blotching found in FG renders
with low Point Density or Accuracy .

- Scale will affect the FG contribution of Illumination within you're scene. Also you can
change the colour of the Scale and it will affect the overall colour of the
Indirect Illumination with in you're Scene, similar affect of using a colour to and AO s
shader ( will do a test and compare results )

- Final Gathering Map can be used to generate a map which can be used to "bake" the
the information ( point data ) calculated in previous renders this can be used to reduce
render times. When the Rebuild is set to ON the the FG will recalculate all the point
information on every new render ( animation friendly / slow )

- When the Rebuild is set to OFF will add any new FG point to the existing map if the
camera changes ( animation friendly / fast )

- When the Rebuild is set to FREEZE will rely fully on the .fgmap , any changes
made to the FG attributes will not have any effect because the render is only taking information for the the .fgmap ( not animation friendly / fast )

- FG is known to cause flickering when used in animation to reduce this affect you can
enable Optimize for Animations found in Final Gathering Tracing (Maya 2009)

- Altering the Max and Min values for the Radius Quality Control will affect the
render times by entering efficient values you can keep render time down. Efficient
values can be estimated in relation to the scene size

- To calculate this go to Create>Measure Tools>Distance Tool & Measure the size of
the scene in which you want to calculate from. Then for the Max value use 10% of this
value and then the for the minimum value take 10 % of the value entered for the Max

- If you do not want to calculate the scene size you can enable View ( Radii in Pixel Size )
this function will calculator the FG based on resolution of you're render higher resolution
will require Higher min/max radius.

- To further improve the output from the FG render we can apply a filter found under
the Final Gathering Quality drop down Menu

- FG Falloff allows you control the distance in which the rays will be able to look, this is
useful to localise the affect of the FG by using per object overrides.

- FG Trace Depth is best used when rendering a scene that contain transparent
objects such as glass. To allow this to work you need to change the FG attributes
increasing the Refraction to match the number of surfaces you need the rays to pass
through, for example Double Glazing Glass would be TWO. Number of reflection is sufficient at
one in most cases and the Max Trace Depth is the sum of the Reflection & Refractions
values.

- FG Additional Diffuse Bounce can add be used to increase colour bleed within the
scene. With using one bounce light you will notice the scene will become allot brighter to
reduce this darken the value of the Secondary Diffuse Scale. If you wish to increase
size of Secondary Diffuse Bounce in you're scene you will need to access the miDefualt
options and going into the FG attributes and make sure that the FG Trace Depth equals
the sum of FG Diffuse, FG Reflections and FG Refractions. More Bounce will look
will be best on more complex scene. Render Times will increase when you increase the
Secondary Diffuse Bounce value.

- FG Interaction on a Per Object Basis is useful when you have a material applied to more than one object buy you only want to change the FG affects for a single object. You can achieve this by going into Mental Ray attributes of the object in which you want to change. There you will
find Final Gather Cast and Final Gather Receive options.

Other override that can be useful on a per object basis are found under the Final Gather Override menu. This will be used to fine tune the results of you're FG render in areas that
require it without having to increase quality setting in the render global you can do it just for one object saving render time .

Render Test, for the test comic :P

2009-02-14T02:01:00.002Z

I made a mock set of and then added some shaders and lights and did a 2 pass render setup, and for the little time I spent I am happy and see it look good with more time. Even thought this is just a test to be used in the post production I still want the intial production stuff to look good.