Completed Maya Tutorials of M&M unit

I would have liked to have posted these, as and when I did them, but in all honesty, aside form the Model,dynamics week 1 & 2, and the matchmoving scene, I've only completed what I've done these past few days. It's been a hectic few weeks, but over the summer I hope to get all the creases ironed out of a few few things, and get back to working. I found a lot on Ebay selling 20 Gnomon DVD's, placed a bid for £57.50 and won! despite only having real use for about 5 or 6 of them, I'd like to try and get through at least one a week over the summer period, to keep on top of my Maya game.

Anyway, Back to the point, here are the Maya tutorials I managed to complete over the space of the 1st week of the project and the past few days.






Here we have the hi-res version of the Igor anatomical model. I don't if it's common or not, but I had less of a hard time modelling this hi-res version of the, by far, than modelling the lower detail game version. Maybe I know his face too well? Either way, above you can see the modeled head from a few different angles.





Here is the model of the rest of the body, again, despite having to put in more detail etc. I found this body easier to work with than the game version. Perhaps it's the fact that there's a bit more wiggle room, there is no super precise amount of polys needed etc. and allows for slight more personal flavour/error rather than technical.

Moving on, I decided to complete the remaining dyamics and Ncloth tutorials. I think I got the most difficult one out of the way early on during the first week as it didn't take me too long to finish these ones. Put it this way - I will be sleeping tonight.



This is the first weeks tutorials. Mostly quite straight forward, didn't really run into any problems apart from the pendulum 'dealy' but just started from scratch and was fine.



Here we have the second weeks. A familiar face again, with regards to the chubby necked gentleman. these again were pretty straight forward and I only really had trouble with the bubbles video, but rectified that problem shortly enough.



Week 3's tutorials are above. Again, as always, one trouble maker, this time in the form of a rope bridge. Just had a few issues with it not wanting to collide, but after restarting maya from a previous incremental save, I was saved!



Man, the render times were a 'female dog' for a lot of these. Maybe my computer just hates Ncloth, it sure gave a fierce enough 'huff' everytime I started a render on one of them. The M&M's back took 28mins! just for 5 seconds of animation. That aside, these were pretty fun tutorials and the first time i've ever used Ncloth.


Finally, here are some of the matchmoving tutorials that I completed.



Above is the modelled Maya version of set which is seen in the example photograph. This took up so much more time than I had anticipated, and in all honesty I didn't really enjoy this (or any of the matchmoving tutorials for that matter). It worries me now that a lot of our guest speakers talk about matchmoving as an entry level job. Please tell me they're joking? jokes aside, I'm sure after some more practice I would be fine with something like this.



Here we can see the final composition of the matchmoving static shot. I have to admit, despite not caring too much for the process, the end result and the way things can be done are quite interesting to say the least.



Above is the motion tracking video using the car example. I jumped straight onto this one, as have always wondered how things like this were done for years, and now I know. This wasn't so bad, and would like to do some of my own experiments when I get some time. I would have liked to have gotten the rest done, and will be looking at them tomorrow.

Games Modelling completed

here are the screen grabs and UV snapshot completed on the game character Igor.

Maya - Weeks 4 to 7 - Dynamics

I had some problems completing a batch render of these scenes over the weekend, so for this moment in time I have uploaded stills of the dynamics tutorials I have completed.
I shall upload the batch renders if necessary.

Week 4





Week 5







Week6






Week7

Maya - Dynamics - Week 3

Here are the week 3 maya tutorials.



The Cola can sand effect



The Barrel catching a flame



Fireworks exploding.


These were far more complicated than previous tutorials, as they included the use of several techniques for one purpose, along with lots of hands on particle knowledge needing to be applkied.

Maya - Games Modelling - Week 2

Completed a little later than I would have liked, due to the fact I had to go back to one of my incremental saves and start again - Damn you ears!

Anyway, here are some screen grabs of week 2 tutorials finished.

Sidenote: Is it just me, or does this handsome chap look a lot like David Schwimmer?

Maybe I've just been spending too long looking deep into his eyes.

Maya - Dynamics - Week 2

Here are the tutorials for week 2 of Alan's dynamics tutorials.

This first image is of the 'Catherine Wheel' style firework. I ended up doing this tutorial twice (NOTE: When Alan says don't scrub when using dynamics - DON'T SCRUB WHEN USING DYNAMICS!) and the second time I managed to whizz through in about 2-3 minutes... which was nice.

This image is of the 'shockwave' style effect. My viewport 'done the robot' when I upped the particles in this scene. All in all, quite a useful tutorial.

The island - for me - was the most interesting tutorial, and showed us that for a realistic (or even effective) visual, you would normally employ a number of techniques and fields etc.

This is the Animation render of the curve tutorial. For me it felt quite similar to the fuse tutorial last week (aside from using the preset effect) but slightly more intersting. Again a good example of using several techniques to create a good effect.

Maya - Games Modelling - Week 1

For me, I found modelling this low poly head slightly more challenging than modelling the higher poly cartoon head last project. Reason being the room for error his is a lot smaller as what you see on the unsmoothed mesh will be what you see in the final piece (or pretty close to).

I had a really hard time in the intricate areas such as the eye sockets but more so the lip region. As with anything in Maya - perseverance is the key to enlightenment!

Both this stage of the head and the dynamics tutorials were completed last week, although I'm still putting off finding time to upload things. I am intent on keeping up with these tutorials however this time.

Maya - Dynamics - Week 1

So, in no particular order, here are some renders of the dynamic tutorials.

This is the Steam/Smoke tutorial. It took the longest, but probably looks the most effective of all four.

This is the Explosion tutorial. I had a few problems getting the script right for this one (putting spaces in the wrong places Etc.) but all in all - Lesson learned.

I decided to put a stick of dynamite in my version - just for the sake of it. I actually composited these in Photoshop, as they're only still images, so was able to add a little extra brightness to the fuse with a click or two.

Lastly was the Cloud particle tutorial. I changed the shot_cam to an above view, as it showed the clouds separating a bit more clearly.

Hey, Maybe I'll give you a call Sometime...

Again, sorry for the delay in posting this.

New Car Tutorials

Not much else to say about this bad boy, It still needs the finishing touches, which I'm currently adding, but learning from my last lesson, I thought I'd put this up now as it's done.

Character Tutorials

Again, these tutorials are being uploaded later than they should have been, so my apologies. I did however have a separate file for the head before I combined the entire mesh. I'd like to point out at this moment, I tend to do my Maya tutorials on 2010 for 2 reasons - 1. My old graphics card for some reason hates me playing videos and using 2011at the same time, but has no problem with 2010? (strange) and 2. merging vertices in 2011 = the bane of my life! You'll know if you use 2011 that short cuts aren't always helpful.

These were the two parts I had the most trouble with when it came time to modelling, I actually got about 50mins into the shoes tutorial, before I realised a mistake right at the beginning and had saved after that (note to self - multiple saves!). The hands were quite tricky as for some reason, even after following the tutorial exactly, my geometry didn't flow right through the arm, and I had a hard time merging the pieces.

The head - wow - this really took me a while, and I ran into several problems. Again like the car tutorial I usually found I had issues when making a hole in the head (ie. the eye socket) and then smoothing, I got some seriously weird looking edges. After neatening up the mesh, I managed to continue through the videos and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

This is the shot of the combined pieces front and back. There is a nice sense of satisfaction about it - at the time of completing - this was the first humanoid character I'd ever put together.

The snapshot above is actually all the separate components UV maps, photoshopped onto one image. I did watch the head UV layout tutorial - however - I actually did the majority of it in Headus UV Layout. The programme is pretty good, but not very user friendly. I had to watch a bunch of tutorials on the website before I became even somewhat familiar with the interface. Despite that, it does a pretty good job. I only had some trouble when it came to the lip area, when flattening the mesh, it would fold in on itself. So I made some minor tweaks in Maya.

I'm hoping to finish this tutorial also once the narrative project is complete. I have made a start on the rig and all is going well thus far.