Diana Chinalieva – Page 8 – Diana Chinalieva

1st December 202031st January 2021

Environment, look development and lighting artists ~ week 6

Environment Artist

The job of the environment artist is to create a computer-generated place which was either impossible or too difficult to film in real life. The examples of environments vary from fantasy landscapes, such as waterfalls, mystic forests, all the way to entire galaxies and new planets. Their workflow starts out with the art from a 2D concept artist, which they will then further turn into a believable 3D environment. The start for their work could be also based of photographs or line drawing sketches that can be sketched into 3D software.

Wireframe of an environment

Firstly, what they create is a ‘wireframe’, often referred to as ‘mesh’ of the environment. It will look like a series of overlapping lines in the shape of the intended 3D environment. If the environment has more polygons it will look more realistic. Using the mesh, the artist can sculpt the environment closer to what it is intended to look like. They would have few levels of details: the ‘mesh’, secondary detailed model with all the main shapes established and the third one with the last level containing all the surface details.

An environment artist is required to have good skills of art and drawing, have strong understanding of form, colour, texture and light, have the knowledge of the environments, understand the architecture, be aware of city spaces and landscapes, know how to use a game engine, be able to collaborate and have great communication skills, as well as be organized. They often work within programs such as image editing software, i.e. Photoshop or After Effects, 3D modelling software, such as Blender, 3D Smax, Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush.

Look Development Artist

Look development (look dev) artists job is to define the appearance and look of computer-generated creatures or objects making sure that the art of the TV show or film is consistent. Whilst a concept artist draws an alien, the work of the look development artist is to figure out how the skin of the alien looks like in different conditions such as raining, if it is dark or light, when the creature is experiencing different emotions. They work closely with creature technical directors (TDs), lighting TDs and texturing artists to formulate the various looks, balancing the processes of lighting, texturing and rendering to match reference images and real footage. Their work is further checked and signed off by VFX or CG supervisor.

The key skills that a look dev should have include having strong artistic ability, good understanding of form, colour and texture, having an understanding of lighting, be collaborative, have a strong knowledge of VFX programs such as Arnold, Blender, Maya, Mental Ray, Photoshop, RenderMan, Substance Painter, V-Ray and ZBrush and be organized. They work closely with other VFX artists, lighting and texture artists, compositors and shader development TDs.

Lighting Artist

With the use of computer-generated lighting, the lighting artist creates depth and realism within the scene, like the process done by director of photography in the live-action film. The artist would control and adjust the colour, placement and intensity of CG lights to create the atmosphere, add realism and depth. To match the illumination of the CGI 3D objects to the look of on-set production and overall cinematography the artist would use photographs taken on set or location as the reference. To make a successful and realistic lighting of the shot, it is required to have a blend of artistry and scientific knowledge of how light falls on objects. It is essential to reflect the look and style set out by the director of the film or TV program.

Depending on the size of the studio the role of the lighting artist will vary. In a bigger studio the job between lighting artist and the pipeline TD will be separate, where the artist is lighting the shot while the lighting TD is working to overcome the technical issues and create the software tools that the lighting artist will need. In a studio of a smaller size the two roles will be combined. A good lighting artist will have the key skills of design and art knowledge, great understanding of the colour theory, understand lighting, have a good knowledge of 3D lighting software such as V-Ray, Arnold, Redshift and RenderMan, have great problem-solving skills and be organized. They work with variety of people from different departments of a VFX studio, as well as communicate with research and development teams.

1st December 202031st January 2021

Demon mask (progress) ~ week 6

This week I worked on making sure the UV maps are correct and good before exporting all the details and opening the mask in MubBox for texturing and colouring.

28th November 202021st November 2021

Tracking footage ~ week 6

We had to practice the tracking node in Nuke for this weeks exercise. Using the footage shot handheld during the trip to St Petersburg I had last year, I practiced applying this instrument and inserted some checkerboards into the various places that were tracked.

Firstly, I stabilized the footage using 3 different points at different depth of the shot. This reduced the warping effect that occurs sometimes when applying this node. Afterwards, I chose three different windows which I would be applying and attaching the checkerboards to, finalizing down to the left, middle and right windows. The main problems that occurred were with the left window, specifically for the few seconds it would disappear from the shot: the checkerboard would not update the correct scale, as the shot is being zoomed out. I solved it by adding the keys at various frames for the CornerPin node, however, it still feels that the checkboard is changing its size incorrectly. With the window on the right side it was harder to find good and clear points, so I applied extra contrast via the grade node to the plate the tracking node was used on. At some frames the corners are jumping and I tried fixing it by adjusting the tracking keys by hand, however, some of them would move incorrectly, so it was left as it is.

For the second video I used this cool shot of the rotating ceiling followed by downward tilt. Having tried applying the tracker node for paintings on the ceiling, I decided to use the planar tracker specifically for the frames where the camera was rotating, followed by a normal tracker in the frames where there is little rotational movement. It was hard to track the 3rd point (first bottom right, then top right) of the first picture that we see. There is still movement of the checkerboard that I don’t like, but I am not sure how to solve it, as I tried re-tracking it using various points for a few times.

To enhance the tracking abilities, I applied grade and sharpening nodes to the denoised plate before using any tracker nodes.

27th November 202031st January 2021

Colour matching (practice)

Further practice of colour correction on various still plates. This time I chose to use the same rotoscoped picture of a hobbit, Bilbo Baggis, captured in this specifically composed shot with such a camera placement which could have been easily placed in a lot of other shots of a very similar perspective. I practiced with other 3 various plates from different moves and quite different lighting conditions.

Merging with this scene from Avatar was tough as the colours are quite blue and cold, feeling quite extreme sometimes. It was challenging to get the correct skin colour tones, with the reference used was the exposed elbow of the person lying in the middle of the street.

Hobbit crossover with Avatar

It was easier to match the colour of this shot from Jurassic Park.

When adding the hobbit to this frame, to add more realistic feel I added the shadow as well, but it still feels like it could be stewed more in the X direction. I also had to re-try the colour correction in order to get the skin tone correct.

24th November 202031st January 2021

Demon Mask (progress) ~ week 5

This week I focused on the addition of extra details, worked on the horns, teeth and smaller nuances regarding the topology of the face in Maya.

24th November 202031st January 2021

Demon mask (progress) ~ week4/5

First version of mask taken from MudBox into Maya

Progress with overall shape, horns and teeth

There is a lot of integration and interchange between Maya and Mudbox, which helps with easier application of the tools and direct practice of both programs. The objective during the next week is to finish all the details such as teeth and adjust the face topology more correctly (such as fuller lips, mouth and eye shapes, better definition in the eyebrow area), find a reference picture for details and colouring to be created further in MudBox.

23rd November 202031st January 2021

Demon Mask ~ week 3/4

In the 2nd part of the lesson during week 3 we started learning about head scan and using a CGI head model. Understanding the topology of the head and how to create a model for a mask using quad-tool in Maya was something we focused on. It is important to figure out and follow the correct way to build the topology such that further down the pipeline, if you had to animate it, the joints would bend correct way, the muscles will be build naturally and all the movements will seem to be as realistic as possible.

Using a 3D model of a head we build up a mask for half of the face, which we then mirrored and created the following.

The file was then taken to the MudBox, as on week 4 we started working on adjusting the mask and bending it to fit our inspiration for a kabuki/demon mask. This is the result I got by the end of week 4.

The following link shows the mask which I am using as my reference.

22nd November 202021st November 2021

Colour matching exercise ~ week 5

For the week 5, the exercise was to roto out an image, white balance it and colour grade it correctly to fit in the scene of the second image. I practiced with both still pictures as well as moving picture.

For the stills, I chose this picture of Captain America and decided to put it into this image from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”.

Captain America from “Avengers: Endgame”

First, I cut out the roto shape, which I then white balanced and colour graded using the information from the second image.

Due to the position of the legs closer to the camera, I had to place the objects in the space between the legs and the background from the second shot. In order to do that, I transformed the colour graded image of Captain America to where I wanted it to be positioned in the second shot and merged together with the roto of blocking subjects in the 2nd shot using the Merge(out) node.

Transposed and cut out roto of Captain America

This is how the final shot turned out.

Looking at the final composition, addition of the shadow falling towards camera would have made the shot appear to be more realistic. Below is an image of how the Nuke Script looked like.

In the moving shot I used this poster of Uncle Sam and placed it instead of one of the pictures on the wall, following a very similar path as for the still images.

21st November 202021st November 2021

Rotoscope ~ week 4

For the 4th week our coursework consisted on rotoscoping about 60-80 frames worth of an organic movement in the shot. Here are the original, green matte and with gray background rotoscoped shots.

I included the shapes around baby hairs so that I could apply the luma key node later during the course in order to isolate the dark hairs against the contrast of lighter wall. Following from the comment by a tutor, I worked on adding feathering to my roto shapes such that they would not look as sharp as before.

The toughest part of the shot were the movements of the shirt material with all the folds in various places. I found the arms to be easiest as I had a better understanding of how to divide the shapes between various places, after I had some practice with head and the body.

For my second rotoscope, I used the footage taken earlier in week 2, where I rotoscoped out the running girl at the last frames of the shot, i.e. when she is passing by the camera. I found getting the correct feathering for the coat the hardest. Another difficulty was drawing roto for the cap as it would occasionally be against the white background and it would be hard to see the outline.

Here are the roto shapes I used to cut her out.

18th November 202031st January 2021

Design research ~ week 3

Gaining more and more popularity, the series game Assassin’s Creed has united people from various background over the love of both game, history, design, style and storyline, especially the last few games being set in Ancient Egypt or during the time of Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Whatever the time period, the artists would conduct a careful and an informative research of the clothes, architecture, interior design, design of day-to-day objects and everything that would submerge the player back into the time period they are playing in.

For the Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, set during the 431-442 BCE in Ancient Greece, with the consultancy from of Dr. Stephanie-Anne Ruatta the Ubisoft team travelled to Greece to take notes, pictures and sketches of the buildings, to get to know topography, archaeological sites and to visit museums, in order to understand and collect the knowledge of the country during the period of Classical Era. Once all the information was obtained and the research conducted, the designers built the map onto which seven different biomes were successfully integrated. Examples of sub-biomes involve snow-capped mountains, marshlands, clay form and burned forests as they add visual diversity and give each region its own unique characteristic and the purpose it served at the time.

Dominic Gladu-Despatis – Team Lead Artist – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

To add the details to everyday life of the people based in that time period more than 4,000 unique props were created, such as clay jars, baskets of fruit, ropes, furniture, tents, scrolls, chests. To get around the time-consuming task of placing the props around in the world, the team would build individual component that would already be populated by the props, such as table with jewellery or a basket full of fruit, which further could be mixed and matched to be placed in various sceneries. As the game is based during a war, each city state had to have its own army, which is allied with either Sparta or Athens, so attention to their uniform, weapons, philosophy and behaviour was important.

Details such as textures play a big part in design for families of assets. Each artist was in a charge of a different kit of materials using different software, making sure that their own materials were coherent with the needs of modellers. In the pipeline of the game the modellers created 3D assets, Level Artists placed those to build the world and Materials Artists who created the materials for those assets.

Philippe Routhier – Level Artist – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Miguel Bouchard – Storyboard Artist – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Fred Rambaud – Concept Artist – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Maxime Lariviere – Senior Environment Artist – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Jimmy Malachier – Lead Prop Artist – Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

One of the game features that require more thought and careful attention in pre-production are the cinematic scenes which would portray interaction between the main character and historically important figure or show the dramatic event in their life that would lead to a specific outcome of their fate and where they are at right now. One of the most powerful scenes of such that I found was the flashback, when playing the role for Kassandra, of how she was thrown of a cliff by her father. As an audience we see the desperation of the mother as she is trying to stop her child getting killed, the impotence of Nicolaos, the father, as he believes in what has to be done by the placement of the camera angles and composition of the shot.

The sharp transition from him kneeling in front of the child and appearing heartbroken to taking her off the ground and holding over the cliff intensifies and highlights the change in his mood. From caring father, to the ruthless and harsh leader that he was, following the strict order of executing a punishment, the scene is only intensified by the storm that is happening on the background. All the details found in the scene remind us of the importance of gods’ presence in Greek culture: from clothes, priests, statues, to the lighting strike as Nicolaus releases his grip and lets Kassandra fall (maybe presence of Zeus, or resemblance to the god). Those are constantly present throughout the game, as they were intertwined with the societies beliefs and way of living the life at the time.

References: https://archaeogaming.com/2019/04/19/consulting-for-ubisoft-on-assassins-creed-odyssey/

https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/22vdPhUVHV68b2FEjcotkW/assassins-creed-odyssey-the-game-that-greece-built

https://80.lv/articles/001agt-material-production-for-assassins-creed-odyssey/

https://www.exp-points.com/vincent-qa