Category: Maya

Final Process

After showing Nick the render from previous week, it was pointed out to me that the lighting was incorrect. I adjusted the lighting (see below), to have more defined shadows of the machine appearing on the backwall and the left side wall. Due to the lack of time, I only rendered out the new shadow pass, such that the the new shadows would get combined with the beauty pass of previously lit up scene. Here is the result.

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I also rendered out a frame of the new beauty pass, to see how it would have looked in the scene with the new lighting:

When the rendered files were imported inside Nuke, I didn’t break them down into different passes and combined back together, as the final output would look different to the beauty pass. The only exception was for the shadow layer, as the beauty and shadow render layers were exported separately, thus giving more control over the 3D asset.

I did use the ID passes, to affect the colour of the wheel, make it slightly deeper and darker tone. Same was applied to the golden features of the machine on top of it. An attention had to be payed specifically for couple of objects that appear to be in front of the machine. For those, I created a roto shape, which I then planar tracked and combined together using the merge node with operation ‘over’. Inside the lamp, however, is supposed to be some glass object, maybe see-through space, so a roto for it had to be cut out from the previously combined objects. All these alternations then were used as an alpha channel for the mask, to put original footage over the merged.

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Self Reflection

Looking back at the entire process I have learnt a lot about the integration of modelling and compositing in such an extensive project. I learned more about lighting, animation, rendering in itself, how to manipulate various passes and adjust potential mistakes later in Nuke. There were a few things which I was proud of, but not without a couple of mistakes and few realizations of what and how it could be done better.

Firstly, I could have implemented various machine parts, without attempting to copy entirely a whole machine from the original source. If I had done more of research and understanding of where it would have been placed, it would have been more clear to me of whether having a lot of small details was necessary. After all, the machine model itself has a couple of detailed bits which are barely seen or not at all. Secondly, I would have wanted to implement more of rigging, rather than just animating parts. Having encountered problem of understanding how to rig specific parts, I ended up using constraints, joints and IK only on the curve-shaped rod attached to the rotating wheel.

After a couple of weeks, modelling of non-organic objects became easier and easier, so I really enjoyed modelling the smaller bits or unusually shaped parts. When unwrapping the UVs it took me a couple of tries to understand how that would be working. As most of the parts weren’t seen much or actively animated, I attended the parts that needed most attention. Texturing was fairly easy and straightforward, especially with an outside look: pointing out what is unrealistic and how to make it look more worn down. Using Mudbox to make my own textures for the wheel and screws gave me some room for creativity and unique attention to those parts.

At the final stages of lighting the scene and trying various renders, we found that the HDRI was from the first room and thus created incorrect lighting for the scene inside the second room. Via trial and error, I placed lighting around the scene and experimented with the settings of exposure and intensity, to match the lighting reference of the rocks on the ground. I rendered out the variations of the scene and placed into Nuke script, to see how it would look in the end. The biggest mistake that I made in my final render was the use of HDRI to cast shadows and not blocking out enough light from it. The light coming from the left side of the room would create the highlights and specular details on the left side of the machine (e.g. edge of the wheel), which don’t match the shadows that are stretched out towards that direction. As I adjusted the lights after constructive criticism from Nick, I rendered out a single frame to see how the lighting would work for the whole scene, whilst rendering out the entire sequence just for the shadows. Overall, the shadows do look better, but they contrast slightly with the specular details which don’t belong there.

All things considered, I would re-organize my own time and shift my focus on breaking project down into a more detailed plan, such that I could see overall picture and leave reasonable time for render tests. Despite all the mistakes and issues along the way, I am pleased and satisfied with the result. This project gave me some ideas of what I want to do further in the software and what I want to learn about more.

After completing the model, texturing, UV unmapping, animating and creating the lights in the scene, I took sometime adjusting the lights and seeing how variously placed shadow mattes (as planes) would affect the object appearance in the scene. I would also adjust the intensity, colour and exposure of my main three light sources and render out the single frame to see how it would fit in the final composition. Here are my few test renders.

Whilst this was the final render, I still noticed that I was missing a roto on the rock, as for the first few frames the machine is standing on top of it, rather than being blocked out by it. During the last few seconds the roto around the lamp goes slightly weird, so I would need to adjust it, as well as the roto of the inside of the lamp, such that the machine bits could be seen better through it. I am happy with the colouring and lighting of the shot. Looking at the node script I noticed that the ReGrain node is missing for the shadows, so that would need to get adjusted as well.

This week I focused on the animation of machine parts and addition of texture to the bits of it, so it would not look as perfect or brand new machine out of the factory. Before exporting the exr files from Maya to Nuke, I played around with lighting and placing shadow planes into the scene as well as placing some walls that would block out the lights. Here are a few test renders.

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Blue: 1 and 2 are the planes that act as shadow mattes. I decided to removed a shadow matte wall from the right side of the room, as it was blocking out too much light. 3 is a blocking wall, that has a simple lambeth material assigned to it.
Red: 1 is a more yellow area light; 2 is an orange-based softer area light.

I then rendered out the exr files from the scene in Maya and imported them into Nuke. First, I realised that I wasn’t too happy with the lighting from SkyDome. Second, that I forgot to remove the background image plane, so the machine was rendered out with it as well. Hence the background is seen and due to aspect ratio and format difference (HD_540 for render), there is a slight mix-up with the image. The roto of the hole in wall also requires some work, as in some frames the machine is not as clearly visible.

Finally finishing up on the model with additional details, I moved onto addition of textures to the parts and corrected UV maps where it was needed to do so.

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Continuing on from the last time, I modelled the final parts of the machine that would be rigged and animated, as well as a few smaller additional details, like screws of different appearance or any extra required cogs, beams and circular shaped bits.

Then, thinking about adding textures and seeing which UVs would I need to fix, I added a couple metal based textures to bigger parts. For the screws, which I counted there are 41 of the basic shape, it is easier to unwrap and correct a UV map of one screw, then export the object and paint in Mudbox, export out the new texture and apply it to the other screws. But that also means, that the other screws would be needed to be copied from the corrected one and placed in their previous positions.

When adding the planes for walls as shadows and adjusting the intensity of the skydome light (to 10), I still noticed that the blue-ish reflection from the machine base and highlights around the column, meaning I need to correct the walls and block out more light, as well as place an area light in front of the object, to the right side. Looking at the floot, one can see harsh shadows falling from the rocks in a specific direction and hence I need to recreate that lighting for this room, as the HDRI used is actually taken from the first room.

Noting down of the rest of the work, there are still some things that are needed to be modelled or re-modelled, UV maps fixed and textures placed. Given that I have all the parts that will be moving, I need to rig and animate them correctly, which will be the main focus for me this week. I would also need to rotoscope out the part of the wall in front of the machine, such that when placed in Nuke, it would block parts of it and hence look like it was there originally.

Looking at the reference model and what I have learned in other classes, I had an idea of additionally modeling a see-through water tank and placing it in the first room and as the pump is moving, the water is travelling from a pre-modelled tube to the tank and being added to the tank. The water simulation has to be completed in Houdini and later added to Maya for rendering, but I will see with the workload and time limit if I will be able to do so.

Following from the last week, I modelled extra few parts for the machine, mostly trying to finish up the bits that will be rigged and animated. I also practiced placing the object into the scene, as well as put in some cards with shadow surfaces. The visualization of the position made me re-think about the wooden platform below the machine, so I decided to exclude it from the model overall.

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There is still some work left to do for modelling, which I will be focusing on during this week. The plan is also to check and remap the UV maps where needed, place textures on a few parts, adjust lighting and the settings for correct AOVs to be used for the render. I will also have to re-model two parts, as I didn’t like their original modelling and appearance, and will need to update the details from original source of reference.

Continuing from the last time, I proceeded to model the next part of the machine, one of which helped me to understand the movement more and break down which parts are connected to which and what are the points of rigging, joints, constraints, etc.

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Following the comment from previous post, I cut out a circular hole in one of the parts that is rotating, modelled the column and supporting beams, along side with adjusting the size of the platform and machine base, to make it thinner and to suit the motion and position of the pushing rods. To practice rigging and animation, I set the animation for all the parts that will be rotating and then created the rig for one of the rods, which is pushing the cog to rotate.

This week I was focused on starting my machine model and creating all the necessary parts. I broke the original design down in 3 main parts on which I planned to work solely at different to each other times.

This week I focused on working at the first part, i.e. the wooden base, the metal base, the wheel and rod attached to it, with all the according parts which are positioned on the rod. I managed to finish most of the parts except facing a few challenges and hence not completing the entire plan.

Now, on this side of the wheel, in the metallic base underneath the 2 cogs that will be rotating there is a hole cut out in the specific shape, which I will be focusing on cutting out when I will animate the movement of the cogs, so it will be known how deep they would need to be. I also have bad wireframing on 2 parts of the rotating cog, specifically the elongated beam and the one of rectangular shape. These will be on my list of remaking the parts.

It came to my attention that on the left side of the main rod, the furthest element has a cut out hole into it, such that it looks that the screw is inside of it. I targeted that question to Nick during today’s class and got some ideas of how to solve this problem, without having to remodel the entire part again.

The plan for the following week is to focus on building the most of 2nd area of the machine, especially the mechanisms which have to be animated and finish on few missing parts from the first section. Then rig and animate some of the movement, so that I could place the rough version of the model into the actual scene, just as we practiced today during the Maya lesson.

This week we focused on understanding the importance and use of hierarchy to the object. As a practice we followed a simple exercise of modelling the solar system planets orbiting each other. The sun was in the center of the universe, whilst Neptune was orbiting it, having 3 moons moving around itself.

We imported some colour maps from the online resource (Solar Textures | Solar System Scope) and added simple lighting to the scene, as the sun is serving as the main lighting point.

It was my 2nd attempt at animating the camera movement. It was interesting that the aim of the camera could be constrained to one of the planets, which we did in the end, whilst adjusting the offset at some frames to make it look somewhat less dizzy to the viewer.

This was a perfect example to see how the hierarchy could affect the movement and help out in setting the object to be moving around or according to a different one.

A further work could be done on this model, where different AOVs would be exported and using the ID pass we could add different effects to various planets further in Nuke. For example adding radiating light around the sun or subtle explosions on its surface.

Starting off a simple pump setup in Maya, we went through the process of modelling the cog, pump, pushrod, cylinder, etc.

After completing the simple model for this system, we progressed into learning about rigging, constraints and with the use of which constraints (point, parent) we could animate and restrict the movement of various parts of the pumping system. This was the final version of our rigging exercise.