Wednesday 28 December 2011

Modeling a car in 3D Studio Max


This started as a model of an Audi TT but after I Googled "Audi" I decided to go for an Audi A6 - I like the shape of its front for some reason. It's still a bit choppy around the front area but it'll get there with a little tweaking.

Thursday 22 December 2011

Modeling practice session in 3D Studio Max - Car

I really enjoy playing with the graphite modeling tools in Max. Great for hard surface modeling...

Thursday 17 November 2011

Motor Scooter Render - Vray - WIP




Gamma correction applied to bitmap textures and in the Vray render settings. I need to think of a better background... hmmm

Sunday 6 November 2011

W.I.P - Modeling A Scooter

Scooter modeled from a photo I took of one that I thought looked kinda cute.

Here is the modeling session.
 

Vray render of a scooter I modeled... W.I.P


Friday 14 October 2011

Vray - Back to the basics

I decided to go back to rendering basics with Vray for 3DS Max before diving into some more complex rendering.


 Global Illumination
1. Direct light
2. Indirect light (no secondary bounces)
3. Indirect light (with secondary bounces)

In Vray - Four main ways to calculate GI
   1 - Brute Force - (good for primary bounce if scene is detailed)
   2 - light cache - (traces paths from the camera into the scene - opposite of photon mapping - fast and good for secondary bounces - good for interior scenes - speed vs quality)
   3 - Photon Mapping (old method - slow but accurate - still good for caustics)
   4 - Irradiance map (adaptive- can cause flickering - min/max - stores objects irradiance)


Fog (refractive parameter)
1. Fog bias -10.0
2. Fog bias    0.0
3. Fog bias  -80.0
4. Fog bias    80



Fog is a refractive parameter and describes light absorption/object thickness. When fog bias is set below 0 thick areas become darkened.

Translucency
1. Soft water translucency
2. Hard wax translucency
 
Can convert all material (for example; from Maya FBX import) to Vray materials 
 Right click in material view port and select vray scene converter - select yes


Translucency is subsurface scattering type effect 

I.O. - Index of Refraction

IOR Examples -

 1. Diamond - 2.418
2. Milk       -  1.350




 Vray dirtmap

1. Blend material with checker transparency mask
2. Dirt map added to mask based on occlusion
3. Cellular procedural added to radius of dirt map to approximate areas where dirt would form based on ambient occlusion

Dirt maps can be added to existing materilas using the vray blend material. Because it is based on occlusion it is size dependent.

1. Dirtmap where something like rust would be
2. Dirtmap with a bias on the negative Y to approximate where rust would form underneath an object or pilon that interects the wall.
3. - Normals inverted = dirt appearson outer edges of object.
4. Normals not inverted = dirt appears on inner edges.
5. Blend material can blend the two together.



I created a Sphere with noise displacement + directional light with caustics turned on to create a caustics effect on the floor.


Wednesday 12 October 2011

Speed modeling a room in Maya

I'm currently playing with Vray in max and rendering this scene. Thought I would start in Maya

 
A quick render with some shaders applied -
...and another quick modeling/textureing test using Aman New Deli as a spring board - I used a Vray skylight, some portal lights and tossed in an HDRI image into the environment slot to see how it would look - also quickly added some depth of field in post; 

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Video copilot - AE Particles & Origami Pigasus



Thought I would follow along with a cool particle tutorial by Andrew Kramer on videocopilot.net.

I'll have to think up some cool ideas to see how far I can push these techniques.

A ghostly Origami Pigasus animation i did years ago for fun and very quickly - (my excuse for not motion tracking it properly)  - I wouldn't mind finding the original maya files and making it look good - - with - AE particles perhaps? Hmm....

Monday 19 September 2011

Short animated film: Outhouse - Secret Life Of Objects

Outhouse tells the story of a cynical, used up, toilet paper roll and a far less worldly "new kid on the block". It is a modern day parable, a dark comedy, and a humorous exploration of social politics. Every object has a story...


"Secret Life of Objects" is an animated series about ordinary, common objects and what object is more common then the humble toilet paper roll? When we look at one we can instantly guess it's age. The rings of paper on a toilet roll are like the rings of an old tree when you cut one down and view the cross section. The rings of paper represent the toilet rolls life.

FILM FESTIVALS

Poser, stills and wires:

 











































Initial render of the two rolls:


Wednesday 24 August 2011

Modeling Practice Session - Warrior

2 vids -

1. A rigging test to see how he moves. I need to think about edgeflow some more.....

2. Maya polygon base mesh modeling process - a few hours condensed  into 15 mins 

 

Monday 15 August 2011

Funnel Web Spider - WIP


Render test in Vray for Maya - nowhere near finished - hair and shader correction to do. I recently went to the Australian museum and got a few cool pics of dead Funnel webs. I might remodel this one and make a few different varieties - good rigging test to do as well.

Modeling Practice Session - Human Head

A relatively quick model of a face ( about two hours) I just modeled. Here is a video of the process. I modeled it just for fun.

Sunday 14 August 2011

Modeling Practice Session - Dragon





I modeled a Dragon in maya today and recorded the process - fun! Might put some more time aside to see where this goes - still at an early stage atm.