Maya Tips

Rob Jones:

Its imperitive that you set up a new project when creating a new Maya file - this will then act as a database for your project where you can keep your textures and scene files and all renders.  Its a lot easier to access than a messy hard drive if you name it correctly.

Clean up your Hyper Graph and Outliner as you go along - this allows you to render in Layers more easily.  Big objects eg - houses etc as one group under another Group of Houses.  Not only does it make the file run faster but if its not in shot you don't need it THERE at that time.

Referencing files allow you to look at other peoples work to the latest save each time you open it up.  This will save you importing it each time and then deleteing and importing and deleteing and OMG LOOK AT THAT HYPERGRAPH!  Its easier with Referencing however I need to experiment with that.

Rendering in Layers makes you file run smoother if its not all visible AND its possible to tweak Occlusion layers, specular, diffuse, shadows, lights, anything on its own layer!!!

Optical Light Effects In Maya

This site HERE is really useful at explaining all the different sources of lights. I'm going to be referencing this for our group Medieval Project.

And so another week Passed.  Some peoples Models have really come along now and mine just seemed Puney in comparison.  Images are working backwards.  I suppose at least you can see its kind of human now which is a major plus, even if his legs are out of proportion - I knew this would happen due to the drawings, but hey... that kinda thing happens occasionly.  He's coming along now I suppose.

Rendering In Passes

If you get a dodgy/funny looking shadow being cast on our model it could well be because it's casting a shadow on itself.  Go into The Render Stats (Attribute Editor) and change the Cast/Recieve Shadows.

Is there anyway to recieve a shadow from one light source but not another I wonder - I'll ask Rob next time or maybe Jared or Alex.

Rendering Layers:

Where Layers are - bottom of the non attribute editor part of the attribue editor side - if you get me.  Create a New Layer (Right button with a cog I believe)  The Master Layer is the layer with EVERYTHING in your scene on.  From this layer select what you want to render out (eg just one model out of your scene) and then add this to the new layer 1 you've just created.  Add A light as well from your scene so its just not BLACK.  Then right click on your layer 1 in the layers box and go to Presets.  This allows the options to render in a variety of ways including Occlusion, Shadows, Specular etc.

Notes: Occlusion - use multiply in AE

Save as Targa's as Black is an alpla channel and then ADD in AE.

Marquette making week 2:

Week 2 Marquette making started with us all kind of at different places as everyone apparently went home and did work on their models... I didn't  I was at the stage of using foil (forgot to photograph at this stage)  This was as close as I could get:

We used foil to block out and bulk out the majority of our characters so we didn't have to waist the expensive modeling material on something that wouldn't even be seen.  The wire used was to keep teh foil in place.  The Model was covered in foil and then squeezed tightly so there would be no alteration or air pockets within the foil.  The modeling clay could then be added.  Applying small sections over all of the foil was the aim however the hard part was actually getting the clay/putty soft enough.  A lot of warming it up and kneeding it in the palms of our hands did this.  We were told not to sculpt just yet but to simply block out so thats what I've done so far.

So this was the final outcome from week 2.  Obviously a lot is going to be needed to do before Mike leaves for good.  I hope I can keep up.  Next week I really need to make a head that will screw on... So little time so much to do!

Marquette Making Week 1:

Mike Shlingman - need to check the spelling here - from Framestore has kindly offered to go through the process of making Marquettes - EXCELLENT!...and here I go trying to remember everything he tells me while he's working.  All of them are words of wisdom!

So this is my character - Tyler Samuels - Strange name but what the hell why not thats what I say... Also I have altered his waist line higher as he was not in propotion in this image.  (LITTLE LEGGGGGS)

We started with - a piece of 2cm (roughly) thick square MDF and two blocks for stands parallel to one another attached to the wood.  We then drilled a hole in the wood in relation to the characters pose - as mine was a very neutral standing pose (direction of UP) I drilled my hole pretty much centre of the wood allowing some room for the other leg to come across.

I then attached a washer and blot to a long piece of metal wire (I think 60mm) once poked through this hole.  poking out the bottom of the wood was about 1 cm with a washer and a bolt.  The same was done to the top and then it was tightened to fasten my (what was currently) MASSIVE bit of metal for a body.  The metal was then ' trimmed ' shall we say -  I say it like this as we pretty much made it about 1/5th of its size.  NOTE - make sure you have a bolt on there already before you saw it off - this allows the thread on the metal to be repaired when you take the bolt off again :-)

We then bent the metal into the Pose using whatever means necessary - Pliars or MASCULINITY either way works.  The next stage was similar to the last - we got other bits of slightly thinner metal and then bent that into shape for arms and the other leg.  This was a lot easier as it wasnt the 'spine' of the model.  These were attached with smaller bits of wire initially and then for extra stiffness we used ****look up official name here**** putty which you combine with another putty by kneeding it into one ending up a green neutral colour.  This putty dries solid after approximately four hours! EXCELLENT!  We just literally wrapped this around our sketchy joints which we'd just made with wire!! And that was the end of week one - leave it to Cool/Dry/Harden :D

Heres a few images after Week Ones Work:

The Normals Deformation

I was attempting to get a nice and smooth transition from one model I'd modeled to another - I was combining them but this weird deformation kept happening when I attempted to Soften the edges - I found out that if I conform the edges *Under Normals also* it conforms the odd ones to the majority (at least this is what appears to have happened)!

Duplications

Ok...so I've been modelling the character with Tom today... and Dave told me that if I duplicate Special one half of a body it instancely effects the other half!!! IT REALLY WORKS! Thanks Dave.

Also when duplicating tiles etc... Duplicate one into the correct space and then use SHIFT and D to duplicate with the same spacing!!! Excellent!

Scaling In Maya

Something Alex Hulse managed to teach me today in about 5 minutes of talking with him.  The problem I was having in Unit 201 - the digital environments project was that I couldn't seem to scale the Ocean Shader to fit the size of our map and kept getting images like this -

*insert image*

when it should have looked like this - *

insert image*

So in the end, after many a time trying to scale the Ocean Shader by anything over 1 (as this made sense to me)  Alex told me to try under one.  Multiplying my under 1 didn't seem to make much sense to but however it worked.  I found that multiplying my 0.5 seemed to increase detail of the waves.

Sum up - trying to scale something in Maya and its just not looking right no matter how high you go - try scaling it lower than the top value than it was given previously by default.

Cloud Test

Here's a cloud test I did form Unit 201 at Ravensbourne. Was not using any presets withing Maya but however was using a number of different 'clouds' ... 3D fluid containers. I then proceeded to animate them and move them, twist them across a quick timeline. Was just a test for 201 so didn't spend too long on it. Quite like the 'blue' feel to it though. For some reason it, like the water render came out VERY quickly. Possibly something to do with how I am rendering in Maya. Would like to slow this down to make it look more like clouds and less like clouds being BLOWN towards the camera Eg aeroplane. Not bad so far though.

Water Using Particles

 

This is the site where I got it from:

WATER WEBSITE

As you can probably tell I didn't strictly follow it but i did MOST the way until the end.  Really is quite easy if you just follow it as best you can with the Maya you have.  I managed it on 8.5.

Note: the spash back was created but the gravity wasn't applied to it and therefore just finishes spraying up... Also have not managed to 'FILL' a bowl/container as of yet using this method.

Links Panel Updated

Texture links as well as information on the games industry can now be found through my page (here) on the links panel.  Textures can be downloaded and may well be used in our work in CVA Unit 201.

1st Blog.

This is an offspring of d w shufflebotham's Blog.  This is where all technical Jargon and tutorials will go when I learn it whilst doing different aspects in Maya.