Research

SSS

Ok so what are these objects? basicly i was trying to recreate skin and the effects light has on it, so an example is light in your ear, these images show some of the steps of developing it whilsth really dull image is a blinn using the same blue and light, the difference is stupidly different and will benefit the group. I was a bit worried at first as the group didnt see much of a difference it also doesnt have much of an effect on render times the differencxe between sss and the blinn was 5 seconds.

When the dust settles

Well, looking at Walle ther is a nice shot of Walle after the ship lands and the dust starts to settle and it looks rather 2d, using photoshop and after effects i have created the image below by using opacity, postion scale and an effect called turbulent distort.

polisher Texture

Found this texture free to download on creative crash might be useful for the polisher on the bottom which cleans the floor, could look quite nice if the right colour.

more bed sheets please!

Cable

I havent gone on to the new test using particles but as i said i have gone back to the old test i now know i shouldnt play with gravity field something i did before as this can really muck up everything else in the scene that has weight to it. So i have changed some of the attributes within the spring constraints which is basicly the stiffness and bounciness.

Dust is all around!

Ok two tests i have done on the building falling over quite happy with my initial tests on maya there is still a lot to learn in getting the dust correct, as it is suppose to disperse and then settle in the air and not really move this can be tricked by the camera angle but i would prefer to see if there was an actual way of doing it, i feel the later test is much better and will work on this one for now. I tried to teach Alec a lil bit about it and he gave me advice as well which was taken in.

polisherSmoke

By no means is this anywhere near the finished thing i can say it myself that looking at this video gives me a headache not because of the smoke but the colours i have in the cakground, oh well bit of fun. This test was done through the help of a tutorial on how to create smoke in maya. Needs tweaking and stuff in terms of speed, opacity and spread. The first two are pretty easy to tweak the later is done through a turbulence field which is a bit more tricky, it is done through emitting the particles through an object by using the verticies. Oh the video is really short will change that as well!

Expo

Went to London last Friday for a games Expo which was fun, played some unreleased games and some in 3d which was pretty cool. The main reason for it though was the companies from the games industry it was good to talk to them about the projects i was working on and how to get in to the industry. We also handed out leaflets about the degree show, so hopefully they will come along next year, also thinking about fund raising, its gona be hard but i believe that we can do!

Tutorials

Being RnD i decided to look into tutorials Grigs helped out a lot here giving me tonnes on cd, thanks for that. I spent pretty much all of monday and tuesday looking through them and taking notes and seeing which ones are relevant i was mainly looking at particles and dynamics. It has helped alot i have some initial tests which will be in later posts.
Having this role has really helped me understand maya a lot more and has broaden my skills and knowledge which is a good thing.
I have a lot of time to perfect these skills which will be needed if we want to get to industry standard. Areas i need to look at are steam/smoke for the polisher, dust and debris for Splay and general fog, i think we can get away with some stuff in after effects, talking to Alec and agreeing with him that tests are needed in after effects and maya for the same jobs to see what software will work best, looking at WallE has helped a lot with this and has given me some inspiration and ideas which will need testing with photoshop and after effects.
The cable is still looking floppy something that i dont like and it is fairly hard to control, im going to try a new way of doing the cable by using particles and hopefully see better results, i have been working on this and will posts will come later.
nCloth is fun i enjoy using it and experimenting with it once you get a grip of it its actully ok, my initial tests were fluidy since then i have looked at more tutorials and have changed some of the tabs/tools for it and i feel its getting there, this will also be posted later.

Fire Extinguisher

Well, had a bit of free time so thought i would do a lil model as i felt like it and there is obviously stuff to model in Polished Off so wanted to give it a go and see what the team thought. So below is an image of it, its pretty simple used cylinders and cubes whilst using bevel, extrude and insert edge loop to give the desired effect.