I made this snowman as it’s a simple, first easy character to make so I can get used to the Maya software. I made this snowman by creating a sphere and duplicated it and scaled it down so it can make it smaller as it goes up. Then I made a cylinder for the arms and duplicated it so it's the same length on the other side. For the top hat I made two cylinders and rescaled it so it looks like a top hat. For the eyes and buttons I just scaled one and duplicated them in the correct places they should be at. In my opinion this went quite well for my first time and next time I’ll try to add colour to it so it can be more detailed. My actions impacted this project as it’s me getting used to Maya on how to use it correctly and simply. Overall, I’ve learnt how to add shapes, position and scale them to create a character.
Production Diary #1
Production Diary #2
I made this kitchen oven with a frying pan as I wanted to practice using Boolean Tools to create a simple object for everyday use. I used different polygon primitives to create the chosen object. In my opinion it went very well, I was impressed with what turned out as I managed to add colour as well to make it a little more detailed. Next time I could make something more detailed (like a new object) so I can get used to more extreme 3D modelling. Overall I have learnt how to use Boolean Mesh Tools on the Maya software.
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This is me testing all the Boolean Tools
Production Diary #3
I attempted to make this baby looking character in Maya but struggled quite badly like the rest of the class. We had to try to use box modelling methods so the character can be made from one cube. When we were box modelling we used planes so we can shape around the image to create a 3D model. This is all I can put as the whole class struggle and we all didn't really do much as theres nothing that can be done as it was all online.
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Production Diary #4
In the snapshots below, I was testing out the rigging tool which is basically like a bone tool that bends your shape at a certain point. I tested this out on a cylinder as it was easier to do. We mainly been doing this all lesson as we still had troubles with Maya online.
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Production Diary #5
I have made a 3D model of a piano on Maya which looks pretty vintage. I made this as I wanted to challenge myself into making a 3D object. I made this with lots of rectangles and forming them into shapes by using a method called box modelling. Then I assigned colours to the by using the Assign New Material in the dropdown. Whilst making this I changed some designs so I could make it seem like a piano I used to play back from Secondary School. In my opinion it worked very well and I'm very pleased that I have made this. I have learnt how to box modelling any object and that this will help in the future.
Production Diary #6
I have made different objects so I could get used to adding textures onto objects and using UV Mapping. We done this so we can get textures that ain't stretched on an object. I done this by assigning a material on the object and then adding a file onto the object and it adds the texture. I worked quite well for my first time as it's me getting used to this whole UV Mapping process. This has impacted my overall project as it will help me assign textures on an object in the future. Overall I have learnt how to UV Map to an object.
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Lighting research task
What is a lighting artist?
Lighting Artist are people who light up a scene for a movie/tv set. They enhance the atmosphere, tone and mood of a scene/shot.
What does their role include?
Lighting artists light images in such a way that they are easy for the computers to render. They work to create colour keys, which are guides that indicate a range of colour hues in a scene.
Why is their role so important withing VFX and compositing?
Great lighting design has the power to grab the eye, weave emotion throughout a scene and build atmospheric tension that sparks viewers' imaginations. Using proper lighting design to tell a story with your work is essential in VFX, animation and design.
How would you become a lighting artist?
At school or college:
Take A-levels or Highers that combine art with science, if you can. It’s ideal to do A-levels or Highers in art and design and graphic design, along with computer science, maths or physics.
or
Get an apprenticeship:
Apprenticeships are jobs with training. They’re a great opportunity to earn while you learn. NextGen Skills Academy offer VFX apprenticeships for school leavers. These involve a lot of learning on the job working in a VFX company.
Different lighting
Directional Lights
A directional light sets a single vector for all its illumination and hits every object from the same angle, no matter where the object is located. All the shadows cast by a directional light are cast in the same direction and are orthogonal projections of each object's shape.
Area Lights
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In Maya, area lights are two-dimensional rectangular light sources. Use area lights to simulate the rectangular reflections of windows on surfaces. Compared to other light sources, area lights can take longer to render, but they can produce higher quality light and shadows. Area lights are particularly good for high-quality still images, but less advantageous for longer animations where rendering speed is crucial.
Point Lights
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A point light simulates rays shining out from one infinitely small point in space.
Point lights emit light uniformly in all directions, like a bare light bulb or glowing star in space. The illumination and shadows aim out away from the light in all directions.
Spot Light
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Spot lights are a basic staple of most lighting designs in computer graphics. Spot lights are a popular choice of many artists because they can be controlled conveniently to aim light at a specific target, as shown in the following figure above.
Ambient Lights
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In real life, ambient light is the widely distributed, "indirect" light that has bounced off (or been transmitted through) objects in your scene. Ambient light illuminates even the areas not directly lit by another light source. Shadowed areas of a real room are sometimes made visible only by the ambient light. Real-life ambient light is tinted as it bounces around the environment and adds different colors to different sides of objects, based on colors it has picked up from the environment. Real ambient light varies in intensity in different parts of the environment and adds different tones to objects from different angles.
Volume Lights
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A major advantage of using a volume light is that you have a visual representation of the extent of the light (the space within which it is bound). The falloff of light in the volume can be represented by the color ramp (gradient) attribute in Maya, which prevents the need for various decay parameters, and also provides additional control. The color gradient is also useful for volume fog.
Skydome Light
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This simulates light from a sphere or dome above the scene, representing the sky. It can also be used with high dynamic range (HDR) images to perform image-based environment lighting.