Midterms Checklist, and Parameters for your Environment Project!

Midterms Checklist:

On Wednesday, February 28th, please make sure you have the following items turned into the server.

• your three models (with photographic reference for two of them)
• Your four(4) environment render sets!
• You have 2 renders per environment!
• On Wednesday:
• In the groups folder:  Of the environments you have created, turn in the scene file (.ma or .mb) of your favorite environment!

ENVIRONMENT PROJECT:

• Deadline: 2 weeks! (Must turn in to the server by 5:00PM Friday, Mar 9, 2018)
• you can turn this in on Wednesday, March 7th!
• Research and develop an environment of your choosing!
• The environment MUST tell us the story of an individual without us ever seeing the character. (World-building)
• NO WIDE OPEN FIELDS OR DESERTS.
• Think scale (the size of your scene): How big or how small is it supposed to be?
• For fictional environments:  The objects you make must have purpose, be functional, and be recognizable in their function.
• Build your objects EFFICIENTLY!
• Tip: Keep it simple!

YOU NEED TO HAVE THE FOLLOWING ITEMS IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT:

1. floor and walls
2. a place of rest
3. an object of practical interaction (to put stuff in or put things on)
• a box? treasure chest? table?
4. an open container (a cup or a bowl)
• To use the revolve tool:
• go to your front view
• draw a curve
• hold the  "X-key," click on vertex. Snap to Origin (the dark center x and y axis line)
• click on SURFACES --> REVOLVE
• click on SURFACES ---> REVERSE DIRECTION
5. create a physical light source.
• a lightbulb from the ceiling, a candle, a lamp, a flashlight, etc.
6. AND... THREE objects that give us a clue to where we are!

Next week: We will cover building a camera and animating a camera moving through the scene! For now, focus on building your environment and establishing lighting!

BEGIN YOUR RESEARCH!

Create a folder with 20 images of 3-D environments that match the tone, lighting, or aesthetic you want to achieve!

* In this project, it is OKAY if your final result is not the same quality as your references!

Homework for Wednesday, February 21st.

You will turn in 8 photos to me!
In the GROUPS folder of the server, please add the following:

• two renders of your first environment you built over the weekend.
• two renders of your second environment.
• two renders of your third environment.
• two renders of your environment sketch you made in class!

• For the weekend environments: 
• I'm looking for believable lighting, and a good sense of space. Review the previous post for specific requirements.
• For Monday's environment sketch:
• I'm looking for great composition, good size relationships, basic shaders on your objects, and believable lighting!

Have a nice day! =D

Homework For Monday, Feb 19th

Continue our in-class exercise!

I want you to add basic shaders to your scene, and then build TWO (2) more simple environments!

The objects you need in the two new environments is the same, except for one IMPORTANT detail:

• floor and walls
• a place of rest
• an object of practical interaction (to put stuff in or put things on)
• a box? treasure chest? table?
• an open container (a cup or a bowl)
• To use the revolve tool:
• go to your front view
• draw a curve
• hold the  "X-key," click on vertex. Snap to Origin (the dark center x and y axis line)
• click on SURFACES --> REVOLVE
• click on SURFACES ---> REVERSE DIRECTION
• create a physical light source.
• a lightbulb from the ceiling, a candle, a lamp, a flashlight, etc.
• AND... one extra object of your choosing!
• the object must give us a clue to where we are!

Bring the environment you built in class, and the two new environments (each in a separate scene file to class on Monday!

Video: LIGHTING and RENDERING in MAYA

Below are notes on the basics of lighting and rendering in Maya! As a note for yourself: If you need to work from home, you will need to download and install the MENTAL RAY PLUGIN for MAYA 2016. It can be found at this link!

Basic Lighting and Rendering:

To select: Create ——> Lights ——>  (type of light)

Types of Lights:

• Directional Light: Works like the sun. Light entire scene in one direction
• Intensity: On all lights: Will change the intensity of the light itself and the brightness of that intensity.
• Spotlight:  Works from a single infinite point. Lights in a cone shape, outward towards an object.
• Drop-off will change the softness of the light itself.
• Ambient lights: Creates a soft light that paints the entire scene in a specific blend of light and light color.
• Point Lights: Operates like a candle. A miniature star that emanates from a single, solitary point in space.  The light gets softer as it moves through the air.
• Area light:  A light that emits in a specific direction, marked by a box and an indicator.
• Volume Light: A light that emits all objects inside a cage. Light will not escape outside that wire cage.

THESE LIGHTS OPERATE AND CONTROL THE WAY LIGHTS AND SHADOWS EMIT.

NEXT, WE CONTROL THE WAY LIGHT BOUNCES OFF THE OBJECTS USING….

• Material Choice
• Renderer Choice

Materials:

• Blinn: Used to generate basic highlights and reflections
• Lambert: Used for a matted look.
• mia_material: The most commonly used shader for Mental Ray Rendering. Used to achieve a variety of effects — like glossiness, reflections, specularity — as well as textures (rubber, concrete, gold, metal, etc.)

Renders:

• Maya Software: Basic render that calculates lighting based on the software controls in Maya.
• Maya Hardware: Basic render that calculates lighting based on the hardware of the computer.
• Maya Hardware 2.0: New(ish) renderer that produces a much more realistic image much faster.
• Mental Ray: Lighting engine commonly used to achieve realistic lighting settings by taking advantage of a number of controls that effect the way light interacts with objects and cameras.
• Arnold: New render to maya that is also used for advanced lighting; used in other applications, comes as part of Maya as of this year.

RAYTRACING SHADOW ATTRIBUTES:

• Light angle: Adjusts the softness of the light.
• Shadow rays: Adjusts quality of the light.
• Ray Depth Limit:  The number of times light bounces off of objects before is dissipates into shadow.

VIDEO EXAMPLE:

Homework for Monday, Feb 12th 2017

Come to class with THREE(3) models for grading!  Each of these models must be of greater complexity than the last.

The 3 Models you are bringing to class are the following:

1. The Model you built in-class on last wednesday, where you found a PICTURE of an OBJECT FROM GOOGLE.COM and tried to build a 3-D version of that 2-D object.
2. The model you built last weekend. (With the real-life object for study!)
3. The new model you are building now! (with the real-life object for study!)

Bring the .ma or .mb scene files to class. I will ask you to drop them in the "groups ----->  AN310" folder on the server for me to view.  Properly name your scene files!

BRING THE (2) REAL-LIFE OBJECTS TO CLASS FOR EVERY MODEL YOU HAVE MADE!  I WILL TAKE PICTURES OF THEM FOR REVIEW!

I will grade based on the following:

• Craftsmanship:  How clean are your edge loops and modeling selections?  Are your models efficiently built?
• Organization:  Did you name EVERYTHING in your scene?
• Accuracy: I will be checking off the accuracy of your objects! You will need to bring all three objects into class so I can take pictures and make note of them while I evaluate your objects! This is  to help you improve your creative skills as we move into making environments!
• Extra Credit:  If you bring a 4th completed model of GREATEST accuracy of all of your objects, I will award extra credit equivalent to half a letter grade! (The difference between a B and a B+, or a B+ and an A-)

Lighting Notes!

Below are notes on the basics of lighting and rendering in Maya! As a note for yourself: If you need to work from home, you will need to download and install the MENTAL RAY PLUGIN for MAYA 2016. It can be found at this link!

Basic Lighting and Rendering:

To select: Create ——> Lights ——>  (type of light)

Types of Lights:

• Directional Light: Works like the sun. Light entire scene in one direction
• Intensity: On all lights: Will change the intensity of the light itself and the brightness of that intensity.
• Spotlight:  Works from a single infinite point. Lights in a cone shape, outward towards an object.
• Drop-off will change the softness of the light itself.
• Ambient lights: Creates a soft light that paints the entire scene in a specific blend of light and light color.
• Point Lights: Operates like a candle. A miniature star that emanates from a single, solitary point in space.  The light gets softer as it moves through the air.
• Area light:  A light that emits in a specific direction, marked by a box and an indicator.
• Volume Light: A light that emits all objects inside a cage. Light will not escape outside that wire cage.

THESE LIGHTS OPERATE AND CONTROL THE WAY LIGHTS AND SHADOWS EMIT.

NEXT, WE CONTROL THE WAY LIGHT BOUNCES OFF THE OBJECTS USING….

• Material Choice
• Renderer Choice

Materials:

• Blinn: Used to generate basic highlights and reflections
• Lambert: Used for a matted look.
• mia_material: The most commonly used shader for Mental Ray Rendering. Used to achieve a variety of effects — like glossiness, reflections, specularity — as well as textures (rubber, concrete, gold, metal, etc.)

Renders:

• Maya Software: Basic render that calculates lighting based on the software controls in Maya.
• Maya Hardware: Basic render that calculates lighting based on the hardware of the computer.
• Maya Hardware 2.0: New(ish) renderer that produces a much more realistic image much faster.
• Mental Ray: Lighting engine commonly used to achieve realistic lighting settings by taking advantage of a number of controls that effect the way light interacts with objects and cameras.
• Arnold: New render to maya that is also used for advanced lighting; used in other applications, comes as part of Maya as of this year.

RAYTRACING SHADOW ATTRIBUTES:

• Light angle: Adjusts the softness of the light.
• Shadow rays: Adjusts quality of the light.
• Ray Depth Limit:  The number of times light bounces off of objects before is dissipates into shadow.

For Class on Wednesday, Feb 7th, 2018

Wednesday's class is a modeling workshop!

Come to class with a new object you want to model! The object you bring should be of more complexity than the last. With your new skills, you should be able to model a more accurate, higher quality object!

You will have time to revise the model you brought to class today as well. Around the midpoint of class, we will begin to discuss lighting!  As always, if you have questions, please let me know!

Additional Modeling Tips:

• Duplicate Special:
• use X and D to select an object.
• move cursor to origin.
• edit - duplicate special.
• Soft Selections: B Key.
• Cords: Use EP curve tool for precise drawing, or cv curve tool for more general drawing.

• Surfaces ---> Extrude
• Make holes using booleans. 
• Booleans:  Mesh —> Booleans —> Union, Difference, or Intersection


• Union: Join 2 objects
• Difference: Subtract first object from second object.
• Intersection: Subtract everything but the intersection.
• Options for More Organic Modeling:
• Soft Selections: Tap B Key. (Hold B key to change soft selection brush size.)
• Paint Selection Tool: Faster method of selecting components on a surface!
• Mesh Tools -> Sculpting Tools -> Sculpt Tool
• Photoshop-like brush tool for sculpting objects!
• Settings for brush size and strength.
• Keys for manipulation:
• Hold Shift Key to soften objects
• Hold control to draw the opposite action. (hill becomes valley, etc.)
• Hold B key to control brush size as well.