Dynamics: Particles and Simulations

Tracking in Matchmover

assignment: work in a group to gather footage to use in a Matchmoving exercise.
There is NO homework over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Your group must gather the following types of shots:

locked shot

pan

tilt

track

truck

follow

zoom

dolly zoom

Rigging and Skinning

assignment:

Skin a model to a skeleton and animate 5 seconds.

OR

Use a pre-rigged model and animate 30 seconds.

Due  TUESDAY!.

Animation

Assignment: animate something. Demonstrate at least 2 of the following principles of animation:

Squash and stretch

Anticipation

Staging

Straight ahead action and pose to pose

Follow through and overlapping action

Slow in and slow out

Arcs

Secondary action

Timing

Exaggeration

Solid drawing

Appeal

Your final animation must have materials and be lit!  Post a VIDEO to your blog with an explanation of your process.

Due Thursday, Nov 17th.

Space Island

Running into render View not found error?

See this article

http://3dg.me/3d-graphics/maya/fix-for-maya-2012-error-setparent-object-renderview-not-found

mel script:

$exists=0;
 for ($item in `getPanel -scriptType "renderWindowPanel"`) {
  if ( $item == "renderView" ) {
   print "renderView exists.\n";
   $exists=1;
  }
 }
 if ( $exists == 0 ) {
  for ($item in `getPanel -scriptType "renderWindowPanel"`) {
   //print ( $item + "\n");
   if ( $item == "renderWindowPanel1" ) {
   deleteUI renderWindowPanel1;
   $renderPanel = `scriptedPanel -type "renderWindowPanel" -unParent renderView`;
   scriptedPanel -e -label `interToUI $renderPanel` $renderPanel;
   }
  }
 } 

---->>  Project Spreadsheet Link  <<---

Color key:

Red = incomplete

Yellow = almost complete, but somehow broken

Green = complete and working

Project Update:

Materials are looking good, but some are missing, some are broken.  Please review project spreadsheet to check the status of your material.

Resolve any issues with your material and coordinate with Bethany (not me) to get checked off on spreadsheet.

-------------------------

Props are NOT looking good.  There are many scale issues, polygon count issues, texture path issues (missing textures).  Not all props have been created as polygons (some are NURBS--incorrect).  Some prop files have multiple (working) copies of the prop.  Not all props are created at the origin.  Please Move your prop to the the origin of the grid, clean it up and verify it is the correct scale.

Here is the parameters for creating your prop:

Prop must be composed of polygons (not Nurbs surfaces)
Prop can be no more than 100 polygons.
Prop must be to scale.

also: please remove extraneous bits and pieces from your prop file.  Its should be your prop and nothing else, so strip out any earlier versions of your prop, any building blocks etc.

make sure if you create a new material for your prop that uses a texture (e.g. rusty_can_BB.png), make sure to add your texture to the sourceimages folder in the project.

------------------------

Features

We currently have some of the feature bounding boxes, but not all!  Please create a properly scaled feature bounding box and put this in the scenes/features folder in the class project as soon as possible.

We cannot begin refining/lighting/building the master scene until we have all feature bounding boxes.

Assignment:

In class:  
save texture (512 x 512 .png)  to project/source images folder with correct naming convention -- e.g. metal_BB.png

create material and apply to simple dummy object (low poly sphere or box) and save an .ma file in the project/scenes/materials subfolder with correct naming convention
  material should be named corresponding to the texture -- e.g. a blinn shader with the metal_BB.png texture in the color parameter should be named Metal_BB.  Additionally, the maya scene (with metal_BB shader applied to a simple box should be named Metal_BB.ma)

save your prop to project/scenes/props subfolder
if you have created a new texture for your prop (e.g. apple_bb.png) please add it to the project/sourceimages subfolder.

feature reference review
let's pin down the look of our features by comparing concept and reference pieces and coming to a consensus as to how it should look

Homework:
Begin building your feature
1000 polygons
bounding box with dimensions of feature is due next class!

Class Modeling Project

Spreadsheet Link: 

Mid Term Modeling Project

Assignment: 3 parts

I.) Create your assigned material for the material bank:
Material must be able to be rendered with software AND mental Ray renderer (i.e. no mental-ray-only materials)

Must contain at least 1 image as a texture.
Texture dimensions: 512pixels x 512 pixels .PNG format


II.) Create a prop for the prop bank:
Prop must be composed of polygons (not Nurbs surfaces)
Prop can be no more than 100 polygons.
Prop must be to scale.


III.) Research your Feature:
You will be assigned a feature.
Go out and find every useful, relevant piece of data and have it prepared for review at the beginning of next week.
Establish the scale of the feature.  Have the dimensions of the feature expressed in meters (e.g. 10 meters wide, 20 meters long, 5 meters tall)

What is the story of your feature?  Think about how you are going to convey this story and how it fits in with our overall concept of the environment.

Lighting and Cameras

assignment:

light your textured model

must have shadows!

innovate and be creative!

post (at least) 3 renders

chronicle your genius

Materials and Surfacing

Assignment:

add materials to your robot or create new geometry (environment for your robot?) and apply materials

must use at least one texture map (diffuse texture, bump map, transparency map)

create a skysphere around your scene and add a texture(panorama) to it


use Paint Effects (grass, etc)

post to 3 renders to blog

2D shapes, curves, surfaces, revolve, extrude and loft

Drawing, Tracing, Loft, Lathe, Extrude, Booleans

Assignment -- 5 parts

1.) Boolean some primitive objects together

using curves, paths and shapes:

2.) make a 2d shape planar (logo)

3.) revolve a curve (cylindrical buildings, candle sticks, pots, urns, rockets, etc.)

4.) extrude a closed shape along a path (block text, tree roots, curved walls, tentacles, etc)

5.) loft 2 or more curves to create a surface (organic, topographic map, technical)



create blog post and post renders (at least 5--one of each operation)

Bonus:   Can you combine all the techniques into a single composition.

i.e. Add some details to your robot

Maya : Primitives and Basic Transforms

Assignment:  Due NEXT Thursday, beginning of class

Build a robot in MAYA using primitives and basic transforms

create a new blog post:

 tell me about your process, include any concept art and, of course...

post (at least) 3 renders of your robot:

different angles...show it off!

Next Week: 

Drawing, Tracing, Loft, Lathe, Extrude, Booleans

research it!

Perspective and Digital Painting

Assignment: create a digital painting that utilizes the concepts of perspective and color from the slideshow.

post your digital painting to your blog by NEXT Thursday.

2 options:

Character : Robot

Environments: Landscape

Assignment #1
Create your blog and introduce yourself
Include a summary with links and/or embedded material, if possible

Digitize your portfolio

Due: Next Class
email me your blog address
benbays@mail.utexas.edu

Looking ahead:
Robot Army
bring a drawing utensil:pencil, pen, brush, marker, something you are comfortable with (no digital)

Old West Renders -- Spring 2011