Introduction to Maya - Modeling Fundamentals Vol 1
This course will look at the fundamentals of modeling in Maya with an emphasis on creating good topology. We'll look at what makes a good model in Maya and why objects are modeled in the way they are.
# 16 07-10-2006 , 10:50 AM
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Finished with the animation clips and just about all the keyframing and object-linking in the scene. I'm going to have two ocean wakes for the propulsion on the two wings. Also, I've added an animated lightfog to the wings, though I'm not quite sure how well that works. I went with a sky-spehere for some basic reflections on the hull. A plane attached to the translate xyz of the camera will serve for the actual, visible sky, though. I'll be posting a wireframe of the scene just before i start the batch render.

# 17 07-10-2006 , 12:17 PM
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Here's that really messy wire. If you have any questions feel free to ask, as I know the wireframe is really confusing. Going to remake the camera animation with clips, as it's too complicated to debug it with static keyframing.

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# 18 08-10-2006 , 07:30 AM
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DAMN! I'm hooked user added image Can't wait to see how this sequence turns out.

The ocean looks cool too. I've only had 1 crack at using maya ocean to replace the water in a still photo to try and make it look like video (glad it was a far shot).

:bow:


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# 19 08-10-2006 , 01:59 PM
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Thanks. In the middle of the batch render right now. Sadly, I had to give up on many effects in order to bring down the rendering time to about 1 minute per frame (at 640x272 resolution). I'm not going ot have any more wakes, just foam. Also the antialiasing is set on minimum and I had to give up the 3D motion blur. And since I was too tired to read on 2D motion blur, I gave up on blur altogether. Anyway, hope it turns out ok user added image

# 20 02-11-2006 , 09:48 AM
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You had by any change some time to work on this?
Love to see some progress!

Take care.
M.


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# 21 03-11-2006 , 02:55 AM
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what's wrong with having more than 1 minute per frame rendertime? just render it before you go to sleep! even if your animation is 200 frames, you can still afford to have 3-minute-per-frame render times or more, depending on if you work on it right when you wake up or not...

when i did my senior thesis for school my render times were anywhere from 2-10 minutes per frame, and the total animation was 4 minutes long or so at 30fps... at the same time, it was broken down into my pre-existing shot list so the whole thing didn't animate in one go...


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# 22 03-11-2006 , 07:38 AM
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yeah - how is this piece doing cris007? Looking forward to seeing an update and some more pictures.

# 23 14-11-2006 , 04:19 PM
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Sorry for the delay, but I actually did finish it about the time of my last post. I didn't add any more images as there were not many new things to see. It didn't turn out all that spectacular and as I said it's a pity I actually gave up on the ocean wakes on which I worked so hard. I know 1 minute is absurdly low for a rendering, but since this was more of a learning project, the visual presentation was not all that important. And even with all the added effects, I still couldn't have really made it look to good, since it's obviously lacking the detailed planning and modeling required :p. Sad part is the glow effect seems to have messed up (that's what you get for not doing thorough test-renders). I had no idea if 2 or more objects have glow applied to their shaders you need to use a normalization factor to avoid the blinking effect. Anyway, if you're curious in seeing the full animation, I'm going to post a link soon user added image.

# 24 14-11-2006 , 06:24 PM
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sorry to hear that it didn't work out cris007. Don't forget to post that link and maybe some more views of your model - I thought it looked pretty cool.
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# 25 18-11-2006 , 03:50 PM
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Sorry I haven't posted it yet, but the final composition I have uses Utada Hikaru's Exodus as accompanying music and if I am to post it online, I'll have to make another one without the soundtrack user added image. Pity, as I think it really helped the animation a lot.

# 26 19-11-2006 , 02:45 AM
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Ok, I compiled a low-res version and brought the size down to about 12MB (from the final version of 32MB). I know it's still quite a large files size, but the animation is 1:25 minutes long and lowering the resoultion or bit-rate even more would have really hurt the image quality.

Here's the link: https://students.info.uaic.ro/~cristian.stefanescu/temp/
Get it while it's hot, as I'll probably remove it in a week or so.

# 27 19-11-2006 , 07:42 PM
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Just watched your animation cris007.

Nice work mate - I really liked it. especially the sunlight on the water and the way it was reflected off of your vehicle. Good job!

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# 28 19-11-2006 , 09:26 PM
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Same here.
But some remarks if I'm permitted.

1. I find the rotors turning a bit slow in comparaison of thee speed of the "vehicle"
2. Near the end of the animation, when the whole ship is visible, imho the shodows are too crisp at the borders (of the shadows)
3. Near the end of the animation, when the whole ship is visible, imho the ray of lights that are coming from the end of the wings...are kind of impossible, they are used in foggy weather, mist and/or steam situations. Your seen is bright sunlight!

Besides that I really I'm impressed with your movie. How long did this take you to render? On what machine?

Talk soon
M.


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Last edited by cut_the_krab; 20-11-2006 at 05:31 AM.
# 29 20-11-2006 , 09:41 AM
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Thanks guys. The shadows might seem a bit crisp for 2 reasons: Either due to the low-bitrate which really kills detail, or because they truly are sharp user added image). I didn't smooth them out as it would have increased the rendering time, and I tried to keep it to the minimum. The average frame render-time was less than 1 minute - on 640x272, looking of course about twice as detailed as this version. As for the light fog on the wings, you're right, they shouldn't really be there. Initially the scene was supposed to take place somewhere at sun-rise, with a denser atmosphere that would have justified the effect. I guess I got carried away and it didn't occur to me later to remove them.

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