Art Test

I am now in finals for Computer Animation! It's super exciting, but it also makes me nervous at the same time.

Anyway, before we continued on to finals, we had to pass an Art Test of our chosen discipline. I chose Environment Modeling and we had 3 assets to model, texture, and light.

The first assignment was just to get our feet wet. We had to model a basic wrench, but texturing was not required. Simple lighting was okay for this project. Overall, I didn't run into any trouble with it. Everything flowed smoothly with this assignment

Our second project focused on a vase. For this, our job was to model, texture, and light the scene. The model when fairly okay. The cloth was a little changeling to model and texture, and I know I need to practice modeling fabric and folds, but overall, it was fine. The project as a whole seemed a little daunting at first, but once I started working, everything seemed to work out.

For the final assignment, we had a concept art piece. We had to match the modeling, texturing, and lighting as closely as possible. This was mainly a texturing project, since the reference was an illustration and not a photograph. Painting the texture went by fine. Matching the hue and saturation became a little challenging, but overall, I was able to match it to the reference. The only thing that I was kicking myself for was that I forgot to texture the small door hinges before turning it in. Oh well. I'm still happy with the overall result.

So, I'm just a little bit behind on posts lately. School has gotten pretty crazy and I never found the time to sit down and post! Hopefully I can make up for lost time with the next few posts!

Compositing 2: Lesson 3

For lesson 3, we had to composite different aspects together to create one cohesive shot. First, we tracked footage in SynthEyes of a woman moving her head. Once the track was complete, we brought it into Nuke along with the other CG elements - the armor, the armor texture, scratches, dust, and a background. From there, our job was to comp everything together and color correct so that the shot flowed smoothly. I had a little bit of a hard time understanding certain aspects of the assignment, such as how to animate the light in the helmet. However, I was able to fairly quickly figure out the mistake and fix it. Overall, the scene is a little dark, but I am pretty happy with the final result. All of the assets were provided, I just put everything together.

Here is the tracking and the final movie.

Compositing 2: Lesson 2

The second assignment for Composting 2 was based in Nuke. We learned how to use Nuke's Motion Builder for this. I must say, this was more difficult than project 1 had been, mainly because of Motion Builder. I had a hard time lining up the points of the geometry correctly so that everything was in scale and proportion. Still, I am pretty happy with the overall result.

Here is the shot with the texture applied and with a simple checkered board applied.

Compositing 2: Lesson 1

For the first assignment of Compositing 2, we had to use SynthEyes to track a shot. SynthEyes was a little crazy to learn at first. It was very different from what we are familiar with, but overall, it was easy to pick up. The tracking itself was not too difficult once I got the hang of it. I'm pretty happy with the end result.

Visual Effects 2: Houdini Fluids

Here is the flipbook and render of my Houdini Fluids assignment for Visual Effects 2. For this assignment, we were allowed to do whatever simulation we wanted, as long as it was something we had not done before. Because I still don't know much about Houdini, I decided to stick with that program, trying out the Fluids side instead of the Pyro. I chose to running water from a sink because I knew that Fluids have to have millions of particles in order for the water to look correct. This way, I could still try water but keep my computer from blowing up. I was surprised at how fast water actually runs out of a faucets. I suppose that I had just never really paid too much attention before. Still, I think that my simulation may run slightly fast. Other then that, I am fairly happy with out it turned out.

Below, you can see the plan that I wrote up before starting the simulation.

           For this assignment, I will be simulating water running from a sink faucet. To start off, I will model a simple sink in Maya. The sink will include the bowl, the faucet itself, handles, and a raised stopper. Once this is done, I will import these assets into Houdini as one mesh. I know that I want the fluids to hit the sink and bounce off, just like they would in the real world, so I will select the sink mesh and turn it into a Static Object under the Rigid Bodies tab

            To start the fluid simulation, I will create a sphere to emit from, and then under the Particle Fluids tab, select Emit Particles to create the fluid Flip Tank. This sphere will be placed under the faucet opening.  To adjust the flip tank size and shape, I will go into the flipsolver and change the Box Shape numbers. To change the position, I will adjust the Box Center I will size this to fit only the area that I need – from the faucet to the base of the sink. Next, I will go inside the AutoDop Network in order to adjust the motion. Before adjusting any motion, though, I must first change the Visualization of the fluid to Particles inside the flipfluidobject. Once that is done, I will lower the Particle Separation to create a more detailed and interesting splash. If I find that the splash is not going quite as fast as I want, then I will raise the gravity of the fluid.

            Once I have the motion looking nice, I will then move onto the shading of the water. The first thing that I must do is set up a light. If a light is not projected onto the fluid, then I will have a hard time adjusting the settings for an accurate portrayal of water. To do this, I will create a simple Directional Light and aim it towards the sink. Once this is done, I will adjust the shader by turning the Cloud Density to 0 in the uniformvolume node. This is because the fluid I am making is transparent water, not a type of smoke. After that, I will move onto the color. Inside the basic liquid node, under the Diffuse tab, I will adjust the Base Color to be a slightly less overpowering blue. Also, I will make sure that the Color in the Reflection tab is lighter than the Base Color. Once that is done, I will make sure that the Index of Refraction under Settings is set to that of water – 1.33.

            After I have all of the motion working correctly and the shading matches that of water, then I can render out my sequence and create a Flipbook of my simulation.

Here is the simple sink prop that I modeled for the scene.

Visual Effects 2: Houdini Pyro

Above is the flipbook and render of my Houdini Pyro assignment. For our next project in Visual Effects 2, we had to use the Pyro option in Houdini to create fire. I chose to create a torch, for this one. I had much more trouble with this assignment than the first one. Overall, I just have a harder time understanding Houdini, but I did try my best. I could use a lot of work, though. The fire itself is too large to be a real torch. Also, it fluctuates too much. Still, the color is fairly nice

Here is the plan that I typed out before starting.

           For this assignment, I will be making a torch fire. To start off, I will model a very simple torch in order to have a prop in the scene to add to the effects of the fluid. Once the models are placed and scaled correctly in Houdini, I will then start the fluids by creating a torus to emit the Smokeless Flames. Setting up the container is the next step. This must be done before adjusting the motion of the fluid. I will adjust the Division Size so that the container has more resolution. I will also make sure that the voxels remain square in order to not cause distortion. For even more control over the motion, or if I wanted to view a certain part individually, I can go into the Pyro node attributes for the container. 

            Next, I will adjust the motion of the fluid so that the flame looks more believable. I will do this in they Pyro Solver of the AutoDopNetwork.  Under the Simulation tab, I will start by adjusting the Timescale in order for the fire to move faster. However, because of this, I will need to also adjust the substeps of the fluid in order to not lose detail. I will also make the flames shaper, or more crisp, by lowering the Temperature Diffusion. The Cooling Rate will be raised in order to keep the flames small and contained.

            Continuing on with the movement, I will go into the Combustion tab and slightly adjust the Gas Release to cause a small burst for the initial ignite. I may also look at adjust the Ignition Temperature, to make sure that the flame starts burning on frame 1, and Flame Height, in case the fluids need to be taller.  To finish up the motion, I will go into the Shape tab and adjust the Confinement. This will create the swirling effect of the flames that we see in torch fires.

            Once the motion is all done, I will move onto the shading. Going into the Shop network, I will start by adjusting the color in the Color tab. I will switch Constant to Artistic, so that I can create the strong color variation of fire. If needed, this is where I would do any type of color correction before rendering. After the material has been finished, the only thing left to do is to complete a memory cache of the simulation and render. I will do this by creating a camera for the render view and then creating a Mantra-PBR node. From here, I will set up my render options and render out an image sequence. This sequence will be taken into either After Effects or Nuke and be exported as a movie file.

Visual Effect 2: Maya Fluids

Here is the playblast and render of my assignment for my Maya Fluids project. For this, we simply had to make a fluid container in Maya and adjust the attributes to fit our reference. We were required to do some sort of fire, so I chose to do a fireplace. Overall, I am fairly happy with the result. It could definitely be a lot better, though.

Here is the plan that I wrote out before starting. As always, it's best to have a plan before doing anything.

          For this assignment, I plan on making a fluid fireplace scene. To start off, I want to model simple props for the scene. These will include a fireplace mantle, a grate, and a large log for the fluid to be emitted from. These models will be simple and quick because more time should be spent on learning the dynamics of fluids then modeling. Once all of the assets are placed in the scene, I will create a fluid container to fit the size of the fireplace cut out by changing the size and resolution in the Container Properties tab. This way I can make sure that the fluids are contained to the specific area of where a real fire would take place. Also, having the fluid container match the direct size of the fire will cut down on simulation time.

From here, I plan to turn the log model into a fluid emitter. Once the log is emitting fluids, I will start by adjusting the density. The fire needs to stay someone transparent, but if it is too transparent then it will appear as smoke. Raising the density should fix this. I will not adjust the heat very much, if any, because I don’t want the fire to rise very much. The same will be said for fuel. Because this is not an explosion, I do not want to add fuel to the fluid dynamics.

Next, I will go into the fluidShape tab and adjust the motion and shape. Here, I will adjust the Boundary in order for the simulation to not cap off at the sides. I will also pay attention to the Dynamic Simulation. I will adjust the Simulation Rate Scale, in order for the simulation to play faster. This will help to speed up the flames. Continuing on with the finer details of the motion, I will move to the Content Details. Under this tab I will raise the Dissipation to shorten the lifespan, slightly adjust the Diffusion, and raise the Density Tension so that parts of the flame can flicker and break off. I will also try the Swirl option under velocity. Still, this is an option that will only be slightly adjusted, because the fire, for the most part, will stay stationary. Ultimately, this section will take a lot of tweaking for me to find a shape and motion that best matches the reference. Most of my time will be spent on this section.

Once the motion follows the reference as closely as possible, then I will move into the shading of the fire. Under the Shading tab, I will change the Color to black and adjust the Incandescence color ramp, because fire is self-illuminating. I will also make sure that I add a small amount of Glow to the shading. Because fireplace flames are thinner at the bottom than at the top, I will adjust the Opacity ramp in order to match the reference. Once I am finished adjusting the shading attributes, and I notice any pixilation issues, then I will slightly raise the Shading Quality. After all of the fluid dynamics are finished, the only thing left to do is to add an illuminating point light, texture the props in the scene with a lambert, and then finally render.

November Classes

For this month, I have Visual Effects 2 and Compositing 2. I don't necessarily enjoy either visual effects or compositing, but I will try my best in each class!

Software Technology: Marble Machine

For our research assignment we were told to team up and create a marble machine. This assignment brought quite a lot of trouble on. I split the modeling in half with my team mate, Luisa Reyes - so she modeled two of the props while I modeled three. We modeled in Maya and imported into Houdini in order to do the simulation.

Here are images of the props that I modeled.

The first big problem that we had was simply turning the models into Static objects. We could not figure out how to create the entire group of geometry static, so we ended up having to do it for each object individually. Our second major problem was making the shovel object tilt. In our original plan, we wanted the marble to roll down the ramp, land in the shovel, and the shovel move downwards due to the weight of the ball. We started off with the shovel being an active ridged body, and that seemed to at least make the object move, but we could not get our constraint to work. We tried using a hinge constraint because the model only needed to tilt on the z axis and not anywhere else. Still, no matter how we tried, we could not get the model to move properly on the hinge and eventually, the hinge just stopped creating all together. So our solution to the problem was to just convert the model into a static ridged body and raise the bounciness levels so that the marble could continue flowing into the next prop.

Our final problem ended up in a big headache. Originally, the plans were to have a funnel that had a connecting spiraling ramp so the ball could make it safely to the ground. We had turned this model static, but whenever the simulation was made, the ball would end up being stuck through the geometry of tube connecting the funnel and spiral. We thought that maybe it was a geometry issue, so we sliced up the tube and separated both pieces. That way the ball would surely not get stuck. After importing the new models, we made them static and simulated again. For some reason, the ball still gets stuck in the middle of the ramp geometry. We tried everything that we could think of, but we still could not figure out why this was happening and how to fix it. You can see in the video where the marble stops with the simulation. We plan to as our professor upon turn it for an explanation of why this is happening and how to avoid this issue in the future.

Here is our video of the simulation.

Software Technology: Lecture Activities

These are the activities that we completed during lecture.

The soccer ball that we modeled was to simply get started understanding Houdini. We learned where the proper nodes were to bevel, extract, et cetera. 

With the coil, we made a tab system so that someone who is not familiar in Houdini can easily adjust the object. We added sliders to adjust the radius, height, coil density, and other attributes that anyone could possible need. 

The rocks helped us learn how to randomize multiple objects. We create 100 simple rocks then imported them into the Houdini scene. Using an expression, we created a random occurrence of rocks along a curve, including position and size.

With the cheese, we continued using the random expressions to not only create different positions along the grid, but so that each cheese has it's own unique set of holes.

Software Technology: Dominoes

For class we did a simulation using falling dominoes. We modeled and simulated the dominoes in Houdini. Overall, the project was pretty simple and able to easily complete. It helped to learn how to simulate in a low resolution model and then bake the animation in order to switch to a high res version.

Included here is the simulation and the node editor.

Software Technology: Panther Couch

Here is a couch that I modeled in Houdini. To me, the couch does not look very comfortable, but I tried to follow the reference as closely as possible. It was the first real model that we did outside of lecture, but I'm fairly happy with the overall result.

Here are images of the couch with wireframe on and off.

Software Technology: Fence

For the fence, I started in Soft Image. I modeled each piece individually in Soft Image, and then brought the pieces into Houdini. I had not run into any real issues until I tired to merge everything together at the end. For some reason, when I merged the objects, it acted as if the normals were flipped. I believe that this has something to do with the models themselves, not the process in Houdini, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.

October Classes

So this month I have Software Technology. We are supposed to be learning about programs that we haven't been exposed to so far. We should be focusing on Soft Image and Houdini. I'm a little nervous about dealing with new programs, but I'm very excited to get started!