Suspended Animator Blog

My latest edit of "Occult"

2011-06-20T00:17:00.000-07:00

I still have 2 more scenes and a couple more edits to make before I'm happy with my short. I have been importing the HD tga's into After Effects, doing some minor tweaking and exporting my movies into Premiere Pro. One of the best edits I made was of the moth on the glass---who would have guessed a gaussian blur would tone down his 'cartoony-ness'? As per usual, I'd go back and retexture him as well if I wasn't currently taking a contract...

Occult from Susie Brown on Vimeo.

Render Globals and Photons!

2011-05-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

So I went back to what is so great about Maya: Render Globals and Photons! For the scene with the two statues I used a simple area light and moved a point light to create some groovy shadows. On the wine glass I used Caustics and Raytracing and hand-animated the ripple effect... I played with dynamics a bit, but decided that this was a better approach. Ocean effects work well on wide bodies of water.

Unfinished 3D Reel: finally, it's coming together!

2011-05-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

My 1-minute video game reel is coming together... finally!

So I used mental ray on every scene except for the scene with the priestess, since there really were no reflections to speak of. I tried a couple different rendering passes to get the background right. Hair was fun to work with, and the dynamics are simpler than you think. I'll go into that in my next posting since my computer is on fire rendering out the 'semi-final' scene in After Effects.

There are quite a few gaps that need to be filled to pull together my storyline.On another note, I am looking for the right sort of soundtrack to lay on top of this scene. On a later post you'll notice that I used Chopin--a classical piece. I would really like to see something a bit more moody/mysterious/haunting... I thought maybe even some classic banjo-y bluesy bit would work since it relates somewhat to the bayou...? I'd love your input...

The Banquet

2009-12-28T02:50:00.000-08:00

Nowhere near completion in most aspects, but I did create some bitchin' candle flame animations, and I'm pondering the multitude of camera movements I can create in here.

"Jamie"

2009-12-28T02:44:00.000-08:00

She'll be inside the mansion, getting her face painted...

She's nowhere near textural completion, although I've run some extensive animations on things like her eyes blinking and her hair blowing, and I'm more than pleased with the results. Next I'm going to give the skin textures some loving so she and the hand look more life-like. I love her--so many possibilities...

Moths on bottle

2009-12-28T02:23:00.000-08:00

This is the very opening sequence: moths are batting away at a bottle, trying to get at the flame. One is sliding up and down the glass flapping his wings furiously, the other is doing that bounce-bounce-bounce deal.

I learned a neat trick that will seriously lighten your render times in Mental Ray: the reflections you see are scenes I plugged into specular shading when I pressed the map button. I plugged the environmental attributes here under Sky, Floor, etc. I obviously need to lose those two light reflections on the bottle, but that's easily done when I uncheck 'Emit Specular' from the directional lighting.

Snail on Baguette

2009-12-28T01:48:00.000-08:00

This is one of the interior shots of a snail climbing over a baguette. I finally found a texture that more closely resembles the inside slice, and I'm going to replace it. There are other wierd little doo-dads to fix like the plate buckling (soften normals perhaps?) Overall I like the lighting here. Mental ray all the way, baby.

Mansion Exterior

2009-12-28T01:27:00.000-08:00

This is going to be one of the opening scenes for my game trailer. I've learned a bit about water and fog dynamics among tons of other things (it's all learning in Maya--oh yes ;).

I'm constantly reworking this scene but I did actually post an animation of the opening sequence in youtube with my favorite Chopin piece (it was initially going to be a DVD intro in case you're wondering about the long pause at the end):

Occult Project

2009-12-22T00:41:00.000-08:00

Since my last 'den' project, my computer has been reformatted, stolen, and then destroyed along with my backup. Ahhhh! And so I started again with this brand new project.

This is my new interior scene for my current project: "Occult"

mental ray, fire dynamics were used, along with a lot of bump-maps

Latest Den + composites

2008-04-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

With the crash of my last save, this project has officially become a monster. Arg!

I'll need to revert back to an earlier version then do some serious compositing.

My, Oh Maya: The Den

2008-04-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

And finally...

I spent the past few days trying to get a decent bear-skin rug, but couldn't negotiate around an ugly masking job. I don't know if anyone else has any luck, but I'm here to say that mental ray and even ray-tracing will--in one way or another--force maya to crash an already taxed processor when trying to merge fur.

That said, I'm saving my pennies for a Mac, since my days of futzing with pc hardware (and even knowing about it) need to be over. What kind of professional needs futz??

No Mental Ray (Software Render)

2008-03-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

I finally did a software render using Raytracing alone... (sigh)

I've concluded that mental ray is really a daylight rendering engine, and doesn't lend itself to any sort of 'dramatic' or warm set lighting... thought??

look of shock

2008-03-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

Ugh--I think that I might have to bag the mental ray on this particular scene. There's way too much bleed and aliasing going on here. But I'm liking the worried unicorn better...

...and here it is:

2008-01-22T20:36:00.001-08:00

(remember to click on the image to get a higher-res picture)

the den---final touches!

2008-01-22T19:55:00.001-08:00

This is the unadulterated (no photoshop / no compositing) final version. Hoo-ray! Now to super-impose a better looking bearskin rug (NO MENTAL RAY--only software render!) and replace the photo in the frame with something tighter and straight. Again, mental ray is not ideal in this particular way, since it gives it a 'painterly' feel at the sacrifise of crystal-clarity.

This was rendered in multiple passes:
1.) everything minus the chandeliers and bear - 2.5 hours
2.) the bear - 1.75 hours
3.) chandelier 1 - 30 minutes
4.) chandelier 2 -30 minutes

I found that turning off the layers that won't appear in the 'red box' segment greatly reduces my rendering time. The fur was the ultimate liability, crashing Maya as well as my computer system multiple times.

But as my French-Canadian ex boyfriend would say, "I will sleep less stupid!" And I discovered an incredible trick to pull Maya out of an seemingly inevitable crash on my pc: CTRL + ALT + DEL, Processes tab, then start closing down superfluous programs (anything that doesn't directly run Maya), like your anti-virus, etc. Like magic, I kept Maya from crashing and losing a bunch of work. It was incredible...

2008-01-15T21:48:00.001-08:00

Alright! Now I think I'm getting a little warmer...

This particular image is a Photoshop composite of three different renders. The first was with the unicorn head, the second was the polar bear rug, and the third was the chandeliers. Each 480 X640 took between 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The bear's fur amassed the most time, and I quickly discovered that fur and mental ray not only do not play well together--they will crash your computer in almost every scenario unless you're working with a very little amount of hair, like on my unicorn. He was rendered with Maya software, begrudgingly. I'm telling you--it's hard to go back!

Changes:
1.) the unicorn's head will be turned, and the mouth will be opened
2.) I would loooove to find a photoshop plug-in that will allow me to cast prisms from the chandelier
3.) clock-face, fire, frame will have new and improved jpegs
4.) I might try and experiment with getting that dark wood lighter
5.) the bear's head needs to be smoothed, mouth rigged and opened for a nice 'GARRRRR!'
6.) a couple more chairs will be added
7.) mouse-over objects will be added

After all this, the animation will be started! Let's hope our web developer has a good sense of humor...

Unicorns!

2008-01-11T20:48:00.001-08:00

Rendering Battle: Mental Ray vs. Fur!

2008-01-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

So in these scenes, I wanted to add my unicorn head for above the framed portrait of the group, as well as this bearskin rug that I modeled. Big trouble: mental ray and fur are both highly taxing, and my computer crashed many, many, many times. In two days work, I gained an infinity amount of experience points and very very little product.

The bearskin rug came out great in earlier tests, but it didn't make the cut on this scene. The unicorn head was sub-rendered, and you can tell by the box around it. The grandfather clock needs work, and I'll probably add a couple of chairs and a table or two with an old radio and a newspaper on them. I also got inspired to elevate the ceiling and add a chandelier on each side. I think a square format will work awesomely for this web-page, and I will need to work with the developer to make sure our goals get realized.

I initially added dreadlocks to the unicorn, and it looked so frickin amazing I had to save it for Jessica.

After I post this, I'm hanging up my Maya until I am better tempered to deal with her. Weekend starts now!

More Concept Design for Den (photoshop!)

2008-01-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

Again with the placeholder, we'll have an ornate gold frame above the fireplace, with a shot of the Neutrino group within. I think the girls are going for a 'The Royal Tennenbaums' sort of feel, with all the members in their own track suits.

The Den is coming together...

2008-01-06T11:03:00.000-08:00

I added two bright orange point lights to the fireplace to warm up the lower part of the room, and added a plane in which to plug a fireplace jpeg / movie. After some great advice from Jason (former art director at Microsoft) I reworked the scale of some of the room elements. For my three spotlights I turned photons up to 1,000,000 each.

The stag horns at the top serve as a placeholder for a unicorn head, the urn is now brass/gold, I'm going to move a bust to sit on the left side of the fireplace, and I will put a gold framed portrait above the fireplace.

Mental ray continues to be a serious tax on my machine, and this render took a wopping 2.5 hours!

The Den!

2008-01-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

First off, I would like to thank the lovely Neutrino ladies for offering me the pleasure to work with them, and for allowing me to post my progress on their new web page. I'm excited to get this ball rolling!

First of all, I have 3 lights set up with mental ray. This gave me a 2.5 hr render time on a 1024 X 786 frame, about an hour on a 480 x 640. Needless to say I will have to adjust some light settings to bring this down a LOT. I'm happy with my start, overall, but here are the things that are immediately apparent:

1.) dark wood needs better illumination, possibly lighter color
2.) the 'magic' carpets are slapped on for effect, but some texture mapping is needed
3.) chair could be brought up to scale, along with wee side table
4.) lighting emitting from the fireplace will warm up the lower half of the frame

Once the miscellanea are in place, this scene will really start to hum...

new contract

2007-12-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

I officially began working with a couple of the lovely Neutrino ladies this week, on a den scene for their web page. I'll begin posting on that process very very soon.

Mental Ray, bouquets

2007-12-29T15:47:00.001-08:00

This is a still in a rotating camera shot. The bouquets start to come together. The brass seems a little too shiny... I might bring down the reflection. The ghosted image of a lily flying by appears at the left.

crash-o-matic

2007-12-24T03:31:00.000-08:00

I am bulking up the bouquet centerpieces with lilies and poppies for a flowing Victorian look, but Maya prefers to crash every time I try to import my new flowers...

Reboot!

dining room with lace curtains

2007-12-16T00:55:00.001-08:00

After fussing with the different metal shaders, I settled with a chrome shader for the silverware. It's difficult to see in this particular scene, but it picks up hi-lights really well.

This bottom shot was rendered at 1080 HD with mental ray. I think the floor reflections were a fair success, although I still need to learn how to allow light to pass through an alpha mask. Click on the image to get the... big picture ;)

dining room with revisions

2007-12-12T19:18:00.001-08:00

Theses are much smaller 640 X 480s. I played with the lighting a bit, removed the mirrors, added a different background and voila!

In the second image I added lacy curtains, changed the angle of the lighting. As you'll notice, I don't have light inside the curtains, so I added translucency...

In the third shot I have translucency, but the light isn't passing through the curtain. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Mansion Dining Room Renders

2007-12-06T16:08:00.000-08:00

(top) This was rendered at 1080HD with mental ray, two spotlights, an area light and a direction light. An infinite amount of monkeying around helped me find the perfect glass shader and global illumination settings. I will try and post some details of the glasses later.

(bottom) This was also rendered at 1080HD with mental ray, taking about 1.3 hours. I like the light effects on the curtains and floor, and the overall warm glow of the room. I don't like the too-dark shadows and the loss of detail in the darker woods and whites.