I am developing shaders at the moment.

These are examples of some texturing tweaking of the clothing and sub surface scattering shader for Vaiva’s face.

Vaivas Body Colour Map

A little nuance.. I ran out of space for photos on blogger, so from now on I'm joinin photo bucket.
Vaiva's body colour is almost done. I'm thinking to revisit the top and match it to skirt's colour because it doesn't seem to blend that well now.



In couple of next days I'll be developing surface shaders .

Vaiva's Texturing Progress: The Head

Friday I have started texturing Vaiva. The head was challenging in that every storke was either working or not. Head's texturing so far is purely a colour map, meaning surface shaders are not yet created. It is a common aproach I take, after work placement in picassopictures, where purely colour map had to look as if it had many layering to it. So  I move  to creating surface shaders only after thecolour pass looks as good as possible.

Original Concept:

What I found extremely helpful was James Gorney's face colour zone scheme:

 I've looked at some eye shading tutorials. It went through a detailed process in photoshop and maya. 

The rest of the body as well as surface shaders ,  I suppose,  will come along over next week :]

Good Wolf's Resolution

 

The good wolf’s texturing was challenging in so, that all of his beauty comes from the painted surface texture ( whereas the evil wolf was already quite “textured” with loads of varying shapes) It took a fair while to solve it. Soft painterly shading gradually reaches a defined patterns around the front area.

Again, for his texture resolution I used the standard colour pass and added ambient occlusion bake and bump passes. A note for bump: I tried to reach a snow qualities of his fur. A simple noise worked rather nicely. I believe now the texture doesn’t look like pottery painting.

 

Also, last time I haven't showcased the evil wolf's texture layout:

Evil Wolf's Texturing

Much like for the doll's texturing I've used mental ray shaders, colour pass and ambient occlusion bake-in. The Bump map was applied only for the face (Nose and around the eyes) oppositely to the initial idea to make it scratchy and worn. I've figured that a deity type of character perhaps wouldn't be physically "damaged" as it is more of a spiritual embodiment.

Development of WW: Character Rigging and Texturing

This week main focus was to finish rigs for both of the characters. The soft modification in the good wolf required some fixing, because some parts were collapsing as he is doing general moves. This was solved creating pose deformers.A very useful technique as I found it and am glad we were taught how to use it in our maya classes .

 For the evil wolf , his shield-like structure was asking for a disparate type of movement for his parts. I have created a pre-set animation for all 4 of his legs, so as they move an illusion of the separate muscles moving is suggested.

 The other part of the focus now is the texturing. Here is the doll’s colour pass finished.

 

I also used ambient occlusion bake-in and settings to quickly shape the outlooks. This technique, used for the first time, seems thoroughly useful now.

 

 I have started some developments on the evil wolf’s texture. The tweaked mental ray shader already it has 60 percent of the desired looks, so I’m quite excited what can be done further when all the passes will be solved separately

Dream Island Execution

Rainy Sunday asked for some serious painting. So I've coloured in the island. The image shows how a combination of matte paining and 3d set work together. Also, and this is the approach I've taken from work placement, this is a single test lambert shader (with transparency and normal maps)to see how colour pass does its work before going any further.

I've referenced festivals and carnivals,  as places for where you experience total joy and excitement,  for this environment. Together with deep rich purple and violet colour pallete I'm wishing to create a rich, dreamy and fluid, most painterly environment out of the three  , where all the elements seem to flow into each other. The challenge is not to make it a pile of stuff . But there is something in the toolkit still waiting , which should be handy for that.  That is  varied shaders, lighting set up, motion (ncloth simulations and animation cycles for props). 

And a CU test:

'Painting up' the Scenes

 Last couple of days the time went on 'painting up' and retouching the scenes. Whether it meant building and bringing in last details, or 'painting' the set using  lighting set up for the better final image result.

So to start with, The opening scenes only briefly suggest that Ivan perhaps isn't the only character in the story. As camera pushes through the workshop we notice one another model in the set, also on the notice board next to Ivan there is a worn-of sketch of other mish-mash models.

So I've designed and created the Shiball (she has ship parts and ball) character.

the texturing for this character:

Further I went back to the second environment again . First,  trying to figure out ocean shader . With the help of Simon Holland, I think now it looks far better.

Other  largest elements in the scene was the front modeled trees.

And the scene, after bringing the major elements together now looks like that:

 However if this was a painting I'd say it lack of that last layer of details. And to be specific:  Nests, waist disposals, wind vane on the house, foam for shore line, grass here and there, little statues , something to also cover the contact point of trees and the ground. Just lots of things nobody notices yet it somehow brings  life to the scene.

Few more scenes are ready to be baked after spending that time for lighting, render setting.

Much like with animation, lighting is also getting easier and easier . Through trial, experimenting, reading on tips,  it reaches the point when you are actually getting creative with it in maya , even if it is not as simple as making few brush strokes in photoshop. Light linking is used extensively to emphasize  some of the set's and particularly character's aspects.

Lastly, I think this picture summarizes the work of past few days: the needed other elements are built and  brought in ( outer environment) the lighting is set up, rendering (render settings,  passes and effects) are adjusted.
 

Now I started working on show reel's element, and personal branding. Hopefully these will take no more than few days.