Rendering and Shading

Render pipeline output from David Riewald on Vimeo.

So here it is finally. I'm pretty sure i've got all the render layers figured out. I think there are 10. Still needs a little tweaking. It looks desaturated a bit. hopefully its not another 3 months before my next post.

Rig Test

Character Rig Test from David Riewald on Vimeo.

This animation isn't for anything other than to work out the bugs in the rig. The walk cycle is too simple to test with. I ran into gimbal lock quite a few times, and euler filter didn't save me. I need to talk to someone about that. Still need to do the facial targets. We might be seeing her with shaders soon. Lets see what else can I type to no one......

Walk Cycle

Walk Cycle from David Riewald on Vimeo.

Rig Coming Along

After a little vacation I started the Rig for the main character. Still not finished, but i got to a point that i could pose her and just couldn't resist. Lots of loose ends to tie as far as organizing and locking nodes. The face needs a rig too and morph targets so that is the next task. Shaders and render pipeline will be the next big step.

Cut 7 Latest

Done messing with this. Will move onto main character rig next. One thing I learned is that maya's rigid body dynamics is not as powerful as it leads on to believe. For some reason once the movie is uploaded and compressed it looks really dark.

Progress

Getting there. After seeing this I don't like the speed of the 5th key hit. It looks like he hits it too hard. Once I get that handled i can do the dynamics on the chain. The heart lighting up will be done in after effects, although it might be better to do it in maya to get the reflection in the glass ball. Also need to add lights to effect the scene when the keys and heart light up. I'm going to move onto the main character shaders and rig soon. Don't want to get into post of this cut without having the leading shot's camera locked down.

Side Quest

Decided to model this joe ledbetter toy, Cutter. Still needs a little work. Want to eventually animate it but need to actually come up with how it would look an a skin-able pose.

Xylophone Shaders 1st pass

Don't have much to put up. Played with some mental ray shaders and ran into many rendering problems. Its sad most of the detail of this thing will be lost in the shot, but thats how it goes. Currently working on my rendering pipeline, and lighting for the scene. Not going smooth so far.

Xylophone Concept

&rew finished up what this thing should look like colored so that is my next mission.

Cut 7b Playblast

Here's something to show progress. I decided to take this cut to an almost finished state first in order to get my pipeline down, plus it is a nice separated world. Aiming for a month-ish from now. There is still some secondary motion to be done. Spinning crown on the hammer, dangling chain, and some shake on the keys when struck. I want to wait until the surfacing is done on it before getting into those motions. For the look i want it to be dark, except what is lit by the characters face, the hammer when struck, and some rim lighting from the cracks of the box (potentially volumetric). When passing through the box i want it to look like a cut out, so i can see the cross section. If i get some audio help or if i figure it out myself, it might add to have the voice mute a little when inside the box and isolate the xylophone sound even more.

The Xylophone

Here's occlusion renders of the Xylophone the monster will be playing. Surfaces haven't been decided yet. One thing that is known is that the end of a hammer is glass and inside is a broken heart that we want to glow the color of the keys he is striking. I'll put up 1st pass shader shots once done.

Monster Shaders 1st Pass

Went through a tutorial on mental ray nodes. Thought I'd try out my new knowledge and take a shot at some shader and render parameters. Pretty close.

Bigger, Better, Fatter

Adjusted proportions. Satisfied with him now.

Monster Model 1stPass

So during this process I learned that subdivision surfaces don't like to be rendered in mental ray.
After posing him I see what needs to be fixed. His main body needs to be fatter and shorter potentially. His tail could be longer but you wont even see it in the shot.

Monster in the Box

Concept by &rew

I'm currently studying advanced rigging techniques. After that its on to modeling this guy.

The Animatic

This satisfies my need for a plan. I still haven't completely flushed out how I'm going to accomplish some of the effect shots, but we'll see when i actually get there.



None of the motion of anything in this is final its only a guide.

notes:
Cut_00
I don't like the zoom so much. Another idea i like more fade from black to a slow minor pan across text of cover as text appears, once text is done coming in the camera gets sucked into the center keyhole.
Cut_01
Think i don't want to see the character at the beginning of the shot experiment with zoom techniques.
Cut_02
might need to be a few frames longer, can easily take them from the following cut.
Cut_03
At the end of this its not shown but i want one of the boards to be broken at the bottom of the crate and have the creatures eye blink in the blackness right before shot ends.
Cut_04
Need to figure out a different camera motion, that one ping pongs with the previous shot, feels wierd.
Cut_05
lock on box needs to face up when it stops bouncing. When box jolts i want black smoke trails to come out of some cracks.
Cut_06
Might switch around the time on screen of the shoes to be longer than the midsection.
Cut_07ab
Inside the box i want to be almost black besides some rim lighting from the cracks to the outside, and when the xylophone is struck the xylophone and character should light up that color
Cut_08
Motion of character obviously not going to be that jerky just need to make sure the key turn is on the beat.
Cut_09
Want tiny pieces of the box to chip away as it shakes and black and white streaks shoot out.
Cut_10
White and black streaks shooting around characters face. I feel like this cut should be longer so i'll need to take away from the previous cut maybe a tiny bit from the one after.
Cut_11
after the explosion everything is super slow motion to the point where its almost not moving. I'm not sure if i want a total silhouette of everything, but i definately feel like it should almost be a still frame graphic. The heart like object thats left i'd like to have beat to the rhythm of the drums while everything around moves slow.
...
Cut_12
If i make it this far it could be cool to come back from black after credits and in normal speed have the character grab the heart and pull it to her, and go back to black with the old animated vignette close in on the heart.

The Model

mesh as of now.

The Concept

concept by &rew