Game of Tag

Did I mention I would like everybody to tag (a.k.a. label) your post with your name and some other useful tags / labels? I did last year... Using the "Show all" feature helps with consistency.

Some UV Mapping Info

This website helped me get a slightly better idea of the potential of Maya's UV tools. It seems to be using a different version of Maya, but a little poking around our version led me to similar functions. Of particular use was the note on Mapping Strategies: http://www.jawa9000.com/Technical/UVs/UVs.htm

Also, the "Automatically move UVs for better texture space distribution" button within the UV Texture Editor was a bit of a help - NOT to be relied upon completely, however! Computers are NOT as smart as humans yet, apparently.

In other news - test renders of my slug show the non-subdivided version, even though:
a) Smooth Mesh Preview is checked
b) Smooth Shade All is checked
c) I selected all the edges and clicked Normals>Soften Edges

Any advice?

I did something crazy!

Not really, but hey it caught your eye :)

More Progress:
(EDIT: Adjusted proportions on the body, due to requests on CGtalk.com)

I modeled the hatters body as one. Going to extract the head and apply blendshapes to it. Though I recently found out that even if the head is connected to the body the blendshapes need only be models of the head, as long as the verticies match they'll work!


Also here are some videos for that I found interesting.


Baginski - Fallen Art - Funny home videos are a click away


Watch Cycle in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Get it while it is hot

Want to know what you get when Salvador Dali creates an animation with Disney? Well, here it is:

I originally got it through a post on BoingBoing but it quickly disappeared. Maybe the FBI warning and the "1-800-no copies" had something to do with it. Let's see how long this one stays up!

New Hatter

After Looking at my model for a while I decided that I would redo him, to make him more hatter-like. I began tweaking the model at a low resolution in Zbrush as to not lose the detail on the higher end. I came up with this, which is I'm satisfied to say the finished look of the hatter. He's basically what has been in my head, I was just fighting the idea of the norm.

But what about all those blendshapes? Matt you fool! No not necessarily. You see in the blendshapes options I can assign a new target and then project target to blendshapes. In otherwords update all the blendshapes at once to the new mesh. I could also make this head a permanent blendshape and have all other shape fall off of it, but that in essence is that same thing as above.

so yay.

Kitchen 2.0

Second time around the kitchen scene! I'm a little more content with this one. It feels more realistic, and I was able to get a better understanding of how to use lights to sculpt the range of values in a scene. Hopefully the composition is a little stronger as well - I slightly altered the camera angle.

As I worked, I took shots at various steps. Here's the basic progression:

1 Directional light + background color:

2 Skylight + Window bounce

3. Floor and Ceiling Bounces. Shine added to bottle, globe changed to white.

4. Wall bounces + Effects light on bottle. Adjusted camera. Rotated fan, moved bottle, chairs, changed globe back to grey.

5. Corner fill lights, transparent phongs on bottle and globe. Lots of adjustments to the size, intensity and drop off of these images were made at this point.

Voila! What do you think?

Rigging has Begun

As with most characters I do, proper rigging is my most important step. It can sometimes take me weeks just to get everything flowing and moving proper. As always, the better the rigging the easier it will be to do smoother and more believable animation later on.

Today I've simply begun the joint rigging process.





I have though already been finalizing the blendshapes that will morph the face. I absolutely consider this part of the rigging process. If the blendshapes do not work well with one another than my facial animation and lip syncing could be in jeopardy.

As for what this will hopefully all look like in the end? Well I did a quick mock up of a simple concept.