This was the first time I found I was getting bored in classes and with my homework. I would get things done really quickly and at a pretty decent quality. I am still not at that point yet to figure out exactly what I can do to up the details on my projects, so I have asked for more challenge. This will force me to learn, get me to try new things and really rack my brain for knowledge and problems solving! In drawing we finished our still lives and we have now moved onto perspective. This week we focused on linear perspective in 1 and 2 points. I love doing perspective because it is challenging but it also lets you create a sort of map on your page to tell you how big things should look, how small they are, their level of detail etc. I got to help teach this class a little as well as I am really familiar with linear perspective and have some good explanations and tips for it. In our next class we will be learning empirical perspective, using an instrument to measure what we see. I finished animating my pendulum file and we are now working on a bouncing ball with squash and stretch. I like the use of the controllers to animate the different parts of the movement, but it will be nice once the bouncing ball segment is all done. Time for more challenge in animation! Since this was my first experience feeling not as challenged, I spoke with Nick who has helped to push me along and find where I need more challenge. My other instructors have now taken advantage of this and are starting to give me larger projects to work on. Some that will take a lot of time and a lot of detail is expected. This is what is great about having a class of two. You can customize the course to each student. In modeling I am working on creating a 3D interior environment, using reference images from the internet. In rigging I have to rig a slinky. My teacher and I figured out a couple ways to do this, so now it is up to me to get it started and maybe even find a way to complete the rig with the right flexibility and motions. For our lighting class we are focusing on getting our UVs onto our final project models and getting the shaders correct. I've been working hard on making my eye as realistic as possible. I have added bump map textures and different shaders to make it look gooey. Photography class we learned how to create HDRI images using a mirror ball. This was really fun as you have to stay as far from the mirror ball as possible so that you won't have a large reflection of yourself. Once we had set the camera up to take its shots, we literally ran and hid behind a wall, trying to beat the camera. We are still focusing on our rotoscope work in compositing right now as well as learning more on camera tracking and translating images, animating them. I really enjoy the rotoscope work. It's time consuming, but you need to be very detail oriented and picky in order to get just the right shape with your bezier tool, cutting out your subject. highlight of the week though had to be breaking things in particles and dynamics. We worked with Rigid Body Dynamics, attaching these properties to basic geometry, then telling them to split apart, crack, smash and explode in all different directions after being dropped from a height. This was a lot of fun, and I look forward to integrating this as much as I can into future assignments! Have lots of work to do this week to hand in for next classes. Since this is the reading break we have lots of lab time to hammer things out as well as work on some new things. My goal for the reading break is to spend 1 hour everyday learning ZBrush, spending the rest of the day hammering out my homework, and any left over time working on my matte painting. It's going to be a very busy but productive Good start for the week. We are finally starting our planning for our final project of the term. In Production we learned all about Gant charts and how to make one. We have to take it upon ourselves and create a gant chart for our portion of the project which will then be reviewed next week.
Drawing was all about finishing our still life that we built ourselves. Filling out the form, then adding details. It will be marked next week, so I'm looking forward to seeing how I did and what I can to improve. So far I'm pretty happy with it (you can check it out on my portfolio page under life drawing). Animation we are taking a second crack at animating pendulums. The challenge was to take two different pendulums of different weight and animate them correctly over 150 frames. Aside from that, we discussed how to animate our objects and what types of rigs we should be thinking about for the objects in our final project. Rigging, we talked about all different rigs for our final objects. I certainly have a few that need to be placed on my eyeball model. The plan is to have it completely rigged by the weekend. I've been really on top of my homework so I've had some extra time that I can expand my skills in, so I've been working on some side projects, commissions and just practicing my modelling. Looking forward to my next side project of re-designing Atlas and Peabody from portal in steampunk style...in a steampunk phase right now :p Lighting went really well this week. My shaders turned our really well, my glass shader was a bit of a fluke but now I know all different ways to make better glass and what types of attributes I should be using for plate glass vs rounded glass. Stay tuned for updated images next week! Photography we have started doing green screen work. Taking photos and editing the green screen in photoshop, as well as making video and editing both stills and video in Nuke. We created mattes, removed the green screen and added background images. Modelling we covered Mudbox and how to texture. The eyeball I have posted is just the beginnings of my eye texture. Still needs to look more gooey. In Compositing this week we covered camera tracking and did some more rotoscope practice. This was really cool. Picking a part on an image, then tracking it through an entire video sequence. This allows us to stabalize and center the camera image to make for a smooth shot. We also added in colour correction, adding noise to the film. I always wondered why you would add noise to a digital film, but found out that this gives the digital image the feel that it was actually recorded on film. Particles this week was awesome. We started playing with rigid body dynamics. Making objects fall, adding or taking away gravity. Changing resistance, collision and friction levels. This allows you to make really realistic explosions, object drops etc OR really ridiculous scenes of bouncing balls, flying objects and skidding right across the screen. Whenever classes aren't happening we spend all of our lab time working hard to get our assignments to 110%. Thursday and Friday before class were filled with getting my assignments for next week done. This leaves me a lot of time for tweaking, making things better and practicing my skills. This will be the final model for my term project. Currently working on getting the textures JUUUUSTT right :) creepy right??? ;)
Here we are at another weekend. Each week seems to go faster and faster, just having too much fun!
This week my skills were really put to the test, trying out new shaders in VRay, creating metallic objects. After some tough love, I made it through my classes with valuable information, that has helped me push forward and get some pretty impressive results. I've finally completed my Eyeball model for my final project, as well learned to use UVLayout and create texture maps for my model. In rigging, we managed to create a rig for a flat bike tire. Using simple tools such as a locater and a lattice, along with some constraints. It's pretty interesting getting these controls up and running. But now because of this simple exercise, I am able to go forward and rig my eyeball to roll automatically at the pace I want, rather than having to animate scene by scene. On that note, we worked on animating pendulums this week. Two pendulums in motion with their base in motion, as well as the pendulum itself. Making sure that the movement influence to swing just right. In our drawing class, we created our own still life. I brought in some pretty cool objects for it and we are off drawing like crazy. We will continue with this assignment next week. Photography was all about white balance. Creating photos with colours wildly inaccurate and then cleaning them up by matching them to a 50% grey card, or a white piece of paper. We did this in both JPEG and RAW formats. In compositing I really surprised myself! I've never been a fan of node based programming, let alone being any good at it. I always thought I was really confused in class and had no clue what I was doing, when this week I was given a colour correction assignment and I managed to create it, recreate AND finish my homework for next week while in class! This just proves the theories are starting to sink in! The biggest lesson I learned this week is to not be so hard on myself. I guess because I have had previous training in 3D, no matter how minimal, I expect that I should understand concepts and get them right the first time, when in fact that's not true. I have to give myself a break and let myself learn. This things will come in time and my skills have already grown immensely, I can only wait to see how good I will get over the next year! This was the first time in classes where I felt I had let myself down and managed to breakdown and cry. I promise, that will NOT happen again. Gotta keep soldiering on and make awesome stuff! Hey Fans!
I've uploaded new images to the 3D modelling page in my portfolio! You can see what I've been working on! Go check it out! viral-concepts.weebly.com/3d-modelling.html Another week done, moving into week 5 now.
So this week we covered creating moonlight and candlelight. Much harder than you would think. Even when using a photo reference, you just can't quite get the fall off right, or the hue right. It takes a lot of tweaking to make a successful lit scene under those two conditions. Our production class has us finishing up our animatic, creating proper camera settings, taking reference shots for film. We have been covering file naming conventions as well, making sure that everything is all coherent with all members files, and covering following directions in industry. We have been recreating textures with charcoal and graphite pencils, using different materials to create different feeling realistic textures. I was graded on my white conte drawing of objects, really proud of this drawing. Was really excited when I received 4's out of 5's. Animation we created reference video of bouncing balls, then used this to create a bouncing ball on the y and x axis, bouncing across the screen. Photography we covered composition. Creating images with leading lines, balance, the golden mean, and rule of thirds. For homework we need to do 2 photos using a wide angle lens, and creating distortion. Modelling we are working on our final models for our term one project. As I am creating an eyeball, you would have no idea how hard it is to make a sphere round, so it looks smooth both in polygon form and smooth view. Takes a lot of patience to get it right. Finally, in particles this week we were working on creating snow falling, changing the speed and amount of flakes. From this we started creating a new file to make a swarm of butterflies. We set up the camera for the perfect shot, changing the gravity, wind resistance, and now adding in geo. For next week I have started modelling a pair of steampunk goggles for my lighting class, these will have a brass texture on it and then light to look like actual brass. We will also be starting to use Mudbox for modelling textures :) On that same note, I have taken it upon myself that in my spare time I am learning ZBrush. It's pretty cool so far. All I wanna do is model and make 3D stuff everyday! This is honestly an amazing experience! |
AuthorCurrent student at CG Masters. Archives
December 2014
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CG Masters Academy
In this blog I will be giving an account of my time at CG Masters. All the things I learn, activities I take part in and projects I am working on.