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Hey everyone. I am indeed a stupid retarded noob former lurker to the SA forums. This forum is just what I was looking for on a boring cloudy day waiting for renders. Just to establish my bona fides, here's my reel: http://vimeo.com/29170975 I'm here to learn whatever I can from you guys, and I love explaining stuff, so feel free to ask me whatever. I've been a freelance lighter and texture artist and CG lead in the NYC area for about 6 years. Mostly Maya, and some of just about everything else.
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Oct 26, 2011 17:35
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worrytron posted:Hey everyone. I am indeed a stupid retarded noob former lurker to the SA forums. This forum is just what I was looking for on a boring cloudy day waiting for renders. Really nice folio, How did you do the waterpaint effect in the car commercial?
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Oct 26, 2011 22:51
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Odddzy posted:Really nice folio, How did you do the waterpaint effect in the car commercial? Thanks man. We did a shoot for that and made a huge library of luma mattes. It took a day and we tried all sorts of weird mixes of inks, oil, and different kinds of paper. We used a really shallow acrylic tank and a reeeeeally thin layer of water over watercolor paper. Then we'd roll tape and do a drop, empty the tank, start over. It actually took a lot of convincing before my boss was willing to do it that way .. he was insistent that we do it in a 3D package. But there's no substitute for the real thing (although this was before I knew about Krakatoa.)
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Oct 26, 2011 22:57
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Random post but I wanted to make people aware of Ray Caesar. I have been following this guy for years but never knew how he made his "paintings". I thought maybe he made some of it in 3d and then painted over a 3d model. Turns out it is almost completely done in Maya with just some photoshop touchup. He even admitted he used paintFX! Nice guy and his show is still going at the Corey Helford Gallery in LA. First fine artist I have found who sells maya renders as fine art. Do you guys know any other fine artists who make their living in 3d?  http://hifructose.com/the-blog/1852-an-interview-with-ray-caesar.html http://www.hifructose.com/the-blog/1192-ray-caesars-a-gentle-kind-of-cruelty-preview.html http://hifructose.com/the-blog/1207-opening-night-photos-ray-caesar-a-erik-mark-sandberg.html I have always wondered why 3d hasn't made more in-roads into the fine art world . . . sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Oct 28, 2011 |
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Oct 28, 2011 23:47
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He stated in an interview that he models tons of stuff, and that he completely populates his images whether you see the objects or not; for instance if there's a desk in the image, he makes objects to put inside all the closed drawers.
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Oct 28, 2011 23:57
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Yeah - I realized when I saw so much repetition in his faces that he was just re using geometry. I just wish I knew what his compositing techniques were like to get such painterly renders. He told me he uses NURBS / render passes / custom photoshop brushes but I imagine he spends a lot of time getting that painterly look in post. Crazy that he makes models the camera doesn't see but he does suffer from some mental issues as well if you read the interviews. The cake at the opening was a replica of one of his works and cost $5,000!!
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Oct 29, 2011 00:01
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sigma 6 posted:Random post but I wanted to make people aware of Ray Caesar. I have been following this guy for years but never knew how he made his "paintings". I thought maybe he made some of it in 3d and then painted over a 3d model. Turns out it is almost completely done in Maya with just some photoshop touchup. He even admitted he used paintFX! Nice guy and his show is still going at the Corey Helford Gallery in LA. A lot of what we consider classic fine art now was commercial art when it was made.I think it just needs time before existing cg art is considered done art. Films like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are almost there. Just a thought.
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Oct 29, 2011 00:54
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sigma 6 posted:Yeah - I realized when I saw so much repetition in his faces that he was just re using geometry. I just wish I knew what his compositing techniques were like to get such painterly renders. He told me he uses NURBS / render passes / custom photoshop brushes but I imagine he spends a lot of time getting that painterly look in post. It looks like he paints the textures and leaves the brush strokes very visible. I think that's where most of the painterly effect comes from. Notice how the edges of the geometry are still very sharp and distinct... If the background clouds in the above picture are actually 100% Maya, that's seriously impressive -- I have no idea how he'd be doing it in that case. Still though.. his attention to detail is amazing, and I love seeing people do CG work that doesn't feel CG. I would never have guessed until, as you said, I saw more of his work.
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Oct 30, 2011 17:00
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Ray caesar is the tits. There must me a shitload of painting over going on though. worrytron - awesome reel  We've had some quiet time, so i've been brushing up on my internals/abusing marvelous designer. i'm throwing some animated cameras in and editing together a little 1 min demo at the moment. (the 2 sets of books has been pointed out to me... i'll fix it for the final renders) 
cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Nov 2, 2011 |
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Nov 2, 2011 11:35
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love your scene, it feels really realistic. What did you model it in? I'm a beginner seeking knowledge
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Nov 2, 2011 14:50
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Thanks It's all max & vray, with cushions, duvet & throws done in marvelous designer and brought into max.
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Nov 2, 2011 15:18
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cubicle gangster posted:Thanks Beautiful stuff dude ... does V-ray use a photon GI system like mentalRay? If it does, i applaud your patience above all else.
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Nov 2, 2011 15:47
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what is this vray thing you're speaking about? A seperate program?
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Nov 2, 2011 17:37
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worrytron posted:Beautiful stuff dude ... does V-ray use a photon GI system like mentalRay? If it does, i applaud your patience above all else. not photon, it's own versions. Light cache and irradiance map, theyre called. fast and smooth and makes it super easy. vray is a plugin for max which handles all the lights, materials and rendering - it's so well integrated (and never switched off here) that it may aswell be a part of max. i did another one in the day! 
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Nov 2, 2011 17:47
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cubicle gangster posted:not photon, it's own versions. Light cache and irradiance map, theyre called. fast and smooth and makes it super easy. Actually Vray exists for Maya as well now! (WOOT!!!) cubicle gangster: Your work never ceases to amaze me. Ray Caesar was nice enough to respond to me via email. He mentioned: "a script in photoshop which imports a stack". Does anyone know what he is talking about? I assume he means importing renders passes into photoshop as layers . . . but there must be a script which automates this somewhere. He mentions that he paints over his 3d sometimes up to 8k in res or more. Also uses a lot of fur and PFX, then a lot of compositing trickery. Would love to watch him work though. sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Nov 2, 2011 |
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Nov 2, 2011 19:04
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sigma 6 posted:Ray Caesar was nice enough to respond to me via email. Do share!  Also, can anybody shed some light on a good way to go about modeling lacey or frilly type clothing? I'm working on this character, and I'd like to spruce up her outfit with a lot of frills and lace on the lining of her outer cloak, and around her arms sortof like you see in the two reference pictures. I honestly don't even know where to start though. I'm using Maya and Zbrush 4R2.   
SVU Fan fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Nov 3, 2011 01:29
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sigma 6 posted:A He mentioned: "a script in photoshop which imports a stack". Does anyone know what he is talking about? File>scripts>Load files into stack Its for loading all the render passes into one file. Very handy actually
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Nov 3, 2011 04:42
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SVU Fan posted:Also, can anybody shed some light on a good way to go about modeling lacey or frilly type clothing? Would most likely have to be done in texture. A few hours of work on a shader and you could get some very realistic results. I'd just treat the poufs of lace as regular cloth for now. If you need some texture/shader tips i'd be glad to help out.
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Nov 3, 2011 15:29
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I'm curious how many, if any, of you use After Effects for post work. cubicle gangster and several of the photo-realism guys on here talk about Max and Vray, but I rarely hear about post stuff like this and ever since reading about Alex Roman's post-processing in AE I've wondered if that is a rarity for many of you or so common it's not discussed. As an example of what I'm talking about, this link shows a guy who started out with a SketchUp model, applied textures in Max, and then completed the scene in AE (http://www.ramyhanna.com/2010/11/3d-process-post-process-tricks-revealed.html). That final step in AE (actually he uses Photoshop but his typical workflow would be AE rather than PS) seems to really be the step that makes the image "real". I've personally never been able to create a scene that looked good enough to even get out of the draft render phase, but those little tricks Ramy Hanna and Alex Roman do with chromatic aberration, light, grain, etc., intrigue me to no end and I am dying to play around with it myself.
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Nov 3, 2011 18:37
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worrytron posted:Would most likely have to be done in texture. A few hours of work on a shader and you could get some very realistic results. I'd just treat the poufs of lace as regular cloth for now. If you need some texture/shader tips i'd be glad to help out. Actually I'd really appreciate the texture/shader tips, thanks . Really drat great reel by the way. Just so you're not helping everybody and not getting any feedback also, I'm being really (extremely) nit picky, but the first few clips last a really short time, where as the others later on last a few seconds longer and let you really see all of your awesome lighting/texturing. This is probably just me wanting to see more and not really too detrimental, but yeah. SVU Fan fucked around with this message at 02:34 on May 13, 2012 |
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Nov 3, 2011 18:46
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SVU Fan posted:Actually I'd really appreciate the texture/shader tips, thanks Ha thanks, i actually completely agree about the length of those shots -- you can blame my last boss for that -- those first ones are the most recent, and he always had quick cuts in everything he directed. That's actually the full duration of all those shots. I put them in the front because it's kind of a convention in reels that things generally be in chronological-ish order. Ok so for the lace as i see it you have two approaches: For the "puffy shoulders" example, with very fine lace almost like chiffon, if you're not getting too close, you can totally get away with a noisy semi-transparent shader (probably a lambert) with no refraction. Maya's built in cloth2d texture should get the basic texture in there. You'd want to combine it with a facing ratio ramp (link http://www.pdipierro.com/tutorials/SamplerInfoNodeTutorial.html) so that you get more opaque areas on the surface tangents. (For very fine, detailed textures that have problems with moire patterns, pay attention to your filtering options, both in the texture node and in your render settings. Mipmap / mitchell is the best combo for fine detail, gaussian for fast, soft renders.) This will look cheap if you get too close, though, so on to option two: Are you familiar with mentalRay? There's an attribute in the architectural shader (mia_material) called "cutout_opacity." This works effectively the same as transparency, except it completely removes the geometry in the blacked-out areas. So starting with this base texture:  You would run that same texture into "cutout_opacity" and get this:  Then run that same texture through as a displacement, to give it some thickness (this is too much, but even a tiny amount helps lighting a TON):  So why not use transparency? The alphas:  ^^ cutout opacity -- nice clean alpha, no background bleeding through the transparent areas  ^^ transparency (on a blinn) -- the raytracer treats this as a "refraction" even though no refraction is taking place. therefore the alpha is still solid and you see the background through no matter what. This may sound really complex, and if you're used to rendering from zbrush may be impossible, but it's totally worth it to learn some tricks like this for elaborate costumes. Especially when it comes time to animate. I hope this helps you out. worrytron fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Nov 3, 2011 |
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Nov 3, 2011 20:11
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Anybody know of a good poly reduction plugin for Maya besides the built-in polyReduce? edit: Yeah, I know nothing is as effective as doing it by hand, but then again, nothing is as tedious either. SpecialAgentCooper fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Nov 4, 2011 |
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Nov 4, 2011 00:04
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weakness posted:or so common it's not discussed. This one. Doesnt matter what you use. i've never been a fan of after effects - i'm ps for stills, fusion for animation. used to be combustion till i got a new job. most packages like that all take the same plugins anyway, it's largely irrelevant until you start doing some serious work in them. whatever alex roman and ramyhanna are doing is nowhere near pushing it - you could use some third rate freeware to do what they're doing easily, so long as it's got layers and adjustments.
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Nov 4, 2011 11:53
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cubicle gangster posted:This one. Doesnt matter what you use. That's interesting to know. I'm still on the fringes of trying to teach myself a lot about this stuff. Unfortunately I slacked off on renders quite a bit in school (architecture) and really want to get my portfolio up to the levels you guys are at. Thanks for the info. On a related note, the notion that what Alex Roman is doing isn't pushing it has literally split my brain in half. That Third & Seventh video has blown my mind every time I've watched it - I assumed that must be about as far as one could go.
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Nov 4, 2011 22:12
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weakness posted:That's interesting to know. I'm still on the fringes of trying to teach myself a lot about this stuff. Unfortunately I slacked off on renders quite a bit in school (architecture) and really want to get my portfolio up to the levels you guys are at. Thanks for the info. Well keep in mind that when cubicle says these Alex Roman tutorials aren't pushing the boundaries, which is true, it doesn't mean they don't provide a pretty decent foundation of what you can be doing in comp rather than in 3D. I in no way endorse sketchup as a modelling tool, but he does show off a good foundation of how much further a little screwing around in AE or any pixel-pushing software can get you. If you want to skip the tedious bits and just get down to the lighting, rendering, and comping, then my friend let me introduce you to Evermotion. Whenever I'm taking a few weeks off from work I will snag a model or environment off there and play around with it. They come with very solid textures and even shaders for V-ray users, and are pretty drat cheap for the quality. Wayyyy yyyyy yyyyyyyy better than turbosquid stuff. (And they're an easy tax deduction if you're employed in the field.) For comping fundamentals ("what should i be doing?" kind of questions) this book is pretty much the bible. worrytron fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Nov 5, 2011 |
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Nov 5, 2011 00:48
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weakness posted:
Bear in mind I'm talking about post work - his rendering is second to none. He does more in 3G than any production company does because he's got the time to spend perfecting it.
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Nov 5, 2011 19:19
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This is a cross-post from Ask/Tell, but I was wondering if this mouse character was a stock character from an animation program: http://depositphotos.com/2672825/stock-photo-Toon-Mouse.html Maybe Maya, I'm not sure.
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Nov 8, 2011 22:03
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Doesnt look familiar to me. I use Maya.
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Nov 8, 2011 22:05
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I'm ready to start nosediving into trying to teach myself 3D/motion/animation software for motion graphics type stuff. I have no real idea where to begin. My real question is this: I have Maya (and AfterEffects I suppose) on my computer, and as a student have access to a lot of free Autodesk software... but I'm not sure what else I need to learn. Cinema4D seems really appealing but costs a ton of money; should I pony up to get Windows 7, double boot my mac, and get 3Dsmax for free instead? Any general pointers in the right direction? Sorry I'm so incredibly vague, but this is all pretty intimidating to a beginner!
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Nov 9, 2011 20:48
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redjenova posted:I'm ready to start nosediving into trying to teach myself 3D/motion/animation software for motion graphics type stuff. I have no real idea where to begin. Maya and Max are the 'industry standards', if you have access to either (drat you Autodesk and your educational licenses after I graduated!  ) I say pick one and stick with it. If you are concerned about learning the package that everyone wants, I've been told several times that those who are good enough will get hired and trained regardless of what software they learned on. For example, Dreamworks has 'university' to de-program/re-program new hires.If you are more interested in the animation part of 3D (as opposed to modeling, rigging and/or rendering) there are lots of fully rigged characters you can get online for practicing with such as Andy, Norman and Geri, to name a few (We were taught on Maya in film school, those were the ones I saw the most).
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Nov 9, 2011 21:39
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Cinema4D is not something I would recommend unless you really want to work in broadcast graphics (flying logos etc). That is the only field I know Cinema4D is being used in. Maya is my overall weapon of choice and has won more academy awards than any other 3d software(?). Autodesk targets the VFX market with Maya, the game market with Max (now Arch Viz), and they claim XSI / Softimage for TV / broadcasting. This is a bit of a generalization but that is what I understood to be their thinking at the last Autodesk demo. Really all 3 packages do about the same thing with varying degrees of success. Maya related question: Has anyone had problems with Maya 2011 and browsing? For example I go to file open -> browse to desktop and there is nothing there!! Then I hit cancel, there is a LONG lag, then I try again. On the second or third try the desktop shows up and I can select the file. Has anyone else run into this? It is a bug I run into A LOT with Maya 2011.
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Nov 9, 2011 22:03
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sigma 6 posted:Has anyone had problems with Maya 2011 and browsing? For example I go to file open -> browse to desktop and there is nothing there!! Then I hit cancel, there is a LONG lag, then I try again. On the second or third try the desktop shows up and I can select the file. Has anyone else run into this? It is a bug I run into A LOT with Maya 2011. Yeah, don't use 2011, it's absolute garbage. Maybe it's been updated a bit with service packs (definitely install them if you haven't) but I moved on to 2012 as quickly as i could. I use 2012 with hotfix 4, and it's definitely better, though there's still some insane interface lag at times (especially tabbing between render setting panes.) It seems like the interface overhaul for 2011 was pretty unfinished. I did a car commercial in 2011 and pulled a lot of hair out. And to the above poster -- if you're gonna learn a 3d program, learn Maya. Both Max and Soft bridge to it pretty well, and it's the package all other packages are compared to. worrytron fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Nov 10, 2011 |
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Nov 10, 2011 00:49
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Haven't been in here for a while, but figured I'd pass along a goldmine for hard-surface work: http://svsm.org/gallery/walkarounds Model-makers in general are turning out to be a great resource. Was searching for an IDF Merkava IV main battle tank, and happened to find it there, in insane detail, from every possible angle: http://svsm.org/gallery/merkava4/P1710611
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Nov 10, 2011 05:15
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redjenova posted:I'm ready to start nosediving into trying to teach myself 3D/motion/animation software for motion graphics type stuff. I have no real idea where to begin. Another field that uses Cinema4D a lot is medical animation...but that's an odd field and probably not what you're looking into. Even though I'm in the field, I don't use it and use Maya. The up-to-date medical animation production houses use Maya or Max.
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Nov 10, 2011 15:27
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ThreeHams posted:Haven't been in here for a while, but figured I'd pass along a goldmine for hard-surface work: Nice find there, been looking for something similar for a long time.
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Nov 10, 2011 17:51
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Thanks for all the feedback! It didn't really occur to me that a lot of the programs are pretty functionally similar, probably because most of my software experience is with Adobe, and each program I use tends to have pretty specific/better functions for certain things. I already have Maya, so I guess my work is cut out for me!sigma 6 posted:Cinema4D is not something I would recommend unless you really want to work in broadcast graphics (flying logos etc). I am a graphic design major, so motion graphics/stuff like this would definitely be of interest to me. My interests in 3D software and animation in general are much, much broader, though!
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Nov 10, 2011 23:19
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I entered the 11 second club last month and managed to come first!: http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/september11/winner AnimSchool also did a little write up about it, which was pretty cool: http://www.animschoolblog.com/
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Nov 11, 2011 17:00
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So it's sophomore year of my bachelor's in Game Art and Design at Ringling College of Art and Design and we're learning how to make assets in Maya and port them over to Unreal 3 . Our first assignment was to create a modular building kit based on an architectural theme, our class' theme was Victorian Age architecture. We were to keep our buildings simple to avoid being over-scoped, and because we've never touched maya before. The assignment has already been completed but I'm posting here because I would like to build a portfolio to get an internship somewhere this summer so I'll have time between now and then to add more pizazz to it. Here it is as it was turned in. Built with high resolution lightmap UVs and production lighting. It's a very basic kit because this was my first time modeling. it includes: Wall with window (with a cubemap reflection on the window) Wall with door Column with cubes Bare Column Those round bannister things and that sign on the roof which will eventually have text  (that red line is from the lightmass importance volume in UDK. ignore it) I want to know what I should add to it to make it a stronger piece for my portfolio to help win me an internship this summer. Edit: upon retrospect there are some things I need to improve about the lightmap but I'm not entirely sure how to do it. Do I just sew UV shells and scale up the ones where the lighting is inaccurate? Sourdough Sam fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Nov 16, 2011 |
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Nov 16, 2011 09:13
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You could add some artistic flourishes to break up the tiled-geometry look of it. As it is, I think it looks pretty nice - given my abilities especially - but it does sort of look like a single mesh duplicated several times. Some little statue gargoyle things (just a suggestion, they don't have to be so detailed but something decorative along those lines) or some centerpiece would add a lot. It looks like there are these little "platforms" extending from the columns themselves, like there's something waiting to be added. As it is, the big curved thing above the center top window looks sort of bare, so text or a sculptural relief would add a lot to it. Sometimes those kinds of buildings have a central window where the balcony curves outward like a little platform, but my knowledge of period architecture isn't strong enough to know if that's realistic or not. Either way I'm kind of jealous of what you've already done in UDK, given my knowledge. By the way, I assume by "the red line" you meant that weird skybox seam?
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Nov 16, 2011 21:12
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Sourdough Sam posted:So it's sophomore year of my bachelor's in Game Art and Design at Ringling College of Art and Design and we're learning how to make assets in Maya and port them over to Unreal 3 . Our first assignment was to create a modular building kit based on an architectural theme, our class' theme was Victorian Age architecture. We were to keep our buildings simple to avoid being over-scoped, and because we've never touched maya before. If you want to turn this into a portfolio piece (and I totally think you should) you need to change your mindset a bit and think of what you have so far as a first pass/greybox version. Think of this as your beta version. From here I would dig into research a bit more and find some good examples of this type of architecture. Break real world examples down into their modular parts like you've been doing, but go from biggest and broadest to most detailed this time. In addition to "base elements" (wall panels, windows, doorways), break it down further to "decorative elements" (statuettes and coining and trim). Decide which elements could be handled as normal map/texture treatments (trim would probably fall into this category) and which elements should get their own models (statuettes and other architectural flourishes). Don't over extend yourself or bite off more than you can chew, but try to take as many elements as you feel comfortable and simplify them to a point where you can pull them off. Take what you have and do another pass over the entire thing, finding places to plus and improve it. Research will help a ton. More textures than just plain white stone-ish-ness will help a ton and help drive the tone and style of the piece. Also, a platform of some kind (stone slab sidewalk or simple courtyard tiles or the like) will give some composition and help it look like something other than a Maya model you made and then hit the import button on. I would recommend searching up some other people's portfolios. While you don't need to go nearly as big for an internship, here's a great example of a really, really solid environment art portfolio. This portfolio helped get this guy his job at Blizzard: http://www.brameulaers.com/ It looks good, though, especially for a first foray into UDK. https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
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Nov 17, 2011 16:43
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