Posed Mcglone Draft 1!

Here he is! in he naked form at the moment but that will change soon so please excuse the naked bum. But the brief did say he had to be bald, but it never said where. Hopefully you get what I mean by the bare bum now. I plan to have an iconic image of the Scottish old goat standing proud over his rock highlands with poo around his feet, then the kilt in the wind has blown up and shown that he is sticking to the old iconic of no underwear. I plan to draw some more poses but I wanted to get a little pose done So I got something to play with.

Zphere Rigging and Posing

These images show the little proxy rigg created using the zphere rigging method. I have done it before with a human body, that went really well but who knows what will happen with this mesh.

Well it was all good up to this point and I tried to bind and it warped the model beyond anything you have seen before and crashed. So I got really bored and switched over to transpose which is mask and move concept to put it simply.

Final touches in zbrush!.. for now

Here are some final images of zbrush work. I still plan to work into the colour a little bit more but that can be done in photoshop etc. I am really happy with the results. Maybe need to add some more ginger and grey but Will see what happens when all his clothes are on and he is striking a pose.

My day as a Compositor!

This blog is more writing that image based as I had the lucky chance to work along side the Framestore commercials departments compositors and was with them as they were finish of their latest project. I have been taking notes all day and in this post will try put through all I have learnt about rendering and compositing!

First thing I was told about was the workflow and file setup for Nuke. At Framestore they use open.exr files that contain all the renderpasses etc in one file which when opening for composited you can get it all in one and break it down rather than importing individual layers and passes then making sure they all fit together etc.

I got good information on render layers and what they are used for:

Diffuse- Can be used for all lights in the scene but also can be broken down into different lights such as a key light (key light which would be you main source of light that would give all the reflections and shadows) and a fill light ( you use to fill in the unshaded areas which some light which is a technique used in live shooting, this is so you don't have one side of the face lit and the other dark so fill light would just even up things) in nuke you would use a Add node to blend them together.

Specular - which is a generally used render pass.

Reflection and Refraction

Indirect- Which was the main thing I learnt during the day that was this indirect lighting so its general sun light that just illuminates everything, such as outside where it can be lit without any rays of light. You can do this by using IBR which I have played with alot today but not allowed to show the frames I played with but below is a quick one I made just for this post to show the difference in quality.

The image at the bottom shows all the render layers That I have been listing and how they can bring an image to light and give it so much more and the awesome reflection I am getting is the Hdr image in the IBR, ok I have tweeked it at all so the image isnt well balance but I wanted to show the difference when render is well thought out and how much of a difference it can make!

Ambient Occlusion!- also known as the dirty layer

Shadows!

Will be talking to them again during the week so will be posting again with more notes from rest of today and the next time!

Sporran planning & Referencing

These image show a fraction of the images I found on the legendary item of the scots the pouch they call the Sporran! These images show what I plan to model, they show the details and patterns I plan to put in, finally the tassels. Also I have an image of the tartan texture file I plan to use for the kilt. I don't want to use red as I feel the blue colour would suit the character more. But I will play with that next week when I plan to do the clothes texturing.

Details, Details and more details!

Above is an image showing detailing on the hoofs of the character. I'm really pleased with the out come! I like the detail I got only using the tools I chose to use to keep my clap style. I have cheated a little by adding colours but I'm really pleased with the result. Needs alittle touching up but that shouldn't take to long.

Above are 2 images showing more progress on the hoofs and legs. Again I think its going well and keeping the style I am wanting! It looks like clay but still gaining some sort of realistic surface not just plain block colours.

 Here shows before and after images of the hands. Still need to add details but so far so good. Again I am making sure realistic doesn't take over the clay style I am looking for.

 Above is the image of the textures horns. I added some realistic details showing age wear and tear such as scratches, dents and scuffs in the horns. I used a dark grey with some whites highlights to bring out the scratches. Also you can see I have added ginger highlights for the eyebrows to bring out that scotsmen stereotype.

 The image above shows progress on the head.

Above are 3 images showing the progress on the head. I have added alot more great to the model to show age etc. I am happy with the progress I have made and I feel I am getting alot of detailing with the tools I have chosen to keep the clay style going. I highlight the lips alittle bit more as well adding hairs in the ears, darkened the eyes which I plan to edited alittle as I want the eyes to show age the most.

Quick Render test!

Above are some images showing the model back in maya with some basic textures on it. Its gone well for a start but its early stages yet. Just wanted to check the renders and to see if everything came back into maya without any problems.  (middle image) First render was very reflective so I turned down the specular and the image at the bottom shows the difference in finished. But this wasn't meant to be a final image render it was just checking for all the details and to see uv's and displacements work.

Above are first images of adding some colour to my mesh. Its looking like a good start. Concentrated on the nose mostly and started block in some colours for the beard also. Along way to go but I am happy with the scratches, they give good impression of fur and detail.

Above are first images of using zbrush to add details to the model. I have used the rake tool to get the impression of fur and I added the eye bags to show some more age. But I am pleased with the outcome so far. Had some other tries but they all went wrong and looks to realistic. I was silly enough not to take any images.

Tools to show Clay!

For this project, I plan to use zbrush for texturing. I haven't textured much before and I was planning on using software called bodypaint or mari, but I couldn't get a good copy or a version that worked well with my computers so zbrush and photoshop will be my main software for the final look of the character!

As its meant to be a character made out of clay, so I am not trying to make a realistic detailed character! To make sure of this I am only going to use tools that I feel would be used to make a claymation character. The tools are:

Rake Tool
Clay tubes Tool
Clay tool
Slice and Smooth tool


These will make sure I keep to the style I am wanting. I will try give the impression of fur and wrinkles to give the detail level I am wanting for this character.

Back to Uv's!

And again I am back to uv problems. But its only because they are over lapping. I took it back into maya and relaxed the problem areas and the issue was resolved quick and easily!

Some reference images!

Random images I know but there is a reason behind them! Starting from top to bottom. First image shows a statue of an old texan, the reason I found this interesting was the eyes. I loved the wrinkles and shape of the eye bags, this shows age well! Second image shows the beard I have been looking for. As I am keeping to this clay idea I wont be going into individual hair so the beard is a full shape but I plan to give the impression of hair! Final image is just one I thought was a good image to look at the wrinkles on the face. However I might not do to this extreme, but Depends on how it looks when I start to work in zbrush.

More Uv Problems!

I have a few problems with the shapes of the checker. Its due to the uv's they aren't all the same size, also when they are flattened as the nose is on a bend,  need to compensate for this and straighten the uv's out to get the squares nice and even all over like the rest of the body.

Problems with UV's!

Funny how something so small and really hard to see can cause so many problems with other programs! What I had a problem with is when I imported my uv'ed mesh into zbrush I would get strange red marks when using Uv check, this means the uv have have moved across eachother! The second image shows the cause of these, the 3 uv's that have just strayed across the mesh have caused all these problems! I have moved them back now and all is well!

Uv'ed Mcglone!

Above is an image showing the uv'ed Mcglone model! only body at the moment, as this will take the most time and I am confident I can texture those without any problems as I have textured alot more props and clothes than Characters themselves. Stephanie helped me with laying out the head as the shape was very awkward but I got there in the end! Now to take it into zbrush to check the Uv for any problems!

Mcglone has been printed!!... kinda

And here he is! Well maybe not exactly as I planned but its a first for me and the college so wooohoo! But there was an issue with scale. I had the scale in inches and in maya for me it said 1.6inches but I was meant to measure in millimetres, So I have sent it off again with the right scale of 1400mm which should be about 14cm in height so hoping this one will turn out well!