Week 1

Early this weekend my markers arrived for my custom motion capture gloves.  Many hours later I finally had found decent gloves and arranged all 30 markers in their proper positions on the gloves, specifically for my hands.  I also borrowed a full sized keyboard to play during the capture session this Sunday, 12-5pm.

Left Hand

Right Hand

Both

This is the character Josh Walton is designing for the project. Here is version 1.

His updates: Josh’s Studio I Blog

Character Concept - Version 1

For this project I plan to render with Mental Ray.  Here are a few stills from a test lighting scene I did for TECH316 this summer.

Frame 1

Frame 50

Frame 200

Lighting Test

I spent the weekend organizing my plan for the project. Now that I have the majority of the modeling covered I’m going to be working on the space scenes until I get those models.  At that point I will texture the models and continue on with the space scenes.  I will be working on making planet textures for the next few days.

In my other class we are learning Maya particles.  I am working on a particle star field rather than using a matte painting as I did in a test in my lighting class.  A galaxy made of particles is also in progress.

Galaxy of particles

End Shot Example

For my Studio I project I’m working on a piece involving motion capture. The goal is to have an alien-like character playing Gary Jules’ version of Mad World on the piano. The project goes from the character playing the piano on stage to the viewer seeing what this creature is imagining while playing. The piano turns from a real piano to keys moving and floating in space, to music notes, to planets. We travel through the planets and eventually back to Earth where hands appear holding the Earth up.

Mad World by Gary Jules

My current plan is to have the project be as long as Gary Jules’ song, but that is up to how much I can get done in two quarters. I plan on this being my project through Studio I and II.

For the piano playing I am teaching myself a version of the song so that I may record it myself, but at least be doing the piano playing for the motion capture.

Josh Walton will be modeling the alien character and Kyle Blair will be modeling the piano. I will be doing the texturing, lighting, motion capture and animation.

The project will be done using Maya 2008, Vicon and Motionbuilder.