Archive for September, 2008

Chad Woelki and I are going to begin the motion capture process starting the first week of October.  Hopefully we will be able to successfully master the capture of hands playing the piano.  I have been learning to play Mad World on the piano and I will be performing it for the project for the motion capture.

For the space scenes several planet textures will be needed. Over the weekend I was designing and painting several planet textures. Here is one of them that has been added to the previous lighting test.

Note: The gases in the background will be tuned more towards the color of the planets for the final.

Blue-Green Planet Test Render 001

Blue-Green Planet Test Render 002

Blue-Green Planet Texture

By Josh Walton

Character Concept - Version 2

Color Variations - Version 2

I have been designing an outfit for the piano playing character. I was debating on a necklace that looks like a galaxy or planets, as well as some sort of modern styled dress.

The following picture is one that I referenced for my design. There are also several pictures of necklaces that would fit with the project’s theme.

For the dress, it will incorporate the style of the top of this outfit, but will be a rubber type material. It will also be a halter, have a shorter neck and no coat tails. The bottom will be a flowing full length skirt.

I plan to create this outfit using ncloth, perhaps in my Digital Visual Effects II class as my final project.  I will be consulting both teachers within the next week.

Modern Dress

Orbital Necklace

Orbital Necklace Detail

Idea to incorporate into the Orbital Necklace

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.