rigging a manta ray day 1

i created this manta ray back in my modeling 2 term, textured/shaded it a few months ago, and will finally be rigging it for a compositing project due early january. 

i started by creating a quick skeleton, trying not to create too many extra joints i'll have to worry about.

as the ray's wings are positioned in such a way for the model to appear dynamic, a muscle spline going across the wingspan was proving to be a little difficult to wrestle with. i ended up just applying a spline set up down the spine of the ray.

the muscle spline set up will allow for some quick and easy posing of the ray, easier than an FK system where i'd need to rotate each control to get a pose.

after completing the muscle spline system down the spine, i created controls for an FK system for each rotating point of the wings.

i included 2 additional controls along each wing to allow for simple layered control for quick posing. each of these controls will affect 1/2 of each wing.

i will be completing the rig after winter break concludes.

pose exercise 1

about 15 minutes each

landscapes from abstract elements

used a method from scott robertson today, taking a bunch of random elements and adjusting opacities and blending modes to find a design, then painting in the details.

playing with a few brushes

downloaded scott robertson's brushes from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJeIF7xNke8

decided to stop sticking exclusively to masks

doodles from starbucks

a few of my doodles during my early morning coffee runs

masks and gradients practice 5

masks and gradients practice 4

based off a quick doodle

masks and gradients practice 3

masks and gradients practice 2

starting to play with some interesting perspectives. this was less of a concept and more of a perspective exercise. going to try and create a scene soon.

masks and gradients practice

playing with masks and gradients

thumbnail practice

dynamic effects final project

this project was about learning and combining basic dynamic effects in a single shot. i used autodesk maya for the dynamic effects and adobe after effects for compositing. 




the first step was creating the ocean displacement. i used a spot light to act as the reflection of the moon on the waves. the horizon was feathered so it wouldn't be visible over the horizon of the clouds.

i used a template to start the clouds and adjusted the ratio of the noise to generate the amount of clouds i wanted. i used a choke matte to hide the edges of the clouds and some color correction to set the value.

all the stars were done using paint effects against a large dome in maya. there are several layers, for the distant stars and ones that make up the arm of the milky way galaxy. the moon just ended up being a picture, since the camera move wouldn't really show off a 3D moon.

i used the black nebula brush from paint effects on the same dome the stars were painted on to add to the depth of the milky way galaxy arm. after a lot of trial and error, i decided to render with a white background so that i could use a multiply blending mode in after effects. it was way too dark against the background so i added several blurred layers of the stars behind so that the nebula brush popped out a little more.

the next step was to add glows for the atmosphere and the moon. most of the color correction used at this point was to set up the values for the final color correction. the shot was meant to invoke the surrealness of the night sky, so i didn't mind going a bit overboard on he glows.

the tent on the cliff was modeled using maya and nCloth with constraints to keep it tethered against the wind. in after effects, to get the value right, i removed a little of the contrast and added a blurred layer of fog.

for the final color correction, i upped the contrast using a curves layer and brought some of the red and green back in. some more glow was added so that it could overlap the cliff and tent. i added a vignette around the comp along with some blur.

the last step was to fake that beautiful widescreen look and calling it a day.

thumbnail practice

introduction & concept art

this blog will track my progress through learning the vfx pipeline

concept art i did for egg & ivy: