Category: Term-01-Maya

This week, I modified the animation according to the reference. Just the mouth moving will be very stiff. I let the character’s neck move with the reference, adding a lot of details. In this way, the characters will be more vivid. Then I set up a scene in the car, lighting and rendering the characters and scenes again. Then I combined characters, scenes and rain materials in Nuke. From this exercise, I found many improvements and practices. For example, the animation of characters needs more detailed binding in order to make the animation more natural.

This week’s class was very interesting. We looked at mouth shapes and needed to make a short animation based on a video. Because there is no facial binding, we need to use the blend shape to create different mouth shapes and allow movement of the face muscles, eyes and eyebrows. With these steps, we can make the avatar animation be more natural. Furthermore, we need to import the video and audio into maya to make the animation fit the reference better. Then animate each frame according to the speed and content of the reference.

This week’s lesson continues with binding and skin weight modification.  While the simple binding only makes the avatar open mouth, we can add the blend shape to the binding in order to add facial expression and details. For example, when the head opens its mouth, it can make the face a little sunken to make it more natural. At the same time, we can use sculpting tools to enrich the expression. I rendered a small animation to test the binding and blend shape I made.

Binding characters are most commonly used in the animation process, because if a character needs animation, the binding artist must bind the character comprehensively. The main tasks involved in the character binding process are creating bones, adjusting the axis of bones, binding, skinning, and so on. Create a skeleton for the character model. The skeleton should be created in accordance with the movement rules and physiological structure of the character. Facial binding includes bone setting, character weight drawing and expression making. This week, we only made a simple bone binding for the head model, which allows the model to open its mouth.

After Binding the skeleton, we need to improve the skin weight in order to let the character have the natural movements. We need to give each bone the right skin weight. This part is a little difficult, so we have to have more patience to make the skin weight be more better.

We also built the models of teeth.

The main content of this week’s class is to divide UV and make material for the avatar model made last week. I have some personal experience in both areas. When I divide the UV of the model, I first select all the faces of the model and use the camera-based tool, then use the cut tool to divide the UV area on the lines of the model, and use the unfold tool to unfold the face of the model.

Then, I like to create textures in the substance painter. Because the material diagram which the teacher gave us was not consistent with the uv of my model. If I used the texture map directly on the model I made, all the details would be ectopic. So I used the original texture map to create a new texture map in substance painter.

This week’s focus is on how to use the retopology tool to create a low-resolution model on top of a high-resolution model. This technique is very important when creating models of people and creatures. Because if this kind of model is to be animated, the modeler needs to arrange the wiring of the model properly. For example, the eyes are the most varied in the expression animation, so there needs to be enough extension lines around the eye sockets. There is no muscle deformation and bone movement in the skull, and the wiring here only needs to be fixed. The shape of the ear is complex, but it needs dense wiring for the purpose of adding detail. The modeler can use the retopology tool to create half the low-resolution model on the right side of the high-resolution model, and then use the mirror tool to mirror and copy the left half of the model.

At the same time, we learned about the sculpting function in maya. We can simply sculpt the model in maya. Also, when we do the blend shape, we can use the sculpting tool to make expressions on the character model. The blend shape tool can be used to control the character’s facial expressions if the character does not have a face binding.

Because we need a hot air balloon to do a composite project called the balloon festival in the nuke course. I want to make a new and unique balloon. This week, I took some references and created a vintage hot air balloon. I made a net out of twine and put it on the balloon. Then I copied multiple models and misaligned them to make a woven basket. To achieve a vintage style, I made the material of the balloon be leather. Then plaid and stripes are combined as the pattern of the hot air balloon. At the same time, I made the material of the basket be wood. Hanging curtains on the balloon and basket. The final render is what I wanted.

This week’s lesson focuses on how to use curves to create models. This is a different approach to modeling and is suitable for creating cylindrical or round objects, such as bottles and cups. You used curves to outline the object, then revolve to convert the contours into the 3D model. At the same time, we discussed the material of glass and liquid, and how to make real glass objects.

I used the same method to create the balloon.   At the same time, the way the twine is made is very interesting. First create three round faces and a curve, then select the surface and curve to make the twine model with extrude. Meanwhile, the curve can be manipulated to make twine and put in the required position. Furthermore, I want to create a balloon like no other. I made the basket into a hollow shape. The method is to create diagonal plaid on the cylinder, then select all the plaid and extrude each face to create additional faces and shrink, then delete these faces. At the end, just need to extrude the entire model.

Through this week’s lesson, we have looked at the construction of low and high resolution models. At the same time, we need to practice using smooth to transform low-resolution hard surface models into higher-resolution models. The modeler needs to add two lines next to the hard edge of the low-resolution hard surface model, then smooth the model. In this way, the edges of low-resolution hard surface models do not become too rounded after being smoothed. Moreover, soft models also require the function of smooth to transform low-resolution models into higher-resolution models. In rendering, the soft model will not become stiff.

The Lego man is a good reference to practice using smooth to transform low resolution hard surface models into high resolution models. The upper body and legs are hard surface models, and the arms and hands are soft models.