Maya 201: Head Modelling - Part 1

Premise: The Voices Behind - Part 1

I am writing up little biographies on the people that I interviewed. These will be included in my Making Of Document/Production Bible. These are the first 2.


Tony & Patricia
Tony and Patricia voice the Television and the Cash Register. When I interviewed them, they spoke about their distaste for modern technology, and about how they prefered how things were when they were younger. Some of the audio was recorded by chance, as when Patricia started talking about till workers, I was not actually recording, and hastily captured the audio, with permission from her. It was interesting hearing what a different generations views were, and it was a pleasure interviewing them.


Emily
Emily is a student, studying nursing. As part of her course, she has to do shifts in a hospital, and I asked her what it was like working in there, and if she found anything particularly difficult or stressful. I also interviewed her to keep a wide range of ages within the piece, her being the youngest at 19. She was happy to talk to me about her work, and enjoyed the interview process.

Premise: "Making Of" Document Page Ideas

Fig. 1: Very Plain & Understated Cover

Fig. 2: Contains photos of the items that appear in the animation

Fig. 3: Contents Page

Premise: Making the "Making of" Document

For my "Making of" Document, I will have the following chapters:

• The Initial Idea
• The Voices
• The Characters
• Phone
• OBS Machine
• Drone
• Old Till & Television
• Remote Controls
• Initial Sketches
• Concept Art
• Finalised Art
• Pipeline

I have ordered it in this way as it follows the actual lineage of the project. I will include a one-or-two line biography for each voice, and each character. This will help provide background information on the characters, and the people who voice them, so the audience can empathise with them more.

By writing the first parts of the document now, I will be able to keep on top of it as the project moves along, allowing me to focus more attention on the actual project, rather than having to worry about finishing it earlier than I should so that I can get the document ready on time.

The Cover of the "Making Of" document

Premise: Audio Part 4

Here is an interview I did with two property developers. Like the interviewee for the phone, they did their talk in the style of the actual objects they were playing, rather than speak from their own experiences. I feel that by having a couple of interviews in this style in the piece, it will helps keeps things diverse and interesting for the audience.

Maya 201: Stand Ins (Proxies)

Singular Robot

Mass of Robots

Maya 201: Sub-Surface Scattering

Maya 201: Depth of Field

Maya 201: Photometric Lights

Maya 201: Ambient Occlusion

Ambient Occlusion Pass

Pass with all Materials enabled

Maya 201: Mesh Lights

Premise: Audio Part 3

Here is an audio excerpt from an interview I did with a 21 Year old male. In this particular interview, he is doing it more from the point of view of an actual phone, rather than speaking about his own experiences, although I suspect some of his gripes with Technology may have slipped through into his performance...

Premise: Audio Part 2

Here are some audio excerpts from an interview I did with a University Student about her studying nursing and working in a hospital.

Premise: Audio Part 1

Here are some audio excerpts from an interview I did with 2 elderly people about "Technology", where they stated their distaste for Modern tech, and expressed that they have no motivation to "move on with the times".

After some deliberation, I felt that I should call the piece "Technical Difficulties", as some of the interviewees express the problems they have with technology, and they are being personified by the objects they are talking about, making it seem as if the objects themselves are having the issues.

Maya 201: Physical Sky Light

Maya 201: Geometry Override Sets

The Train in the Viewport

The Rendered Image

This feature is useful for keeping the viewport quick to navigate, and improves the workflow, whilst keeping the render at the highest possible quality.

Sculpting: Week 3

Toolkit 2: Progress Report

Drawing:
Life Drawing - All "Life Drawing" Pieces I have photographed
Character Design
Mudbox
Sculpting

Maya:
Pipeline 1: Character Setup
Lighting & Rendering 2: Arnold

Animation:
3D Body Animation
Infographics
Acting
3D Facial Animation

What is left?
Life Drawing - N/A
Character Design - Complete Character and Environment Pieces
Mudbox - Place Objects together in a scene
Sculpting - Continue creating the base structure, and apply detail
Pipeline 1 - Body tutorials onwards
Lighting & Rendering 2 - From xx onwards
3D Body Animation -
Infographics - N/A
Acting - Collaborate with others in my group to write script for final lesson
3D Facial Animation - Complete Phoneme library

Acting: Lesson 1, 2 & 3

Lesson 1

In this lesson, we learnt about "Sculpting", and how somebodies body language affects the way a scene or shot is read. We were tasked, in paris, to sculpt each other based on a word Dan gave us. It was interesting to see how even the most minute detail could mean the difference between accurately and successfully portraying what a character was doing or not.

Lesson 2

In this particular lesson, we learnt about the concept of "Status". Dan gave us a card at random from a standard deck of cards, and that number represented our status - Ace being low, 10 being high. We then, one by one, had to enter the room in front of everyone, introduce ourselves, and then leave, while trying to accurately portray the number we had been given. The rest of the group then had to guess our number/status.

Lesson 3

In our last lesson, the first exercise we had to do was pretend we were in an old Western Saloon. One person was designated as being "The Most Feared Gunslinger in The West". They would leave the room, and everyone else would act loud and rowdy. Then, when the other person entered the room, everyone had to, in unison, go completely silent, creating an air of tension as the Gunslinger walked across to the makeshift bar, said the word "Whiskey", drink the drink, and leave. Then when they had left, we had to resume the level of noise we had before the Gunslinger came in. This showed us that status can be given to a single character by all the other characters in the room, rather than the character determining their own.

One of the other exercises we did involved Improvisation. Three people at a time would go up in front of the rest of the group, and be given a setting or scenario. They then had to act out this scenario, but with one person sitting, one standing, and one laying down. This taught us a valuable lesson in the concept of staging, as we realised that not only did we need to be conscious of what we were doing, but that we also needed to be aware of what the other two were doing.

Sculpting: Week 2

My Reference Picture

CG Artist's Toolkit: Facial Animation

Side by side Facial Animation from Joe Warrilow on Vimeo.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the animation I created in Maya, and the original video.

Sculpting: Week 1

My Reference Picture

Life Drawing: 19/02/18