Infinitus Artificium Update

Lauren Jansons 2D Animation Tests



Connor McKee Maya SoUP Particle Tests

Sean Bone After Effects Particular 2.2 Tests

Hook, Line & Stinker: Fisherman Lighting Rig

I have begun building lighting riggs for the Fisherman character from Phoebe's concepts

Hook, Line & Stinker (WIP): Fisherman Lighting Rig from Omari McCarthy on Vimeo.

CGI Lighting & Cinematography

Hook, Line & Stinker: Lighting Riggs
The aim here was to build lighting riggs based on Phoebe's concepts/ color scripts that would be referenced into the scenes. They would have to be flexible enough to make tweaks on a shot by shot basis. I found using surface shader plugged into a sphere with final gather to give the secen an overall illumination then adding spotlight to represent the light physically on the boat following by some area light around the hull of the boat to represent the reflection from the sea.

Hook, Line & Stinker (WIP): Boat Lighting Rig from Omari McCarthy on Vimeo.

Lighting Rigg matched to Phoebe's color script/ concept

Lighting Rigg matched to Phoebe's color script/ concept

Water simulation by Josh Bainbridge is brilliant but too realistic. We need to find a stylised solution.

Cinematography & Lighting Studies:
I found a few good documentaries on lighting and cinematography. Lighting is a real mix of creative and technical. You know how you want to light it but you have to know Linear Lighting Workflow, Final gathering, Render Passes and Compositing and it can just get it the way of wanting to be creative with it so it was nice to find some videos where they just talk about the art.

Cinematographer Style (1/6)

Kodak Master Class Series: Lighting Dances with Wolves

Hook, Line & Stinker: Lighting Tests

Hook, Line & Stinker: Lighting Tests

Infinitus Artificium: Maya to After Effects Workflow

Infinitus Artificium
Maya to After Effects Workflow

Maya Camera Animation Export
Maya Motion Vector Render
OBJ Sequence Animation Export
Trapcode Particular 2.2 OBJ Import?

OBJ Import Features:
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/redgianttv/item/260/

How To Render Motion Vectors From Maya:

Here are two other tutorials on rendering motion vectors...

Rendering Motion Vectors Out of Maya

Maya Motion Vectors with Mental Ray's Production Library Shaders:

Once we have the motion vectors we can use these in After Effect plugin Particular 2.2 to drive the particle simulation. Unfortunately we do not have Trapcode Form that has the particles move along the vertices of the model (it has OBJ import option) so we will have to use motion vectors from Maya.

Particle Man - Particular 2.2 Motion Vectors from Red Giant on Vimeo.

This is the type of thing we are aiming for:

Max TV Color Artist from Sebastian Langnickel on Vimeo.

AE/Particular Volumetric Smoke Tutorial from Peder Norrby on Vimeo.

Animation Production: Project Updates

Infinitus Artificium:

Chris Rafferty Artwork

Lauren sent me a link to Chris Rafferty's artwork (above). This is pretty much how we would want the 3D ink and paint to look like. The thing is we would have to do this using animated textures.


Maya/ Mari Animated Texture Workflow

Maya:
Ensure you have set a project directory in maya to make this easier.

Download ".OBJ" sequence exporter MEL script from Creative Crash here. Save in scripts folder of project directory.

Convert Maya model to smooth click "Modify" > "Convert" > "Smooth mesh preview to Polygons."
Maya will lag because it can't handle the poly count.

Ensure timeline only included the frames you want to export as this is what the MEL script is looking for.

Select mesh and run ExportOBJSequence.mel script from the MEL command line.

The MEL script will have exported a series of .OBJ files to your Scenes folder in your project directory.

Unfortunately I did have some issues 

+ find paint drip/ run footage/ hot glue
+ record own paint drip/ run footage
+ use this for reference when painting onto body

Mari:
Open The Foundry's Mari. If there are issues with the dialogue box just press "Launch" and it should open.

Mari will handle

error at frame

Cope the saved texturer paitning from the Mari project file to the Maya project file in the "Source Images" folder.

Open the Maya file with the un-smoothed model we saved earlier. We do not need the smoothed model. 

Plug the texture texture painting you saves as a sequence into the color node in maya. Maya will recognise the TIFF alpha channel and take care of transparency for you. You will not be able to see the model and texture at the same time so it will appear in the viewport as below. If not press "6" on the keyboard to show the "textured" view.

When you scrub the timeline you will notice that the textures do not yet animate over time. To put this into effect check the __ option box.

IA To Do Lists:

Lauren, Megan, Rhys:
Finalize previz
2D Animation tests
2D Shots

Omari: 
Shot Schedule
Production Schedule
Contact ICT, sort product licenses

Adam Wint:
Maya (mesh) to After Effects workflow
Maya (camera) to After Effects workflow
Attach Emitter to mesh

Sean Bone:
After Effects; Trapcode Particular render tests

Ink & Charcoal in Trapcode Particular

Michael Top
Animated textures (use TIFF format, work best with alpha channel)

Connor:
Ink simulation (Maya SoUP plugin)

Amber Hyde:
Live action ink in water/ milk (HD)