Visual Development: Shading, Lighting, and Texturing

October, the month of everything spooky and scary. In this month I had two classes to work my way through, one being Visual Development, the other being Motion Capture. This post is going to focus only on my Visual Development class, and the things that I learned during my time here.

Now just to give you guys a little history I am not a very technical person. At all. End of story. I don't like looking at the minute details of a project and often overlook small parts that snowball towards the end. My philosophy has been, "as long as it looks good" and even though I could point out every possible thing that is wrong with that way of thinking, it's still part of my belief. The reason why I'm saying this is because I wanted you to know where I'm coming from when writing this, and the struggles I went through trying to complete each project. In the end we had 2 main projects scenes, all of which took multiple days to complete and one of which counted as our final project.

Project 1

 This was the first project that we had worked on. This scene was provided to us, with all the geometry in place, and we were tasked with matching the original lighting in the Reference photo. This was a good way to teach us the power of the lighting system in Maya, and how it can add to a scene without ever needing to texture anything. Oh yeah, did I mention that all the geometry has a Lambert texture on it? Because, yeah it does haha.

Project 2

Look at this picture.....look at it. Okay you got it in your head? Good haha This was the scene we were working on for the rest of the month. We had to break it down the project into a bunch of different parts. We learned about UV's, Texture Projections, Reflections, Refractions, and Compositing. I'll try to break it down to each piece, but I may not have all the files to show off. 

UV's

Like I had mentioned, the first part of the project was to UV the Scrapper, and texture it in photoshop. This was the one that I did. I know it's a little hard to see the details with the UV layout over everything, but all the details are there. Trust me.

Texture Projection

After we got the Scrapper all worked out, we had to move on to the box and work a lot more in the Hypershade than I am, or was, comfortable with. There were so many nodes to work with, all intersecting each other in haphazard ways that made my head spin. The only other Node-based system I had worked with before was Nuke8, but even that was a much more intuitive to me than the Hypershade. Though I did get it all worked out in the end.

Reflections and Refractions

Next up was getting the bottle to actually LOOK like a bottle. We had to learn about how the MIA_material worked and how it reacted to the lights in the scene. Of course we used some of the other skills to spice up the bottle, and make it our own creation. I choose to replicate Slurm soda, from Futurama...as you'll see is sort of my "theme" for this project.

Scene Finishing

And here it is everyone. This is everything put together, and rendered out. Here you can see how my Scrapper, and Box ended up and see the theme that I had stuck with.

Compositing

After everything set and looking about the way that we wanted it, we learned about rendering out all our different passes, and bringing it into Nuke. Here we had to adjust our scene in order to fix the lighting. Nothing too special here, just basic Nuke.

Overall this class was a lot of fun, and the teacher Jared Edwards was very helpful in not only teaching us the materials we needed for the projects, but also for our own personal work. Even though I wont ever be a shading and lighting artist I liked everything that we learned.

Drawing: Cartoonified

Hello all, I'm back again and today I have another personal project to share with you. This is a very quick digital drawing I started at 3am haha. I seem to have a problem with gaining a new found boost of energy and inspiration at those late night hours. My friends call it the "Night Owl Syndrome", but whatever it's called it's what I have.

So as I stated I started working on a small project that may actually be part of a "Rebranding" of sorts. I don't know yet, but in any case it was a fun project that I got done in a few hours. 

This was the first rough draft of the character pose, and proportions. Most of the features of the character are here, but I still ended up adjusting some of the final points in the next cleanup.

This was the second wave of the character. I like to use this second draft as pre-cleanup. Even though most everything looks fairly good, and most wouldn't know the difference, I like to see it to see if all the "clean" lines work well together, before finalizing the lines.

I have to say, for the final product I am fairly happy with it. Of course there are things that could definitely been done better, but...whatever haha  

All in all this was just a quick distraction that I really wanted to do. It's nice to stray away from school work, every once in awhile, in order to fuel my creativity, and not get burnt out. So look forward to some more quick projects!

Digital Tutors Member

Wow today is a great day. My mother decided that I could get my Christmas present early this year. As of this day I am now a Digital Tutors Plus member. Now I have more ways than ever to learn about the Computer Animation world, with all of their different training videos on the programs that I have been learning.

I know it may not seem like it means all that much to some people reading this, but to me it means the world. Please dont get me wrong when I say this but Full Sail University has it's faults in it's way of teaching. That major fault is that you only have a ONE MONTH to to learn each aspect of each of your classes. To some of you it may seem ludicrous to learn a class in one months time, and to others it may not seem like it's not that big of a deal, but there is one other thing I would like to remind all of you reading. The one month period, that I have to learn in, is split up between two different classes. Meaning that at MOST I only have 15 days to attend EACH of my classes for the month. I don't think anyone can teach, let alone learn, all of the aspects of modeling, animating, texturing, ect. in only that amount of time.

Basically the point of this post was to say that today I am a Digital Tutors Member, and I'm really excited!

Modeling: Low Poly Fun

Looking back at my last few posts I noticed that I started off two of them with the phrase "Well now" and as tempting as it was to continue the tradition, I know that I need to up my vocabulary and try to branch out and use big boy words.

This month, after talking with a few of my friends, I tried my hand at a fun new project. Just to give you a little info, here at school there are two similar degree programs Game Art, and Computer Animation. The main difference between the two programs is that Computer Animation (which I'm enrolled in) focuses on high poly counts, and replicating realism, whereas Game Art (that my friend used to be part of) focuses on lower poly counts and replicating the art style. After talking with them, and doing some research I was interested in making what is called Low Poly Art.

Without further ado, here is the project that I was working on. Keep in mind, it is a LOW POLYGON PIECE, meaning you are supposed to see each individual face.

This is the original concept drawing. Here you can see the original vision that I was trying to replicate.

Above is the first thing I wanted to get done. This character was originally going to be one of the main focuses of the scene, but I think I have recently gotten away from that mindset. We will see how it turns out later. I still need to rig, and pose him....Maybe.

This is the progress after my second day of working on it. You I used Maya's Physical Sun and Sky to get the lighting I have.

Above is my thrid day of work. I added a car, clouds, and a few other details to the scene. I took out the sky, in order to test if I wanted to replace it in post.

On day 4 I started coloring the geometry and testing the different materials that would work. I choose to stick with simple lambert materials. I think it worked well with the lighting that was present.

This is where I currently am for this scene. I added some more things to the scene, most notably the Ice Caps to the mountains. I felt that if it was a nice touch, that added A LOT to the scene.

Well that's all I have for the moment. I haven't been able to work on the scene all too much in the last few days, because of school. If you look at the original concept I had a black streaks in the sky, which are supposed to be giant birds, with long flowing tails, and that is what I am currently working on.

Chronicles of the Past: Part 3

Well now I would like to thank everyone for sticking with me so far, in this series of posts, but this will be the final entry in the Chronicles series. After this post I will be all caught up for my saved school work, and I will be able to post my newest work, and you'll be able to get live updates as I go through them.

As far as this post goes, i'm going to be covering two different classes, but fear not, this will be a rather short post. I don't have as many files that document my work over the course of the classes, so YAY! haha

Visual Effects 1

Alright I'm going to start off on my "strong foot" here, and show off my very first Visual Effects project. Unfortunately it was the only one that I was proud of, because it was the only one that I was able to render within the allotted time. For this assignment in particular we had to do a rigid body simulation using the Maya Dynamic system. I think it was a nice introduction to all the different tools that are presented for us, and taught me a lot about problem solving certain situations. We were provided the Maya scene, where all the Geometry was set up, and we had to implement the Dynamics in order to complete the Rube Goldberg machine. It was fun not only to work with, but to see how a lot of the effects could be used to create some of my favorite scenes from major films. I swear the more I learn about 3D the more I ruin the magic of movies haha

 I'll be honest with you I had a lot of fun learning about the Maya Dynamic system during that month, but I just wish I had more time to play with it... We only had around 4-6 days to complete each of our 3 assignments, and I don't feel like it was enough time to get everything done to the best of my ability, but it's Full Sail so what are you going to do? At least we have the pleasure of having Visual Effects 2 in a few months time!

Character Animation 1

Along with Visual Effects 1 I had to juggle going through Character Animation 1. This was not the first animation class I had gone through during my time here, I had Fundamentals of Animation a few months before. That class covered basics of the Graph Editor, and the Dope Sheet and trying to get us to implement the 12 Principles of Animation to our work. For Character Animation we focused on completing the Basic Walk Cycle. We had to to this twice throughout the whole month. The first dealing with just the legs of a human, and the other replicating everything we learned about the legs and adding in the upper torso to it. Above was my final walk cycle I submitted. There were a lot of new concepts that I learned throughout the month, like how to add Foot Roll, creating Anticipation, and plenty of others that I didn't learn in previous classes. 

Overall I think this class opened my eye to the fun of hand animation. I know a lot of people in my classes aren't fans of the animating process, but as of right now I think it's the path that I want to go down, for my Major. We will see if it changes, though I think it is unlikely at this moment. 

Well that's it for my "Chronicles of the Past" posts, now I will be all caught up with my current classes and can do updates on all the new things as I learn!

Chronicles of the Past: Part 2

Welcome back, or hello if you are joining me for the very first time! Either way I'm happy you are found your way here and are taking the time to read through my posts. This is Part 2 of my Chronicles of the Past, where I talk about some of the classes that I have had during my time at Full Sail University. Last time I talked about my time in both my Traditional Art 1 and 2 classes. I wanted to separate those two classes, only because they were both Traditional focused, and although really fun and helpful, were not focused on the 3d portion of my degree. For this post I'm going to be focusing on one class in particular Production Modeling. I took this class twice, back in the time I thought I was going to focus on becoming a Modeler, so I have the most work to show off from those two months of classes. Just as a side note, most of the projects had to match a piece of Concept Art, we were given, but unfortunately  I don't have the artwork to post... Without further ado, let's jump into it!

Production Modeling (PRM) Round 1

So I'll keep it short for these descriptions, just so we can all keep somewhat sane throughout all of this. This one was called a the Dragon Tree. It was a funny piece that, although was a static tree, looked as though it was majestically walking through the landscape. I was VERY new to the program Zbrush at this point, and was constantly fighting the tools, in order to get the piece I desired.

This odd little creature was from yet another concept art, and again I was still very new to the program at this point. I was constantly trying to figure out what tools would give me the result I desired. It was not easy, at the time, to get the folds and wrinkles in the creatures skin, but I was proud of it... at the time.

I think this was my first real attempt at a full head, and like always I WAS fairly happy with it. The more I look back at it there are so many obvious things that I could have fixed, but I just skipped over during my production. Overall not bad but not good either. 5/10

Well that was pretty much it from my first time going through production Modeling. I liked the class a lot, and after I figured out it was going to be the last modeling class I would ever have at my time in Full Sail, I decided I wanted to take it again, and use that time to refine my skills. So now we jump to my work with Zbrush, after only one month of time in the program.

Production Modeling (PRM) Round 2

Yes, yes I know the picture says Anatomy Study #2, and you may be asking me where Anatomy study #1 is. Well all I have to say to that is that it was garbage! You don't want to see that (trust me you don't =P) you came here to see things that resembled art, not poop. I'm kidding, but honestly I wanted to showcase my progression and not just some random practice I did when I was bored.

Although I haven't been working in Zbrush at all this last month, this was one of the things that I made that has survived my constant need to purge my art folders. It is a very simple hand, that I use often append into full body meshes, and customize to fit the needs of the project. The hand is meant not to have a lot of detail in it, so that I wouldn't need to "fix" too much, just incase it was needed for something outside its intended use. (This hand was used in the above image)

This was probably the piece that I was most proud of. It's not too complex, and it didn't take too long to complete, but I LOVED the way it came out. I've always liked hard surface modeling more than organic, and I don't know why I choose to do so much organic modeling, while I was here, but I guess I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone for once. 

Well that's about it for my work from my Production Modeling class. In the end I'm glad that I went through the experiences that I did, at the times I did, otherwise I don't think I would be where I was today. I would probably do it all over again if I had the opportunity.

Look forward to the rest in my next and FINAL "Chronicles of the Past: Part 3" 

Chronicles of the Past: Part 1

Well now I think it's time to show my chops, and give you a little taste of what you'll be seeing on this blog. I have been attending school for over a year now, learning all different aspects of Computer Animation, from Modeling, to Rigging, Animating, Shading and Lighting, and even some Tradition all classes here and there. All of these skills have been important to me, and have only helped build up my knowledge to the vast world I have stepped in to.

WARNING: Longish post ahead

Unfortunately I don't have too much of my old work, from my time early on at Full Sail, and that makes me kind of sad, but I never would have thought that I would be starting this Blog a year ago. What I do have is work that I have done later on in my time at school, so there isn't really any way for me to show you where I started from... Let's just say it wasn't all too pretty haha

Art 1

So this was a piece that I did for my first Traditional art class at Full Sail, but not the first one I had ever taken. In the class we were tasked to make a two IDENTICAL characters, with the only difference between them being their colors. By changing the colors we were supposed to show how the color palette of characters can change the emotion that the character convey's to the audience. For the project I choose to make these Flower Girls (original I know haha), after a long, long line of pre-production. I cannot honestly tell you how long it took me to nail down an idea for this project, but I know that I had a few long nights debating over what to do.

This class was also my first introduction to Full Sail's famous 24 hour schedule, as I had classes that ended at 1am 3 days a week, and had 9am class on the other days. It was chaos, and my body didn't know how to react, but I have since gotten used to the craziness.

Art 2

The above piece was one that I did for my second Traditional art class. This assignment was a lot of fun, not just because I enjoyed working on the piece, but because of the the way that our teachers prepared us for the assignment. Just to give a little explanation we were told that we would have to option to choose from two different assignments, but it all fell under the guidelines for the same project. So for this project in particular, we were taken to the Zoo, and given a black 20 page sketch book, and were told that we have to fill up both the front and back of the book with animal and plant studies. It was a lot of fun to get to wander around the zoo with some of the friends, and study the animals and their habitats. We saw everything there, and I mean EVERYTHING! haha we left no stone unturned, and no animal house unvisited, but I have to say the most memorable thing I have from that trip was the reptile house. It was by far the single exhibit my friends and I stayed in for the longest. We were captivated by the snakes, lizards and frogs, and best of all we even got to watch the handlers feed the snakes. Man that was vicious!

Anyways, after our time at the zoo was done, and our sketchbooks were filled we had to make the choice if we wanted to come up with an creature, spliced together with at least three different animals, or an environment that one of the animals from the zoo could live in. Obviously I choose the latter. I've always had a soft spot for environments, and I wanted to make one special for all the reptiles that entertained me during my trip to the zoo, so I made a swamp land just for them <3

Look forward to the rest in my next "Chronicles of the Past: Part 2" 

First Official Post!

Hello everyone, my name is Jared Sneed and welcome to my blog. I am currently a student attending Full Sail University, studying Computer Animation. During my time here I have learned a lot about 3D software, focusing mostly using the software Maya, but also expanding into other things such as Zbrush, Nuke, Motion Builder, Cortex, Photoshop, and many more. 

I will mostly be updating this blog with my artwork, both from school and from my own personal projects. So come follow along as I delve into this wonderful world of Computer Animation!