Adding Water Onto My Landscape In Maya

Today I decided to add the water onto my scene, this would consist of filling the lake, ocean and river. I did this by using the tactics, and methods of creating water and waves from this video: ‘Water Shader‘.

Firstly I created the basic plance for my water which stretched across the whole river which can be viewed below. This started off as just a basic texture.

Next I added a Arnold surface texture to the plane which was done using the hypershade menu which can be viewed below along with the example of my object design at the top right. I changed some of the settings in order to make the material see through and reflective so that it would act like water does in real life.

Afterwards I added the water displacement texture onto the material which allowed me to create waves and indents into my texture. I set this up accordingly with the section that I was filling in out of the river, lake and ocean. This can be viewed below.

The shot below is my initial water look from above, after seeing this I did some modifying in order to make the water look like it was flowing and not just still. To do this I had to rotate and transform the plane until it looked right.

Below is the shot of my finished river, I really liked how the bank of the river was showing partially along with the bed being covered because of the angle I shot it from. With this the reflection ontop of the water makes the scene look lifelike.

Below is a capture of the ocean I created, for this I recoloured the water texture in order to achieve a blue look over the top. However this changed the looks of my river and lake with that blue effect. That got rid of the realism that was contained in them as you will see below.

Below is the lake which I created, I feel as though the water should be more colourless than being that bright a blue. To fix this I will have to re-create another water texture in order to have two separate colours for the different parts in my scene.

Here is a shot from a different angle covering all 3 of the water sources in the shot. Again with the river the darker blue deletes the realism of the water, the ocean got away with it because the underneath was sand so the colour got diffused by that but with the soil that doesn’t happen unfortunately.

Here is a nice visual which I took of my scene from another angle of the river, this shot brings the most of the realism out of my scene which I love and will remember to use for my camera in the final piece. This is also before the river colour changed so I will make sure for next time I will edit what I have done and restore the original colours efficiently to the river and lake to allow the separation from the oceans colours.

Overall I enjoyed adding the water onto my landscape, it allowed my scene to contain that more realistic and life like feel to it. I did a lot of fiddling around with it by changing the colours of the water and sizes of waves. I feel as though the colourless version was a lot nicer than the deeper blue, along with the lower angle shots looking nicer than the higher angles which I will take into consideration when setting up my camera angles. I also noticed I will have to do some modifying to the original landscape in order for the water to fit into the scene correctly and not looking glitched when exported.

Creating A Landscape On Maya

Today I decided to create a landscape on Maya, basically this would act as my overall flooring for my scene. I only created the land on this without any of the separate props I have made or any water included it is just a basic land of what I am going to create my final product scene with.

Firstly I started of by setting my project and creating a polygon cube. I extended this cube over a giant area across the software screen so that I could create it as a scene basis that would look from a camera that it stretches forever or for a very long distance.

Afterwards I added my splicing points to the cube which would allow me to then transform the shape how I wanted. I made sure to add a lot of them across my cube so that I could include a lot of variety when modifying.

I started transforming the shape around using the different handles which I had created. This consisted of elevations and dips into the ground to create a beautifully looking landscape.

I then added the basic texture for the majority of the scene which would be grassland, I applied this to the whole cube and bump mapped it accordingly for a nice visual effect. For this I also needed to add come lighting so I added a skylight to the scene with the background of it being the sky texture which I had previously used for my river in Maya.

Following this I then added some extra detail to the scene, I decided to add soil to where water would sit over the top which consisted of the lake and the river. I then added sand to the bank of the river then in one of the corners as a beach for the ocean I was going to create. I also added snow to the top of the highest hills which I had created along with rocks for the base of the taller ones. With all of this done my scene basis looked really nice and it had a wide range of visual aesthetics to look at.

Below you can see my nice visual of the landscape followed by the rendered version of the landscape portrayed from a different angle.

Visual:

Render:

Overall I really enjoyed creating this and choosing how the ground would elevate and dip. With this created the end product will have more detail included like longer grass in some areas along with a nicer merge between the textures. I will also hopefully add a depth field which will turn to fog when looking into the distance. I am hoping to fill this landscape with the props I have created separatley to allow for a professional realistic looking scene in Maya. The only issue I think I will run into with this project is that Maya will start to slow down and lag along with maybe crashing because of the amount of detail I am going to be adding into my scene. If this becomes the case I will try and lower the amount of props and activity which goes on within the scene along with researching and finding out ways to prevent this issue with the software. Hopefully it all goes well and I get my finished scene successfully with no issues occuring.

Creating A Cave On Maya

Today I attempted to create a cave on Maya. I have improved my methods since last attempting this and have made the cave one big polygon instead of duplicating lots of small rocks in order to create it.

Firstly, after setting my project I created and added splice points to my polygon cube which I brought into my scene. I decided to splice random areas to see the result once transformed incase it looked better than alligned splices.

After transforming the shape I found out it lost the natural looks in which I was trying to create, too many of the angles were sharp and the transforming points were in the wrong place. With this done I decided to reattempt the cube again.

With my new cube I added the splicer points the same way as I had done previously in other works and created a nice neat cube to start modifying.

After transforming the cube I managed to reach this object below, I thought this looked good to add a cave onto because it looks like a large hill which would contain one. Next was onto the indent into the mountain to apply the cave visual. Unfortunately I did’t take any screenshots until I had textured, created and lit up the scene. 

This is my finished cave on Maya, I created a small indent into the hill I made and allowed it to start going down underground. I also textured and lit up my scene to allw for the effects of shadows and visually realistic designs. This is a shot from the outside of the cave.

Overall I liked creating this cave it was a challenge because I had never created something with an indent like this in before so it took me a while before I got the hang of what I was doing. When adding onto my scene or recreating for it I am going to include water flowing out of it to add a more visually pleasing piece to my overall scene and amplify the effect of a beautifully peaceful realistic countryside location.

Creating A River In Maya

Today I attempted to produce a big section of my final scene this consisted of the flooring and a river in the middle going through the centre. I used the video ‘Water Shader‘ again for assistance with the water. This was only a test but it was good to see what I would have to change to adapt my final product to have more realism to it.

My first stage consisted of again setting the project and then adding my transformer handles to my shape, you can see this below.

With that done I started to modify the shape of the cube I firstly added the indent for the river which you can see in the below image.

After that I modified the whole area to cover a wide space which will match my scene size well. Within this I modified and adapted the river bed to look more realistic along with adding some elevations into the ground which I had created to add a nicer visual effect. You can see my finished product below.

After doing that I played with a few different textures which I had found. Below you can see an example of one of them. Finally I found a nice texture which would suit the scene well for my test.

With that completed I decided to add the water plane which started off as a basic shape. With that on my scene I went into the hypershade settings and set a basic Arnold material to it for the extra detailed settings. You can see this below.

With that I also connected the water shader ontop once my settings were completed. I messed around with the settings again in order to add waves and a frequency with them, which you can see this below. I added keyframes so that if I was to export it as a video you could see the waves moving down the river which would create the effect of moving water.

The last few stages consisted of adding a skylight and collecting render information. I rendered multiple shots comparing them to each other as I went. Underneath is an example of a skylight I used with my scene. I didn’t particularly like this at the start but looking back to it it looks quite good as a scene which is occuring at sundown and where the weather is quite bad almost raining.

I changed the skylight to make the scene more brighter because previously it looked too dark. I also had to get a high resolution image for the skylight to allow for the background to look detailed too. Below you can see my final in scene shot after being rendered with Arnold.

Overall I enjoyed doing this and I liked the effect I created with the water. The next time I create this I will make sure to pick a less vibrant flooring and mess around with the skylight so its position and quality is perfect in comparison to my scene. I will also have a visual hopefully of what the waves down the river would have looked like when finished along with a cover for under the water to include the visual of depth and allow for the bed of the river to be covered and not visual through the water.

Taking Notes On A Real Version Of My Desired Scene

Today I went on a walk with my dog, this walk took us to the countryside. The reason I wanted to come here was because I decided to see what my desired scene would look like in real life. Seeing as I am basing my work on a country setting with trees, rocks, rivers and mountains etc.. this is the perfect place to get examples of how the surroundings look. Thankfully it was a sunny day so the weather matched with my initial plan on my scene along with this I could study the shadows on different objects along with how light bounced and reflected of the surrounding area. Noting how trees loomed over with a massive shadow and rivers gleamed with the suns glaze it was an overall beautiful place.

If I am to portray this through my scene I will have to apply the right materials to objects and set up the correct lighting sources in order to create these beautiful visual effects of shadow and reflection. I am really glad I took this walk and it helped me a bunch into understanding how my scene should look in order to have that realism and act like it would in real life.

Studying And Watching An Animated Movie (Ice Age)

Today I watched the film Ice Age and I made sure that I was paying more attention to the details within the movie. Basically I wasn’t watching it only for enjoyment, I was studying through the animation making sure to take in the backgrounds and scenes of the film along with taking notes with how it looked and the different environments used. With parts of this film being created on Maya it reflected directly to what I wa s focusing my Specialist Animation Studies module on.

My project is the pipeline of modelling on Maya and with these completed scenes it is what I am really interested in. I want to see how the industry create and develop what I am attempting now and to see if I can create any of the same or similar realistic visual effects like they can. Many of the scenes in this movie consisted of open icy landscapes with some close/interior areas. The open landscapes matched with what I wanted to create well and I made sure to keep an eye on the detailing and other models used within the scene along with the characters. The weather/age of the surroundings didn’t match what I wanted to create as my final product however because I want my scene to be a sunny day in the modern time.

Overall I really enjoyed this film and I think it gave me a good insight into how industry create scenes for animated movies. From what I noticed in the shots with characters in there was a lot less going on with the background but with ones where it was just visuals and the camera was looking over the landscapes there was a lot more detailing and design which were included within it. Seeing as my scene will be for visuals and have a camera flying through it I will take note on what I have uncovered. I will make sure to convey what I have found into my own projects and designs to allow for a more professional final scene creation. I look foward to watching more animated films which use the same methods of scene builing which I am and I am interested to see if they have different techniques towards creating a successful scene than this great movie did!

Creating Another Mountain On Maya

Today I attempted to create another mountain on Maya, I will talk about my stages of creation and how my production of my model went underneath.

I started this project out by setting my project up onto maya in its seperate file path, again this will make the process of transfering a lot easier. I made sure to assign the directory to my chosen path where I had an organised layout. Below you can see my set project directory files.

Next I added my extra handles onto my initial polygon which was again a cube, this time around I wanted to attept this with more transform points so I made sure to include them onto my shape. With this done I was able to move onto the tough resizing and shaping part. Below you can see my spliced polygon cube.

With my mountain modeled to my desire I could move onto the texturing, the issue with more handles was that it took me a lot longer to reach a shape I could start to work with for sculpting. The more points allowed for more detail which would have been better if I added them later. Even so I managed to reach my invisioned design and sculpted it to a realistic looking standard. Below you can see my basic untextured model.

With texturing this time around I wanted to try something new so I attempted using Photoshop like I talked about in my previous post to add more detail to the visuals such as adding snow and small trees. This unfortunately didn’t work as well as I wanted because what I was texturing was so large along with having a lot of faces it made it tricky to find and even creat a realistic effect onto the image. After applying it and looking at the result I decided to just use a basic image to wrap around with no modifying done to it. Below you can see my UV snapshot settings before I moved it over to Photoshop. Unfortunately I missed out on documenting my Photoshop processes but basically once opened on the software I meddled around with my chosen texture and attempted to apply snow to the peak of the mountain. Once done and set onto my model on Maya the loop of the texture made my changes look unprofessional and unrealistic so I removed it and just used the basic texture. I know this fix for this now however and will hopefully apply it onto my next model correctly.

With this image I alligned the UV’s up correctly and also did the same as what I did with my last scene and added a floor to it along with the skylight and firectional light to allow for the full scene lighting and shadow effect from the back of the lighting. I again checked through my render settings and took a shot of my product. Below you can see my finished rendered product.

Overall I liked how the mountain turned out, the only thing I will focus on for my next model would be to make sure I have my faces alligned and sewn correctly together to allow me for an easier and more efficient attempt to add a custom texture onto my model. With this I will also make sure to scuplt my chosen texture effectively so that the quality of it will still be high resolution even through 1 UV square. I will do this by sewing it together through photoshop with this I can also add my other types of design which I wanted for it.

Creating A Mountain In Maya

Today I attempted to create a mountain in Maya, after attending a lecture last week and learning a bunch of new useful information I was ready to apply it to my productions.

Firstly, I had to set my project folder so the whole of my Maya file for this product were in the same place and nothing would get lost during production. You can see how I did this by observing my screenshot below.

Next I decided which polygon I was going to use, I chose the cube and added my transforming handles to it with the splicer tool. You can see what the spliced cube looks like underneath.

After that I spent a lot of time dragging and growing different faces, edges and vertexes of the cube to transform it into the look of a giant rocky mountain. This took a while to do because it was my first time doing this much modifying on such a huge scale. By the end of it I quite liek how it turned out.

After this I decided to add a texture onto my product, my first texture which I collected bump mapped onto my mountain didn’t look too great and I decided to collect another. You can see this texture beneath.

I found a much nicer texture and applied it onto my mountain. After a lot of UV editing and moving around I managed to get a realistic look with the texture. This looked massively better than before and I decided that it was time to move onto the next stage. You can see the UV and texture below.

Next it was the lighting and rendering. I firstly tested the scene with no lights so I just had my outline. I then added a skylight onto the scene to light up the whole mountain. I lowered its intensity and added a secondary light which would act as sunlight that would shine brighter onto my mountain and create a shadow. After changing some settings within the Arnold Renderer I managed to get a nice visual of what I created which you can see underneath.

Overall I really enjoyed creating this mountain, it was something different that would be of great use for my final scene as background material. With this basic model done I can make more variations of it along with testing different methods of texutring. A method which I wan’t to attempt for next time would be using photoshop with my created UV’s for my mountain. Through photoshop I would be able to use the image which I used and drag it along with sewing it together to create a seamless more detailed skin for my product. I feel as though this can be really effective because I can also remove darker areas where I don’t want the bump map to take affect along with adding extra detail to the texture like trees, water and snow at the higher points of the mountain. This would increase the overall visual design of the object outstandingly and I will make sure to try it out for my next model which I will create!

Importance Of Setting A Project In Maya

I got told about the importance of setting up a project in Maya today, basically this is like on Adobe Premiere and it brings all the relevant files and setting all into one place for a Maya project. This is really efficient when texturing and exporting scenes which is exactly what I am doing for my production. So far I have not yet used this method but from now on I am taking it into consideration and will be using this extremely efficient method of keeping all my Maya work in one place and also allowing for Maya to run smoother when moving files around.

I also learnt about Autodesk Area this source is great for walk-through and tutorials on how to do specific tasks and projects on Maya these contain an amazing amount of information that will help me out a lot during my production.

Another really useful thing I learnt which can be used instead of Maya’s Bump Mapping was the Normal Mapping feature. Basically this would record and scan where the lights hit the Bump Map of an object and where the shadows are and create a flat texture with the same effects. This is amazing because it takes a lot of strain off the program and allows for a more smooth experience along with an easier method to texture. The only difference noticed is when turning the object because from some angles he same effects wont show up as the Bump Mapped version, nether the less it is a much more efficient way to texting which I am going to start using.

The Pipeline Of Modelling In Maya

This is my idea for the Specialist Animation Studies module, doing a Pipeline of Modelling in Maya. This will consist of setting up the scene, starting the modelling of a specific prop, texturing the prop, lighting the prop accordingly and finally setting up the renderering features to allow for a successful finish on your project. I will explain each part of my practice in this blog post and summarize how this will be implemented as critical text at the end.

 

Modelling

Firstly, I will start off by choosing a polygon to start my creation with, usually I pick the cube because it already has some good basic handles set up onto it. I will then splice the cube accordingly to what I am trying to make for example I will explain how to model a rock. With the extra odd unplanned handles added onto the cube you can then I can start to deform and deface the object by dragging the handles out of shape making sure that it has a natural look to it by rotating the view port. One happy with the result I will move onto the next stage.

 

Texturing

Secondly, I will decide on a material for my object, this tends to be a Blinn because it is the most everyday reflective material that can be applied into Maya. With the Blinn I can add an image file as the base texture around the object. After choosing a suitable file for a rock I can change around the UV’s to allow for a more realistic wrap around the object. Lastly I can add a bump map onto the object which allows the darker areas on the texture to be small indents onto the surface allowing for the effect of that realistic texture. With that completed I will move onto the next stage.

 

Lighting

Thirdly, I will set up the lighting on the scene. Through practice I have found out that the Arnold lights are the best to use because they are designed to create a realistic effect when rendering with Arnold 5. Mainly I will choose a skylight to apply a large area of lighting onto my scene and also because you can apply an image onto that too which will allow for a ready made back drop for your scene. I will maybe add a secondary light to apply the effect of shadows onto my scene. Now onto the final stage.

 

Rendering

Finally, I will enter my rendering settings and choose Arnold 5. The reason for this renderer over the default Maya one is that it allows for a lot more customization and freedom with you scene and it creates more visually pleasing and realistic renders. With the setting set up to your desired choices you can either set up a camera to view your scene from and have it move around or just have the still view port. With this you can do a preview of your scene rendered by applying and clicking the render scene button. This will be your scene completed up until the export where you can choose what to do with it after to keep all the visual effects and graphics.

 

With all of this I am able to research efficiently how to do each part to further my own methods and also find some advanced ways to do my practice. I will also research basics behind identifying the right textures and lights to allow for realism. The sources which I will include onto my text will benefit the audience by allowing for this whole process to me documented as a walkthrough to get to the final stage of a scene building project, by containing all of the information for the tools and abilities which Maya has to offer along with some pre-planning to a project this should be quite easy to apply and include into my critical text writing.