3d inspiraion

Check out
Untitled 1, Nikita Veprikov
and
Waiting for Lunch, Lukas Zahradka
and
Bigtooth, Serkan Ertekan
at the cgtalk.com
3d still image gallery

Check out Neil Blevins website.

Neil works over at Pixar and does a bunch of cool things.
Follow the link to find out more, and make sure to check out his gallery!

Light and Dark values

Here's a great blog post on how to effectively use light and dark values in drawings to communicate mood, feeling and information. While the post is talking about drawing, the same concepts can be applied to 3d modeling.

http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/2010/09/quick-primer-on-values.html

Establishing where your light and dark tones are on paper before you start modeling/lighting in 3d can really help you quickly discover ways to create mood and feeling, and is another great reason to quickly sketch your ideas on paper before creating them in 3d.

Project One

Project One

Project 3 - Music Video Animation

Pick a piece of music to animate to, and cut it into a 15-30 second sound clip (wav files work great).

Use the modeling and shading techniques to build your world, and use maya's animation tools to animate it. The focus on this project is using music to choreograph movement. You can use any shapes you like, complex models are not required. Lights, cameras, shaders and deformers can all be animated as well, and can add tremendous life to a scene.

When your animation is finished, you will render out the sequence and merge it with sound in aftereffects, final cut pro, or other video editing software.

What: A quicktime or comparable movie file containing a rendered, animated music video.

When: Monday, November 16th

Check out some of the examples of the fall 2008 class below:











Other inspiration:

Autechre video

Synthetic Aspirations

Animusic

Claire De Lune

Project two - still life - due 10/14

Project two - still life

This assignment is designed to acquaint students with Maya's sculpting, deformation and shading tools. Students will learn how to build, modify and reshape objects into representative surfaces; how to assign shaders to those surfaces; and how to use Maya's dependency graph to make non-linear changes to their work. Students will use these tools and concepts to create a still life of various organic and inorganic objects of their choosing.


What: One rendered still image at full 1024 resolution, one maya scene file, and all used textures.

When: Due 10/14, at the beginning of class - 4 weeks

Project 2 - fall 08 - gallery


How:

• Decide what objects you want to fill your scene, and how you will arrange them. Try to find both organic and inorganic objects. Look for reference images!
• Create your objects using the different sculpting techniques we will go over.
• Shade and texture your objects using shading networks and source images.
• Setup your camera and lights to find the best composition and mood.
• Focus on composition, staging, depth and mood. Use the geometry to shape the scene and the lights to color it. Use the camera to frame it in an interesting way that supports your idea.

Key concepts:

Interface/Pipeline:

• nodes and inter-nodal dependencies
• hypergraph
• understanding construction history

Modeling:

• polys, nurbs and subdivision surfaces – pros/cons
• creating and editing organic and non-organic models
• managing a workable level of detail
• sculpting on a component level
• using curve-based modeling tools
• understanding smoothing and creasing
• using the paint tool to sculpt surfaces
• using lattices and non-linear deformers for broad level shape changes

Rendering:

• understanding the qualities of different surface shaders
• creating and applying shading networks
• editing shading networks in the hypershade
  
• procedural vs. authored textures
• texture creation and placement
  
• using the 3d paint tool
  
• advanced lighting - raytracing, reflections, translucency, fog

Welcome!

Welcome to DT-116-1: Introduction 3d Modeling, Texturing, and Animation using Maya.

My name is Greg Lemon, and I will be your instructor for this class. Please feel free to email me with any questions you have related to the course.

greg.lemon@gmail.com

This class is an intensive, hands on study of Maya, an extremely powerful 3d visualization tool. The goal of this class is simple: leave on the last day of class with the ability and confidence necessary to create your own 3d projects of whatever complexity you choose.

The class is very much about what you make of it. If you put in little effort, you can expect little in return. If you put in a lot, you will find the creative uses for Maya to be virtually unlimited, and you will be inspired by your rapidly increasing abilities. If you truly dive in, and allow Maya to teach you, you will develop a proficiency with it that will amaze you, and you will open your artistic career to a wider variety of opportunities.

We will be exploring a largely unfamiliar world, filled with unfamiliar terms, relationships and procedures. Please take notes, make sketches, make recordings, or whatever it takes to help you remember what we go over in class.

Below are a series if link to various resources, including the syllabus and first assignment, project one, which is due Wednesday, September 14th.

Syllabus
Project One
Maya Basics
cgtalk maya forum