Maya Tutorials: Street Project Facade week 4

Here's my progress so far on week 4 of this tutorial, the street is already laid out and I-m just concentrating on the small objects.

Street Modeling

Street -UV Grid

Lamp Model

Lamp- UV Layout

Lamp- UV Grid

Railings Model


Railings- UV Grid


Railings- UV Layout


Fire Hydrant Model


Fire Hydrant UV Grid


Fire Hydrant UV Layout

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Maya Tutorials: Street Project Facade week 3

After finishing the unit 2 project, and having some extra time on Maya, I got on with it again from where I left it- Middle of week 3

Here's what I had left to do from that week.

Final Model- Wire-frame and Smooth

Final Model- UV Grid

Windows and Door- UV Layout

Windows and Door- UV Grid

Ground- UV Layout

Ground- UV Grid

House Front- UV Layout


House Front- UV Grid

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2012 (Film)

Today, after the crit and being some 3 painful hours working, I had the chance to go to the cinema to watch "2012".

As I started to watch I heard that voice in my head "not again a all you can destroy- film", but as the film went on, I, not only saw destruction, but also a sad story of a relationship between father and son right in the middle of that natural warfare.
The storyline is not much to tell about it, the world going to end in 2012 lets built some arks and do just like Noah. but in the middle of the basic storyline, you find how politics and money would influence the people staying in those arks.



To go over a more technical point of view, the CG used in there is unbelievably great, everything when is destroyed takes this organic form just like the is being destroyed by a gigantic earthquake Also amazing dynamic shots special while inside the plane, where you take the pilot pov. Something that really interesting was the fact when I was looking at the screen, the quality of the recording was so realistic, It made the spectator actually feel that was in the middle of the all thing, maybe because of the camera lenses used I don't know but that is something I will have to research.

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Unit 02 - Concept Art completed

Today, for my sadness was the last day of unit 2, on the crit I received a good feedback, but also a few tips where i could improve my pictures ( that surely when i have some time, I will revisit and change them), as a whole this unit taught me a lot being my 1st time using a pen tablet, with a lot of work i could produce something that could be presented and "wowed" some of my fellow colleagues but the most important that I enjoyed, while improving my skills, the only bad thing is that is over...

So let's tackle Unit 3, cant wait!!!

For Unit 3, I already borrowed a book from the library, "The Uncanny" by Mike Kelley and i would say some ambiguous work in there. :)

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Concept Art: Final Concept- '3 "witches" and the pit'

3 "Witches" and the Pit Concept Painting

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Concept Art: Final Concept- 'Stalactites cathedral'

'Stalactites Cathedral' Concept Painting

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Concept art: Final Concept- 'Hall of Dead'

'Hall of Dead' Concept Painting

P.S: I just hope it can be seen properly on the screen in the Lecture Theater 1.

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Concept Art: 3 'witches' and the pit

Here is an update on this scene, i changed the depth on the pit, it doesnt look as 'flat' as before and added a few details such as the boulder on the left and some snow-wreaths.
After I had my doubts in the beginning with the composition i think i did turn it around and now its working better.

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Essay Research- Edward ScissorHands II

I started to write my essay, and after reading some reviews on Edward Scissorhands, I realised that has so many influences from gothic style buildings (the mansion), as well as early gothic films, like the german expressionism in the The cabinet of the Dr. Caligari mixed with the story of the classic Boris Karloff Frankenstein, the rejected 'monster' from 1931, with 1950s/60s American dream type of suburbia, added with the 80s hairstyle and teenagers and also a little hint of David Lynch's Elephant Man, where the 'freaks' are actually the people surrounding the main character.

Interesting how all these aspects add to this fairytale genre produces one of the most beautiful films directed by Tim Burton.

Like Tutor Phil said it 'plays' different times of history.

P.s. I forgot to mention Bo Welch, is production designer, who was awarded with BAFTA prize in Production Design in 1991 with the film Edward Scissorhands, him alongside Tim Burton and Caroline Thompson, the screenwriter conceived the film.

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Concept Art: 3 'witches' and the pit scene (progress) III

Before 1st road

After-Road variation

I took Leos advice and desaturated a bit the background elements, also i had scale with the human forms and the grass, also again I played a bit with the light.

It is not finished yet, but is on its way, I hope!!

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Concept Art: 3 'witches' and the pit scene (progress) II

Heres the progress so far on my last scene, that happens to be the 1st in the excerpts, i tried to put some sun lighting, i just dont know if its too much, i wanted to almost blind the spectator and put this clear lighting from morning. Also the light is pointing to the pit and to the 3 "silent ones".

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Concept Art: 3 'witches' and the pit scene (progress)

I wasnt really happy with the composition of my scene, it looked like a plain in the middle of 3 peaks, so to improve it a bit i decided to change its composition slightly. Im creating a kind of a vale so it would have the 2 peaks and the road coming from the middle of them on the left.

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Concept Art: The 3 'witches' and the pit progression and experimentation

So far this is the progression on my 3rd scene, As you can see is not finished, i still have to play with light, athmosphere and details, but the base is there.

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Concept art: Stalactites Cathedral

Before

After

Here is the progress from the Stalactites Cathedral, I added some details on the walls of the cave, but also on the foreground to give more that sense of depth. I played a bit with the colours to give more that earthly look and with the light, which I add stronger light to emphasize the magnificent.

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Concept Art: Hall of Dead Whitened and coloured experimented

Before

After

After some more feedback that is always welcome, so please more :) , and after a long day at work i sat down and tried to whiten a bit the rock depicted, I didnt whitened the walls of the cave because i want to lead the spectator to the skeleton, as a metaphor the figures would be the torches leading the viewer to the main element.
I just dont know if i understood the feedback, well ... ooops :S

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Perception Essay Ticked

After a confused start where I was struggling to understand what to do in my perception essay, I finally finished it, I went just under the maximum of 2000 words, based on the theories, the laws and also on the analysis of the film, ' The Truman Show' and a respective poster of the film.


The key to finish the essay and taking Alan's advice was to write about something that i like and yes it made my life a lot easier. once again, I thank him for that, also thank him for recomending the book 'Reading the Popular' by John Fiske, i guess i wont be able to just a read one chapter though. Interesting the way that everything that goes in our head is put on the paper and it makes sense.

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Concept Art: Hall of Dead Work in progress

Lately i havent been much active on the blog as I was struggling a bit with the perception essay which is taking a lot of my time. It is not done yet but im beggining to understand better all the theories, thanks to a helpful advices from tutor Alan and Phil, thank you once again. ( Im going to get the books soon, also :)). I restarted the unfinished 'Hall of Dead' Painting. Here are the pictures and I will take you through to what I did in them.


Here is the picture as I left it after doing some experimentations with light and colour. Also I did the reamining details, the columns on the foreground plan to show depth, with a hint of rim lighting on them.

On today's tutorials with Phil Hosking, He advised me to add some texture to the background as well as the figures, because as we all know rock is not smooth. After customizing a brush I applied some textures onto it. I don't know if you are able to see it in the picture.

Afterwards I added some more details for example the ' brown thing' in the middle wich supposed to be a black people corpse, more specificly the last king of the kukuanas that has been killed a few days ago. i just put some light on it not getting into much detail because it was something that they could identify at first, just when they got closer.

Finally, I added some special effects :), the water coming from the ceiling, that comes from the basic understanding how icicles and stalagmites work.


I still have to clean up some bit of the picture but basically will have this aspect.


I know It is difficult to see in JPEG format so when I upload the final concept I will try to change its format.

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Concept art: Hall of Dead Lighting experimentation

I decided to put more contrast into the picture, to dramatize it a bit more and outline the skeleton, also i used 2 different colours for the light to give that tonality of midday, blue and yellow. For the shadows i used a dark blue so it doesnt stay monochromatic with only the black, but becomes more realistic. Even though much wasn't changed from the previous experiments, i do prefer this one because it has that effect of surprise and fear at the same time, as it is showing the main element but not obviously using the background blending effect.

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Perception Essay

I have to say I'm a bit confused with this Perception Essay, I have been looking to what is Semiotics, and though i can understand a bit is really difficult to apply to some examples, such as traditional art.
Also I don't know how to structure really the essay, I was thinking of starting to write about perception, and after go into semiology, write about the theory and after give two examples proving it.
I just found really confusing lectures, maybe because im not really into philosophy. Finally the MyUca website doesn't have the notes from the lecture, available for me.
I was thinking of look at works of Piero Della Francesca, more specifically 'Flagellation of Christ',who was one of the first to apply perspective and depth into a picture in a more figurative way, depicting a famous in religious history , and compare to works of the contemporary artist, Silke Schatz, who unintentionally draw lines in perspective in a plain simplistic white background to create a more abstract approach of art, where the lines formed at first look really abstract but after a while by the use of our perception we resemble it to buildings or other structures.

Im just a bit lost, how to apply Semiology into this examples :(


Anybody who can help?

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Concept Art: Hall of Dead Lighting Experiments

After finishing the skeleton, whose body is half organic and half stylized, as it was described in the book as having a really detailed structure . I decided to experiment some lighting, this 2 experiments are quite similar, the only difference is where on the 1st one i decided to go for a stronger light, creating light beams pointing in difference directions, on the 2nd experiment the light is more natural, where I applied the principal of shading, for example under the skull. I found that it gave a more realistic look to the picture.

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