The American Yoga Academy: Colour Tests

After my very stressful flight back to England and a day of recovering from jet lag, I returned to working on the CG logo for AYA. I decided to do some colour background tests so the client could be sure what backdrop they would want. I was told that the preferred colour would be some shade of blue or baby blue, but I experimented with other colours too just in case. So far I like the blues in comparison to the other colours I experimented with. My favourites are #1 and #3 from the solid background and #13, #15, and #16 from the ramp backgrounds. I think I prefer the last sheet the most because the ramp makes the background look more interesting than just a solid colour. Once I hear back from the client, I'll either continue experimenting with colour/light or progress into testing out different animations.

The American Yoga Academy: 3D Logo Update/Rotation Test

So I've bought a mouse so I was able to add the environment chrome node and layer together the textures for the logo. I had to play around with some of the settings to get the metal the colour that I wanted but that might change depending on the lighting. I also decided to get rid of the white line around the text instead of boosting it. Now I'm going to start playing around with some animation and options for the background. I was asked to make a simple background, possibly just having it being a baby blue colour but I was given permission to experiment. I've also done a little rotation test to see how it looks and to send to the client.

Adding Environment Chrome/Adjusting Colour.

Getting Rid of the White Line Before/After

Final Result

The American Yoga Academy: 3D Logo

Along with some tech support and video editing, I have offered to make/animate a 3D logo for The American Yoga Academy. Once I finish making the logo, I plan on playblasting a few animation samples for AYA to select. I'll then render out a short animation that can be used as an intro for other videos they post in the future. I was told to simply put the logo on a hockey puck-like shape, but since it was established that this is not an urgent task I decided to experiment with layering textures and shaders. Unfortunately, I had to leave my computer mouse back in the UK so my mother could use it to send over the footage for my animated Denoria set after it finished rendering. Considering I only have use of the trackpad on my Mac, there is only so much I can do in Maya. However, here is what I have managed to do so far.

After I mapped out the UV's I went to go put the texture on my model. I wanted to try layering the logo on a metallic background, but when I went into photoshop to remove part of the logo I realised the image wasn't as high quality as I wanted. I decided to look at images of yin-yang symbols and stars to piece together a new, higher quality logo from scratch. I then had to experiment with different fonts to find a match to the original image, which I somehow managed to do relatively quickly.

After this, I played around with making a metallic texture and playing around with the transparency. I managed to get a decent amount done, but once it came to adding more nodes and connecting things up I struggled without a middle mouse button. However, I think once I have access to a mouse I'll be able to add an image to the reflectivity so it's not so dark. Hopefully I'll be able to connect up everything else so I have a layered texture instead of a metal coin and a floating, transparent logo.