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.