CG Toolkit Submission: Film Reviews, Maya Tutorials, Acting & Sculpting (2016/2017 -Term 2/3)

Film Reviews:

World Animation

Australia: Mary and Max

Japan: Spirited Away

India: Sita Sings The Blues

Israel: Waltz With Bashir

France & Iran: Persepolis

United Kingdom: Ethel & Ernest

Ireland: The Secret of Kells

America: Kubo and the Two Strings

Maya Tutorials:

Lighting & Rendering

Mental Ray Part 1: Samples & Quality Control

Mental Ray Part 2: Final Gather

Mental Ray Part 3: Linear Work Flow

Mental Ray Part 4: Physical Sun & Sky

Mental Ray Part 5: Portal Lights

Mental Ray Part 6: Mia Material X Shader

Mental Ray Part 7: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Lighting

Mental Ray Part 8: Displacement Maps

Mental Ray Part 9: Ambient Occlusion

Mental Ray Part 10: Motion Blur

Mental Ray Part 11: Mental Ray Proxies

Pipeline 1: UV Layout & Maps

Part 1: Head & Head Details

Part 2: Body & Exporting Maps

Pipeline 1: Spine & Skinning

Part 1: Building a Ribbon Spine

Part 2: Building a Skeleton

Part 3: Binding & Weight Grouping the Mesh

Part 4: Blending the Upper Body

Part 5: Blending the Lower Body

Part 6: Adding Pose Space Deformers (Corrective Blend Shapes) Upper Body

Part 7: Adding Pose Space Deformers (Corrective Blend Shapes) Lower Body

Pipeline 1: Body Rigging

Part 1: Feet & Legs

Part 2: IK / FK Spine

Part 3: Arms & Fingers

Part 4: Colours & Restrictions

Pipeline 1: Facial Rigging (Pt. 1)

Part 1: Creating a Head Skeleton & Binding

Part 2: Creating Head Controls & An Eye Look Rig

Part 3: Creating a Flexible Mouth Rig 1

Part 4: Creating a Flexible Mouth Rig 2

Part 5: Creating a Flexible Mouth Rig 3

Pipeline 1: Facial Rigging (Pt. 2)

Part 6: Adding Teeth & A Tongue

Part 7: Lateral Mouth Movement Part 1

Part 8: Lateral Mouth Movement Part 2

Part 9: Adding Cheek Thinning

Pipeline 1: Facial Rigging (Pt. 3)

Part 10: Adding Extra Face Movement

Part 11: Adding a Blink

Part 12: Brow Movement

Part 13: Cleaning Up the Scene

Pipeline 1: Texturing

Part 1: High & Low Res Modelling for Normal Maps

Part 2: Baking Normal Maps

Part 3: Rivets

Part 4: Body Base Colours

Part 5: Head Base Colours / Sub Surface Scattering

Part 6: Head Texturing

Part 7: Body Texturing

Part 8: Finishing up the Scene

Pipeline 1: Turnarounds

Part 1: Creating a Turnaround

Dope Sheets:

Using Dope Sheets I

Using Dope Sheets II

Using Dope Sheets III

Acting

March 15th, 2017

March 22nd, 2017

March 29th, 2017

Sculpting

Traditional Sculpting Lessons

Acting Classes: April 5th, 2017

Today in acting we did a few exercises relating to spontaneous/random acting. We did a few different activities where we couldn't say 'no' to what the other person said was going on in the scene, but instead we just had to go with it and continue the story even if it wasn't what we expected. This resulted in some very strange but funny outcomes. I admit I found this lesson difficult because I tend to struggle with things that are unexpected or spontaneous overall, but I hope this has helped me in some way to learn to just adapt and go with it. The activity I liked the most today was a game we played where we stood in a circle and took turns saying a single word to create/continue a story.

Acting Classes: March 29th, 2017

Today in our acting lessons, we focused on how the class/status of a character affects how they talk, move, and behave. We played some games to ease our way into this, such as picking random cards then having to act out that character's status and seeing if anyone could guess what your card was (Ace was lowest, 10 was highest). We also acted what would happen if the status swapped but the character stayed the same, such as a servant acting as if he were high class and the king as low class. We also were assigned scenarios and one person would be dominant/higher status while the other was more passive/lower status, then we swapped to see how the situation would change. It's clear that it body language and mannerisms are important when trying to portray a character (if they are shy vs confident, high class vs low class).

Acting Classes: March 22nd, 2017

Today in our acting classes we did some new activities such as acting out our morning routine. We were encouraged to select part of our routines that would be unique to us such as interactions with pets or siblings. We also played a few games, some that we played last week and a few new ones. Although it feels a bit awkward at the start it eventually is more relaxed and funny. This lesson made me think of how to convey different things to an audience, showing that it is important that positioning and the movements of the actor/character is understandable for an audience.

Acting Classes: March 15th, 2017

Today we had our first acting lesson, which aims to help us understand characters better when we are animating them. I was quite anxious about this lesson, as I'm sure at least a couple other people were. However, I tried to go into it with an open mind...overall while it was awkward at first it wasn't all that bad in the end. I think out of all the things we did the exercise I enjoyed the most was where one person was 'putty/clay' and the others were 'sculptors' and we had to move the other person into a position of the character we were given (lion tamer, thief, harpist). It shows how little details such as the position of the hand or fingers can change how someone interprets a pose.