Maya Tutorials - Pipeline 2: Maps Part 5 - 11

I spent today working on getting the texturing tutorials done for the game asset. Overall they were very helpful with little tips on how to tackle seams and to create fairly realistic textures.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 8: Displacement Maps

I found this tutorial really interesting, it is amazing how much you can distort geometry with a displacement map.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 11: Mental Ray Proxies

Very powerful tool that will make dense scenes easier to move around in Maya, I am sure that will be very useful when world building!

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

I found this tutorial interesting, it took a bit of time to set it all up but it gave some nice results.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 10: Motion Blur

Motion Blur makes everything look better, I found it very useful how the shutter angle changed the motion blur and will definitely be keeping that in mind.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 9: Ambient Occlusion

It was interesting to see different ways to add ambient occlusion, I can see how each would have their advantages and give slightly different results.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 6: Mia Material X Shader

The presets offer a lot of cool effects, I can see how this material will be useful for all kinds of objects.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 5: Portal Lights

This was quite a nice and easy tutorial to set up and it had good results, the render times however weren't enjoyable.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 4: Physical Sun & Sky

This was a nice little tutorial, I thought it was cool that the light direction dictated what time of day it was.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 2 - Final Gather

This tutorial was really cool, it was nice to see the light bouncing and making the scene feel alive. The tron touch was also great.

Maya Tutorials - Mental Ray Part 1

This was nice to get a better understanding of how to adjust the render settings and what actually needs adjusting. I did have some issues with the ray tracing shadows, they wouldnt update with the high samples they remained grainy (below I attached the render).

 Ray tracing shadows

Mental ray shadows

Maya Tutorials - Shader FX Parts 4 - 6

Some very cool stuff in these tutorials, I found the transparency one very useful and the animated UV's also seems super helpful.

Part 4 - Transparency:

Part 5 - Reflection:

Part 6 - UV's & Animation:

Maya Tutorials - Shader FX Parts 1 - 3

These tutorials were really cool and had a lot of useful information in them that I will definitely make use of later on!

Part 1: Intro to Shader FX

Part 2: Displacement

Part 3: Lighting

Maya Tutorials - Dynamics Part `17 - Sprites

I think I will definitely be using sprites for parts of my adaptation B animations, I'm interested to know if it is possible to have different sprite images on the same particle system. I want to use these to have stars and hearts explode from the pop characters attacks, just to make it even more sickly.

Maya Tutorials - Dynamics Part 16 - Conditional Goal Weights

I still had some particle glitches after caching so I had to cut the beginning of the simulation short, apart from that the tutorial went smoothly, the scripting made sense and was easy to follow.

Maya Tutorials - Dynamics Part 15 - Goal Weights

This was lots of fun to do and I think the goal weights will be really useful when dealing with particles in the future.

Belleville Rendez-vous Film Review

Fig. 1. Belleville Rendez-vous poster

Belleville Rendez-vous (2003) directed by Sylvain Chomet is a French animated comedy that tells the story of a cycling obsessed man that is kidnapped by the French mafia during the Tour de France, his Grandmother and overweight dog track him down in an attempt to save him. The film has incredibly over exaggerated characters that really make it memorable and interestingly it has hardly any dialogue which allows the brilliant sound design and animation to tell the enticing story.

The exaggerated character design is truly a winning feature of the film, from the Champion that has ridiculously massive leg muscles, which are in fact larger than his head to the fluid-like waiter that has an elasticated body which bends to bow in the presence of the mafia. Each character was filled with lots of personality and finesse that really made them come to life on screen, the design although very caricatured was gripping, it was the focal point that helped the story unfold. Even the cannon fodder characters, the mafia men in suits had interesting shapes in them that made them more interesting to look at, this is definitely a very strong feature of this animation which made it interesting to watch.

Fig. 2. Champion still.

The film was very French but not in an over the top kind of way, it was quite subtle in its execution, it could have been more in your face with extreme stereotypes being used however it managed to create a French feeling without being too over the top. The Champion has an overly exaggerated French nose but because the rest of his character is also exaggerated it balances his design out which doesn’t make it too extreme. The frogs are something that was a very obviously French aspect but apart from that I felt that Chomet did a great job at creating a subtle yet recognisably French film.

The film had little to no dialogue which was a very interesting choice, one which I believe worked really well, it left the animation to do a lot of the work which overall meant that it was done very well. It also had beautiful sound design which made the whole film enjoyable to follow, from the catchy song that the triplets did to the great score composed of household items. A lot of the transitions for the shots were also interesting, they used Bruno’s (the overweight dogs) dreams as transitions as well as having certain circular things transition into the moon. Due to the character design choices the animation also had to be exaggerated at times to make the film feel complete.

Overall I thought that it was a lovely animation, it was very enjoyable to watch and had lovely sound design. The character were the winning feature of the film for me personally and I loved the variety in all of their designs, the exaggeration made them all interesting to look at and made the film more gripping and fun.

Illustration List:

Figure 1. Belleville Rendez-vous poster. (2003) From: Belleville Rendez-vous, Directed by: Sylvain Chomet [Film still] At: http://i.imgur.com/TGXlwTX.jpg

Figure 2. Champion still. (2003) From: Belleville Rendez-vous, Directed by: Sylvain Chomet [Film still] At: http://pics.filmaffinity.com/The_Triplets_of_Belleville-508681482-large.jpg

Maya Tutorials - Dynamics Part 14 - Animated Instances

This was a cool tutorial, I can see its use in crowd simulation and it looks like it will be a powerful tool. The coding side was interesting and it would be useful to gain a bit more knowledge in it.

Maya Tutorials - Dynamics Part 13 - Instance Rotations

It's a shame that Maya is bugged and I couldn't apply the x axis rotation as well, but here is it without it.

Persepolis Film Review

Fig. 1. Persepolis poster.

Persepolis (2007) is an animated biography directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, it is an adaptation of Satrapis four-part graphic novel which is based on her life. The animation explores Satrapi’s experience growing up in Iran during the revolution and the war, it is largely in black and white making it simple yet very elegant, with scenes that are funny and a joy to watch, to scenes which are moving and filled with emotion.

The animation starts with the story of Marjane, a curious little girl who asks a lot of questions. The story shows her journey growing up in a difficult time, members of her family are imprisoned and later her Uncle is executed. It shows the change in Iran, the religious fundamentalists rise in power and the effect it had on people’s lives in Iran. Marjanes parents send her to Vienna out of fear, while there she makes friends with a group of nihilist teens that cause her quite a bit of confusion. The story focuses on her memories in a poetic fashion, while still introducing political history, for example Marjane recalls her grandmother stuffing her clothes with jasmine so she would smell better.

The story also deals with Marjanes love life, the ups and the downs in almost a comedic fashion. A scene in which Marjane remembers a partner who cheated on her, involves the audience seeing a completely different side of the ex. When you first meet him he appears to be the perfect guy but on recollection of her memory he looks like a terrible partner, even his appearance is altered. This might possibly be stating that love is blind, so when you gaze upon the person you love you see no flaws, it is only after you are outside of the love you can see them for who they really are.

The West at times in the animation is perceived as cruel, people judge Marjane because of her homeland, in one scene she makes a statement that people think that she is a savage because she is from Iran, while the memory of her grandmother is telling her to remember who she is. The animation deals with how people are judged based on their place of birth, it shows how the cultures are vastly different and how confusing it can be for someone who is an outsider, someone who will never feel like they belong.

The animation has a lot of comedy throughout it as well which offers a break from the serious nature of the situation, in one scene Marjane who is now a teenager walks down a dodgy street looking to buy a cassette from some shady-looking men who conceal items in their jackets, it then cuts to her playing air guitar to Iron Maiden. The beginning of the film is also filled with humour as it feels that we are really experiencing it from a child’s perspective, which is a good quality as usually films that are based in politics usually have an adults view whereas this takes more of a childlike approach.

Overall I enjoyed this animation, it had a great style that was simple yet elegant and it told a story which was interesting and engaging. In a way the animation shows that the enduring influence and love from the family is a powerful thing that allows people to remain tenacious. On the same note it also shows that the tides to family and homeland can affect how we as people are perceived, The West at times in the animation comes across as cruel but at the same time it is the place in which Marjane finds her voice and grows as an individual.   

Illustration List:

Figure 1. Persepolis poster. (2007) From: Persepolis, Directed by: Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi [Film still] At: http://www.sparehed.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/persepolis-poster-1.jpg