Results tagged “mental ray” from Rendered Speechless

I thought it was an attainable goal. But considering how much I had to read and learn before I could get anywhere, I still made a lot of progress and I'm glad I took Monday off. I learned about area lights, something I didn't have in Maya 3, and I learned about Maya's shadow pass, which doesn't work very well with mental ray (despite many wasted hours trying to get it to work). I also learned about ambient occlusion passes, which I LOVE. And I did a lot of lighting and a lot more tweaking. And there is even more tweaking to come when I get the shading done but at least the basic lights are in.

My goal for today was to have a finished shot posted on my site, and revise the site design and get my promo materials laid out. I did redesign the home page but since I don't have a finished shot yet, the new home page isn't up. I can actually see the shading and light tweaking taking me the rest of the week just on this shot. That's annoying, but if that's really the case then I'll be doing the night shot in addition to this and leaving it at those two. The night shot has a lot of lighting challenges and if I can pull it off, it will really show off my skills. There's really not much to the shot with the toilet, and the one that has him on the sink is another early morning scene, which I have covered here. I'll save the toilet shot for last in case I have the time but I'm not betting on it at this point.

There's one thing that's annoying me about this shot. He's standing in front of a window. I feel like that should be more apparent, and at the same time, it's very early morning just as the sun is coming up so there's not a lot of light coming in yet anyway. I don't know. I probably need to stop looking at it for a while. Makes me glad I have a job to go to tomorrow.

Despite my three day weekend (which I will make up for over the next few days at work), I still stayed up until 7:30 this morning, then took a 6-hour nap, so it feels like it's too early to go to bed right now (at almost 2:30). But I guess I should. I should be proud of this. I think I am, I've just stared at it so long that all I can see when I close my eyes is a white chalky potato under colored lights.

I still have to model the towel, shower cap, newspaper and step stool. The shower cap is the only one I'm worried about, but then I was worried about the mustache and I ended up doing that in 3.5 hours. It took the weekend though to do the teeth and the shoes, and that's because I decided to learn about displacement mapping at the same time, although I didn't use it very much in the end. So here's an account of the last few days of modeling the details.

The mustache and teeth are each single modeled surfaces. I used displacement mapping to do the lace holes on the shoes and the pattern on the hat. The shoes, like the hat, are modeled from multiple surfaces. I had to do an actual render instead of a screen capture this time because the displacement maps won't show up in a screen capture, but there are no lights or shaders as of yet. Therefore, there are also no colors or cast shadows. The lighting is weird but you get the point. He's a happy potato.

I'm glad I took the time to learn how displacement mapping works, especially with mental ray. It's does a terrific job, better than Maya alone. I also tried Maya's Sculpt Geometry tool along the way but hated the lack of control and the crazy amount of tesselation needed to make it look smooth. I even looked into ZBrush, which I LOVE, but can't afford right now. And they don't have a free trial for the Mac so that's on hold for now. But although I ended up modeling almost everything, I learned a ton and I found another toy for later on. So what if I'm a day behind. (Yikes.)

Models will go into the slide show tomorrow. I need sleep. Funny how that keeps coming up.

Tonight was the first time since I went to the Viz lab that I came out of a movie wondering what was the easiest way to sell 2/3 of my stuff and get my cat to California. And it wasn't just the beauty of the movie, which was astonishing; it was the story. I was so in awe of the originality of the art and the concept itself that I sat there dumbfounded well into the credits, almost forgetting to look for the names of my friends. I was ready to go work for Pixar--earthquakes, long hours and ridiculous cost of living be damned. I haven't felt that way in a long time.

But alas, here I am in Texas, about 12 days behind schedule. I got stuck on a faucet this week and I decided not to post any more pictures until the bathroom model is complete. I have a lot of time to make up and only six weeks to do it. And I get so carried away on the work itself that I stay up too late to read my mental ray book. I have a lot to catch up there too. I'll have to start rendering pretty soon, it would help if I knew how to do it!

I always approach each weekend with extreme optimism: "I'll finish the model this weekend," "I'll finish the model and start the next one," "I'll finish the model, do the character and start the texturing," etc. I never get nearly as far as I think I can, I always get hung up on something, my perfectionism pulling me two steps back for every one forward. If there's one thing that hit home during the movie tonight though, it was the idea of quality over quantity. Yes, I would like to show as many different lighting scenarios as I can. Yes, I would like an outdoor as well as an indoor environment to work with, plus a character. But there are six weeks left and it has to be good. Not big, just good. Really good. The bathroom will be the most complex environment to light so I'm glad I started there. I'm starting to think I might have to stop there as well. I will still do a character but the car wash just might be too much.

No big decisions as of yet, but at least my priorities are set. Bathroom: definitely. Character: definitely (not sure if I'll stick with the snowman but so far it's the simplest idea I've had). Car wash: maybe. If time permits.

If I don't do the car wash, everything else better be damn good.

More progress. This morning at 6:20 I took some shots of the bathroom with a cloudy sky outside. (And then went back to bed.) Tonight I did the night shots, some with the lights on, some with candles and some with just a nightlight. I downloaded a ton of stock photography for sky backgrounds and lighting references. I did a little more modeling on the claw foot for the tub. All the reference shots I took have been added to the bathroom page, and more will appear as I get them. None have been color corrected, especially since I'm going to do my own interpretation anyway. I have three out of six scenarios shot already--five environment scenarios plus one for the snowman scene. I need a clear morning shot but I might not get it tomorrow because it's meeting day and I have to get out of the house over an hour earlier than usual. But it's not hard to find a clear morning in June. It is hard to find a cloudy day, and I'm going to need that one pretty soon too. Today would have been great if I hadn't been at work. I guess I say that a lot.

Come to think of it, I'm taking my mental ray book with me tomorrow. Things are winding down and you just never know.

That would be really funny if I had a model of a toilet to show. And to be honest, it was a productive day even without doing a new model. I ran a couple of errands today, had an important meeting (which I may be able to discuss at a later time), found out a new hubcap will cost $84 at the dealership, and spent three hours paying bills and catching up on my financial record keeping. I can't really look back on this day and say I didn't accomplish anything. It all had to be done, and it got done.

I also did a little research on this year's SIGGRAPH. I'm tempted to go. Actually, I'm a lot more than tempted, although a little too broke to pull it off. But it's early enough that it still may be possible. Registration for a full conference pass is crazy expensive ($850), then there's hotel and air fare. And food. At least there's time to plan... it's not until the middle of August and it's only April. I haven't paid off the credit cards yet but by the time I need to make a decision in July they should either be paid off or negligible. I should probably just decide to go and then go. Inspiration like that is worth any price. Maybe even air fare.

Well, it's after 10:30. At least I can still study some mental ray before bed.

Ok, that's a pun. I'm not in the same frame of mind I was in my last entry, mainly because I've had sleep and I have tomorrow off. I'm sure I'll be right back to thrilled tomorrow night. However, I have yet to recover from the frustration of losing so much of last week on this project. Sometimes all it takes to feel better is to start working again, which I've done, but it's not enough this time. I was all set to get back to work Thursday night but we had lightning (and worse) all evening and I didn't feel like I should be working on the computer. So last week was shot, and this weekend is going fast. I wanted to have the whole bathroom modeled by the time I quit tonight but I don't. I should be happy with progress though, and I have made progress. I finished the sink model; it's posted in the slide show. I did start a second time on the sink bowl and I'm glad I did because the model makes a lot more sense now. I'm much happier with it than I was with my first attempt. I guess I am getting better--the bathtub took four tries and the sink only took two. Maybe I can get the toilet right the first time. Then there are faucets and a light fixture. After that, piece of cake. Right?

I ordered a book on mental ray and it came on Thursday, so I'm reading that when I get in bed at night. By the time I'm ready to do some real rendering I should have a decent grasp of it.