Background Removal:

 

Final Result:

Apocalyptic Building:

Process:

Week 1 Assignment:

The combination of the head and the body was pretty simple as I selected two animals with very similar skin and tones, the difficult part was faking the grass and the shadow where the head of the Rhino hit the ground. Apart from this I added a shadow behind the ear of the Elephant, I don’t think this would happen but I think it was a good creative decision as the ear was very difficult to see and almost merged with the body of the Rhino, I believe this makes the ear pop out slightly better and it improves the image as a whole.

I also had to color correct and de saturate the head of the Elephant, this was to make the lighting and the skin tones merge better. The original image of the Elephant is very orange and dusty whereas the image with the Rhino has a very strong blue tint.

Week 2: Maya Models

Reference:

You can see the process I went through at the time of attempting to recreate the first image. There were multiple things that I struggled with but overall I believe this exercise helped me get more used to the shortcuts and I now feel more capable of tackling larger and more detailed projects.

Week 3 Assignment:

This assignment was based on getting more used to the extrude and smooth options that Maya has. In all modelling software these are some of the most important tools to master, especially the extrude option.

I somewhat struggled modelling this because I didn’t really have an idea of what to model, I had no reference and I was new to the HDRI, lighting, and texturing panels. I do believe that I got more used to the texturing and lighting but, especially the texturing, is very different to Blender since blender has a node based system for texturing and I feel like I am more creatively free with that, hopefully if I practice more I will be able to generate better textures and make them more realistic.

I am way more happy with this model as it has a more interesting silhouette. I made use of the mirror option so that I was able to create more dynamic and interesting shapes meanwhile still making a model that makes sense and is symmetrical. I made a bit more use of the emission materials as I wanted them to add some texture and difference in the materials that were used.

Week 5: Lighting and Rendering

This week we added lighting and some materials to the models we did last week with the curves. We explored how Glass Shaders are made and how certain parameters can affect the look of the material. Things like Roughness and IOR can really affect a material’s reflections.

We used what we had learned about materials and HDRIs to learn how to set up scenes for rendering. Using a very basic method we managed to create some renders of a kitchen.

Week 6: Introduction to Lighting Continuation

Shape lights are able to turn any object into a light, similar to simply adding a material with emission but it creates a slightly different effect and you have more control over the lighting settings.

This is basic 3-point lighting, a technique commonly used in product rendering and the same I will use for the rendering of the James Bond Project as it allows me to have 3 lights that focus certain parts of an object.

This was probably my favourite technique for lighting and it’s very basic yet it creates a very dramatic scene which I am very drawn towards. To achieve this we simply need to lower the spread of the light until it’s shape closely resembles that of the actual light object.

Fake News Assignment

Final Image

 

James Bond Assignment

At the time of modelling this version of the typewriter, I struggled quite a bit as I didn’t know where the boolean settings were which is what I should’ve used for the section at the back. In the later model, I used it very frequently after I found it.

Additionally, I didn’t have a good reference, my reference was an image on a wall where you can see less than half of the typewriter this made it very difficult to model it properly so that was something I was going to change in the second model.

I used this model to get more used to the shapes and struggles of modelling a typewriter and once I figured those out I decided to move to another model. I was planning on modelling multiple versions to get more and more used to it but I ended up sticking with the second version as that model had none of the previous problems and I was confident I could make it look like the original reference.

The key to modelling this typewriter was to keep most of the parts separate and make sure that the topology was correct so that I could make use of the mirror tool. The actual model was pretty basic as it is very box-like and I simply needed to extrude add loop cuts and specific details.

The top of the typewriter is also a separate part and I found that section to be more difficult as there is a hole at the top, which I made with a boolean, and that had very bad topology so I was forced to fix everything and ensure that it had no n-gons as this would make it hard for the shading stages and would also mess the model up when I tried to smooth it. Eventually, I did manage to fix it which gave me a lot more control over that section.

At the time of modelling the keys were simply an extruded cube with a detailed cylinder that I extruded and scaled multiple times. I then scaled certain sections or moved vertices to make them match other keys that were slightly different such as the large ones on the sides or the space bar.

I knew that the hardest part of the model would be the mechanical section at the top. This had many organic shapes that changed directions and split multiple times. Even if I had encountered no problems due to the sheer amount of small pieces that were on that section it would have still taken many hours to model and that with the combination of new software meant that this would not only be the most challenging section but it would also be the section that would teach me the most about the software.

I used my reference images and a thin cube that I had scaled down and I would select one of the faces on the side and simply extrude and scale to make the shapes fit the reference. Adding extra cuts in sections where the pieces split up to ensure that they kept good topology.

The sections from the back also had quite a lot of detail, there were some mechanical parts and metal bars that I modelled and I added the doors which would later lead towards the arm that has all of the weapons.

In the end, I am very happy with this model, I would’ve liked to be better at texturing in Maya as the textures I made were very basic and took away from the model. Even though it doesn’t look as photoreal as I would’ve liked I am still happy with the result and the final image where I integrated the typewriter into an office actually managed to fit into the scene after some colour-grading.

Final Renders

Week 8 – UV Editing

Time Leap Assignment

USS Enterprise (CV-6) – WWII Aircraft Carrier – 3D model by Vyacheslav Shishkin (@slavsh) [444821d] (sketchfab.com)

I started by tracing the outline of the main body by using different shapes and then  combining them. I tried to make sure the topology was done right from the start as it is harder to attempt to fix it in the future. I also decided on simply modelling half of the plane from the start as I would be able to simply mirror it in the future.

The model of the engine was very important to do right and add the proper amount of detail as the F4U- Corsair shows the inside of the engine and it is what makes it such a distinct plane design.

I continued using the mirror technique for the wings as this shape was also very symmetrical. This allowed me to add more detail and also do it faster.

I did the texturing in substance where I used a combination of fill layers and brushes to create most of the details. I also made use of the ambient occlusion as this would help me get details in places where dirt would normally pile up, smart masks were also extremely helpful at the time of creating selections in the masking extremely fast and ensure that the selections are always the same.

At this point I started building the environment where I decided to place the plane in a hangar with a somewhat cinematic scene as if the plane was getting ready to take off early in the morning. The scene is inspired by the Pearl Harbour attack where the CV-6 Aircraft carrier used the F4U Corsair as the main aircraft fleet that would reside on the ship. I decided to add a second floor to the hangar to show how large the aircraft is as normally I would add a person but the brief specified that no people should be present therefore I felt like doing this was a good solution and helped show the actual scale of the aircraft.

At this point I am going to start to get ready to experiment with lighting so I began to move the camera around the scene to find a good place which would show the aircraft in a cinematic way. I like the first since it has a symmetrical composition and feels as if the plane is going to go over the camera but my favourite and the main render for this project was the second camera setup where I placed the camera in a corner of the hangar, I like this scene because the plane is half in the dark and half under the sunlight. This creates an effect where half of the image is very blue and cold and the other half is very warm and bright which is a contrast that I really liked.

After adding all of the assets to the scene I exported the hangar into substance and textured it by using the Colour ID as I had given each object a different material in Maya this allowed the Colour ID to be very helpful and it was a better solution for the hangar as it was more box shaped the smart masks would have taken unnecessarily long. I textured the crates and the floor in Maya as those textures where easier as I simply got some image textures from Texture Haven. I did add some procedural puddles to the floor as I found they broke up the scene nicely. I did this by using a noise texture which I combined with the roughness from the original texture. I also used a colour ramp to make sure I could have more control over the actual noise and I even attempted to add multiple noises to add different levels of detail to the texture.

I followed this tutorial which showed me how to add proper volumetrics in the scene, this helped add a higher level of realism to the scene and lighting in general and in the post process I will be able to adjust the anastrophe of the fog which should add to the cinematic effect.

Here I am testing even more angles to see which ones look best, I also tried a top down angle but there weren’t any interesting or eye catching things in the composition so I decided to cut it out. In this camera angle it just felt random, no composition rules were followed and it felt very front heavy which I didn’t enjoy.

In the compositing stages I worked a lot on creating masks to help draw the attention to the plane. In the first I added a mask to the right with higher exposure and orange tint and another on the left with higher blacks, less exposure, and a blue tint to emphasize the cold and warm contrast. In both renders I masked the plane and the lights and increased the exposure. Then I added bloom to the whole scene and some lens distortion and chromatic aberration to add further realism.