Final Project - Soccer PSA (WIP #2)

Delving into more complex objects. Finished the billboard modeling, added windows to the residential buildings, and introduced a few simple extras to the scene.

Final Project - Soccer PSA (WIP #1)

For my final project in this class, I've decided to model a small urban environment and create an animation of a typical street soccer game among kids. The purpose of this is to bring awareness to the true spirit of soccer - that carefree passion with which kids play!

I've began the modeling of the urban environment: a concrete yard surrounded by residential buildings, an auto repair shop and a staircase. Still very incomplete, but already got many of the basic structures in place:

Intro to Lighting in Maya - Summary

Over these few days I completed a tutorial on the lighting features of Maya. It was very enlightening to understand the huge difference that lighting can make, and the vast array of tools and attributes Maya gives us control to enhance our renders! Here are a few screenshots of my tutorial experience:



Common attributes of Maya lights (diffuse and specular manipulation):

Essential attributes of Maya spot lights (cone angle, penumbra, dropoff)

Barn Doors feature:

Simulating illuminated light sources:

Intro to Rendering in Maya - Mental Ray Sampling Modes

Unified Sampling (0.25 Quality):

Unified Sampling (0.8 Quality):

Intro to Rendering in Maya - Anti-aliasing in Maya Software Renders

No anti-aliasing:

Production Quality (Highest level anti-aliasing):

Intro to Rendering in Maya - Render Engines

For some reason I couldn't render it using Mental Ray...

Render Passes in Maya - Using SSS Shaders

Render Passes in Maya - Using Older Mental Ray Materials w/ Render Passes

Render Passes in Maya - Creating Custom Frame Buffers

Render Passes in Maya - Adjusting Frame Buffer Contribution

Render Passes in Maya - Light-centric Contribution Maps

Here are a few examples of how contribution render maps can be used to identify the influence of lighting in a scene:

Render Passes in Maya - Contribution Render Maps

Contribution Render Maps allow us to render several things separately without needing more render layers.

Product Visualization in Maya - The Making of