BSA703 18/6

D-Day has arrived. Im gutted that I was too sick to attend the cast and crew screening but I did get a copy from the google drive to watch. Overall I think it turned out ok, I loved the 3D backgrounds and water sims. The 2D animations turned out nicely as well, Im just not sure whether Im a fan of the real photos that were included as part of the hyperrealistic sections of the story. I feel like its too much of a jolt and breaks the immersion in the story for me personally. 

Considering the issues we had at the beginning when deciding on the project, and the communication issues that followed us through the whole semester, I think we produced something that is 90-95% complete. If it wasnt for Ian, I think a lot of the 3D finishing touches would not have been completed, as we lost half of the 3D team for a good chunk of the last half of semester. 

I really liked how the water sims turned out once they were textured and rendered, almost worth all the time that I sunk into learning bifrost and long caching time each time I ran a sim lol. If I had more time, I definitely would have liked to try and get that cough splatter particle sim working but sadly there was only so much I could figure out in the weekend that I was given for it.

Im not 100% sold on the foam mesh(white blobs) but Max liked it so it stayed in.

Final textured bathroom set, Thomas did a great job with this although Im not sold on the yellow wood for the barrels and ship wheels.

This one I would have gone back and reworked if I had more time but Im ok with the sim that was used.

This sim was the bane of my existence and I am so glad it turned out this good. The water is far too chunky to be realistic but I think it fits the surreal vibe better this way anyway.

This was a really good lesson in working as a team, imitating a real world type situation for after we graduate and work in the industry. Despite being the most frustrating part of my job, I found figuring out the water sims the most fascinating part of this semester.(Not to mention its a good skill to add to my resume). Bring on next semester. 

BSA703 16/6

Due to falling sick and sleeping most of monday and tuesday, I wasnt able to work on the fish breathing animation until today, thankfully it was a short one since there is only 2 days left until the project is due. I had issues with trying to animate using the soft selection tool so switched to Blender. Turns out that was even more complicated so I ended up going back to Maya and got a working fish breathing animation. Thank god that Maya->Blender alembic files can be moved around and wont get all messed up unlike fbx.

BSA703 12/6

Due to Edwin being busy with compositing and editing, I have taken over having a go at making a nice slobbery particle explosion for when Pavo coughs. Trying to make droplets with Bifrost isnt really an option so I started looking into nParticles and found this blog with some good beginning settings for making water(Quite different from Bifrost).

https://area.autodesk.com/blogs/the-maya-blog/pouring_water_with_nparticles/

Unfortunately there is not much at all in terms of current tutorials for nParticles but I was stoked when I found this youtube tutorial for a blood splat. The thumbnail caught my eye as the shape is similar to what we wanted to achieve for the cough. The best part is, there is a free scene download that I can use to follow along the tutorial video.

BSA703 7/6

We realised that the restaurant bathroom door didnt have handles, which would have been fine if the animation didnt include him ripping open the door to dive back in lol. Max gave me an image of what he thought would look good, so I modelled that and added it to the door.

After seeing this handle, Melissa didnt like it and gave me a new image reference to go off so I remade the handle from scratch for simplicity sake.

The other side of the door is a push plate so I just took the baseplate of this model and widened the interior rectangle, leaving the top and bottom point parts the same size as they are in this model.

BSA703 5/6

Final versions of the crashing wave sim, one with a foam sim and one without. I just chucked a basic blue shader on it so you can tell the difference between the water and foam. The water is still very blobby but Im putting this down to scale/small area requirements(Just like the overflow sims). This took several attempts to get right but still not as bad as the overflowing sims I had to do. It was also a lot of fun flooding the bathroom!

BSA703 4/6

 Had emitter issue where it would sim the first frame then stop. After a quick google, turns out you need to have the animation playback setting on Play Every Frame for it to work. Thankfully this was a quick solve but definitely gave me a mini heart attack since I have been using this scene for a couple weeks now with no issues until tonight. I had changed it to test the door opening animation speed and didnt realise it affected the sim. On the plus side, the door animation looks nice(after spending and hour and a half posting each iteration on discord for Max to critique). All very subtle differences, mostly in terms of speed and then tweaking the ease-in and ease-out for the final animation.

BSA703 3/6

New sim to work on - the ocean flooding into the bathroom when Pavo heads back into the restaurant. I found this one a lot easier than the overflow, purely because it was simply timing the door to open once the secret room behind it was full. I had to chuck a sneaky extra block in to stop the water sim showing through the wall but you gotta do what you gotta do to get the result you want lol.

Due to using expansion for my overflow sims, I initially had it on for this one. As this image shows, it was not needed but it gave me a laugh when I saw this happen

Thankfully it behaved better once I turned expansion off.

BSA703 2/6

Turns out the original floor flood sim isnt great timing for the final chunk that seeps under the door, so I was tasked with creating a new one. This sim was fairly easy due to it being on flat floor, so again it was merely a matter of getting the emitter size and distance from the door correct to get the final look Max was after. I was happy with the first one, but made the second once I had the door closing animation, as it changed the look of the sim a little bit.

BSA703 26/5

While working in Maya Im one of those people that need music to drown out the background sounds. I recently discovered the band Smash Into Pieces and checked out a couple of music videos for their latest album. Turns out the whole album has a CGI video story as the music/lyric videos. Very cool take on society and I love the bladerunner-esque vibes the city gives off.

The music may not be everyones cup of tea but I think this is a nice example of what can be achieved by one 3D/VFX guy, in this case Albin Larsson(https://www.instagram.com/albinl/?hl=en) and Bravo & Bravo Films https://www.instagram.com/bravobravofilms/. After doing a little digging, it turns out he uses 3DS Max and composites in After Effects to complete his work.

BSA703 24/5

Some updated asset shots for Bean to post. I would have used renders but I still cant figure out whats causing the grain and I really dont have time to spend on fixing that at the moment.

 

BSA703 23/5

 Back into water sim yay! Ian needs a break from water sim and since he is our main 3D guy, I am more than happy to try and take over some of that sim workload. Spent a solid 4 1/2 hrs in the boomroom messing around with bifrost, getting familiar with the controls again and seeing what I can come up with. 

I affectionately call this one spikywater. The mesh is in serious need of smoothing.

I was messing around with hypershade a little bit for this one, to see just how much of the spikes are visible once the mesh is textured

This is after playing around with the hole kill threshold and smoothing sliders. Still looks bumpy but its definitely progress in the right direction.

BSA703 21/5

 Final version of the urinal with quirky twisty pipes attached. The toilet paper holder got thickened a little as well but that is now all the bathroom assets created, laid out in a set and waiting on textures. I almost feel like I've achieved something now.

 

BSA703 20/5

After fighting with this asset all week, I finally have the final toilet sorted. For some reason every time I imported the .fbx into my existing 3d assets scene, half of the objects in the group would not import. Every time I tested the .fbx in blender or a new scene, it imported fine so that was frustrating. I do wonder if it was because of the fact that the original toilet was all part of one big object in vinnies original .fbx file, and I had to separate out the bits I wanted and re-export just the toilet. It could also just be Maya being maya.. Regardless, I feel this fits the more modern shape that Melissa was asking for.

BSA703 16/5

Attempt one at turning the apartment toilet into a slightly different restaurant asset. Im not a fan of the base but Max didnt want me spending too much time on converting this asset so I mainly stuck to the tank/bowl modifications.

BSA703 12/5

 New and improved! With paper now added (i added a little torn up section on the bottom to make it look a little more realistic)

BSA703 10/5

First crack at making the pipes bendy . Still need to make the bowl itself a lot rounder as per Melissas feedback. I will muck around with bezier curves and see if i can create a nice round shape that way, otherwise I will just rebuild it from scratch.

Due to the animatic changes we now have shots inside the cubicle. For sake of time we will re-use vinnies home toilet and modify the tank to use in the restaurant. I created this toilet paper holder off a picture that Max pointed out.

Most of my assets are now just waiting for Thomas to decide on/create a smart material for us to use. From the few videos I found tonight, I think we could make something awesome from scratch. The masks/material video is probably a little too pedantic for the style that max/melissa are after, but he hsa some good tips in regards to layers and curves.

The first video I watched, a nice gentle intro into making a custom smart material that can be used on any model. I love the weathering effect he creates with the dark colours to bring out the metallic texture

This creator is quite detail oriented (the pedantic one I mentioned earlier). I liked the colour layering he used for the rust edges to create depth.

Some great tips about weathering, including taking photos of real life versions of your model to use as reference for wear and tear. These guys use an existing smart material and customise it to look more unique.

A step by step to make a stylised smart material. I think this look would be great for the animation but it doesnt contain the brush strokes/painterly feel that we originally decided on for this project.

BSA703 9/5

First attempt at sculpting the urinal for the bathroom.

I went for a pretty generic shape with a simple in and out pipes for this first attempt

BSA703 8/5

The final iteration of the wheel mirror. Added in some inconsistencies, chipped spokes and a crack to age the model.

BSA703 6/5

Misc final assets from the restaurant bathroom

Air Dryer final asset

Paper Towel Dispenser final asset

Soap Dispenser final asset

BSA703 4/5

Final geometry and uv unwraps 

Toilet Cubicle

Bathroom Washstand

Pavo's Bathtub