Lighting test in XSI for group project

First time lighting stuff in 3D today, frustrating at first, but at the end this came out okay. Film is in black and white, film Noir style.

Links on lighting and pass rendering:

• http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/dir_lights_ApplyingaVolumicLightProperty.htm
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8QcdLmVKpI
• http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/softimage2013/en_us/userguide/index.html?url=files/passes_WhatIsaRenderPass.htm,topicNumber=d30e380622

I've been in this lab for ... 13 hours straight and counting, doing nothing but the group project. How. The. Hell. Am. I. Supposed. To. Do. ANYTHING(other assignments). Else. Like. This. And Saf said to go home at 7pm and take weekends off? What is he thinking?!

MIT Critical Essay

I'm doomed. The group project has snowballed into a giant work load. I just checked Paula's reading materials, and the list is long enough to weave a ladder to the moon. I promised Geoff to draw color stills for his short film and haven't started. There is a python and separate compositing assignment due in March. I need a new bottle, but I need Redbull more so I can stay awake and start reading. 16 days until first draft of MIT Critical Essay is due for review.

Deep breath, keep mouth shut, and keep marching.

color script

I'm quite out of practice and each fully shade frame of the animatic (to design the lighting of the scene) is taking me 1 hour to do. It's taking too much time, and it's not cool. In anything now a days speed is everything, except maybe in Science Illustration field. After 3 images I had a chance to talk to Juan, and he confirmed the idea that it's more effective and efficient to start lighting with basic geometry in Softimage, and take screenshots as the "color script". Later on I might be able to replace the cubes with final building models, and the lights and cameras could stay or keep being tweaked. But these are things I eventually have to do later anyway. Will try this and see how that flies.

Director and co-director wants drawn color script before starting to set up lighting test in 3D. It's an animation thing, but I've no idea, will just have to do and see. Just put out the first batch of color script. Need to do a swatch thing by tomorrow. Also need to start MIT essay at the same time. Already lost 1 week, only 3 left. Need to take care of shadow puppetry first draft as well. this same what's-left-of-the-week.

Group Project aka Team Squid 01

I can't really post much on the group project except bits of the parts I'm responsible for, which are:

• Environment concept art
• Environment modelling and texturing
• Color script - in this case more like light study since it's in B/W
• Lighting
• Compositing
• ...and probably not anymore, but possible matt painting if need.

It's both great and potentially disastrous in that I've never done any of these before in my life. Deliciously great learning opportunities here - practically a feast! On the other hand it's going to be a lot of self-learning and a K2 of workload to overcome. Mostly likely will need to purchase a lighting book once library loan expires. Already purchased compositing book, slow delivery. What I can post is a non-revealing color script page:

...

My old comrade for years, WACOM board, isn't doing so well... I learned everything I know digitally on it...

ICE

This shit is complicated. I got lost. I started messing with the dummy. This reflects my state of mind by end of class.

More scripting

If it's understood, it can do magic for animators, especially game animators. So far it's been foggy for me.

BIG List of Resources

Taking the list of resources off the myBU page for MA3D for later use when I no longer have student access. Also added to this list are some links given during lectures and from classmates.

I will be coming back occassionally to check for broken links and to add new links I've found. Last checked and updated on 7th, March 2014.

Some Useful Resources (click on Read More)

Anatomy lesson

We had human anatomy lesson today, with pretty cool 3D models. Me and my foxhole buddy played with posing them while half paying attention to the lecture...

MA3D MADE MSc Group Project

I was hoping to be in a group that has people from more than 1 disciplines, but I guess I didn't social enough so I didn't really know who to work with except just the people from my own disciplines. In the end I joined group with my own classmates, and then someone from MSc called to ask if I want to work on his game project, but I was already signed up with this group... . So far it looks like I'll be doing all sorts of stuff I've never done before (which is easy because I've never done any of this before): support concept art, environment modeling, lighting, camera movement, and compositing.