Project Overhaul

[Guest ZThirtyTwo]

I picked up an older project of mine that just had previously run into so many problems that I needed a break. The Houdini scene was just so inefficient and the FBX files I was producing were absurdly large.

So work flow is basically Maya model -> Houdini wire deforming rigs -> Back to Maya via FBX for lighting -> Out to Nuke for compositing.

So far I've cleaned it up a good bit, now I can render out as many branches as I like rather than crash trying to render a single branch. I've finished up the texture painting and managed to get the plant assembled. For now all I can upload is a still frame while the Vimeo link is processing.

Looking for critique on just about anything lighting and texturing wise, I have 3 weeks to keep tweaking things so anything is welcome.

More information on the project can be found on my website under the "Current" tab.

Also my demo reel is up there and you should check it out because I want a job.

www.JohnKentFX.Com

[Guest ZThirtyTwo]

Vimeo finished uploading last night, Here it is.

http://vimeo.com/20216697

Vimeo finished uploading last night, Here it is. A friend of mine made a good point. The current rays dull the object a bit so maybe over saturating the image where the rays hit before laying them over top would look a bit better.

[olegwer]

Inspiring. Could you tell us a method of animation of the leaves. Bones?

[Guest ZThirtyTwo]

Inspiring. Could you tell us a method of animation of the leaves. Bones?

The model for the stems of a single leaf was first modeled in Maya. That model was imported into Houdini and inside each stem wires were fitted. A deformed version of the same wire was created. The rest curves drove the wire captures(You can't paint weights, you have to key frame them. Kinda funky IMO but its just the way wire capture works). The wire captures are then used, with wire deformers, to curl the mesh. Some scripting was used to make sure the wires didn't stretch when deforming. Once The stem deformer was working I skinned the same curves to form the low poly version of the leaves. Once that leaf was working the others were created and parented to a main stem created in Houdini. The whole mesh was exported from Houdini via FBX and from there Maya shows its true magic. I know Maya always "Claims" to be procedural but until now I had never actually seen it be useful. Until now anyway, Any change I made to that FBX after importing it(Adding edge, loops smoothing or even extracting parts of the mesh into separate objects). I was amazed it didn't break the vertex cache history.

It all sounds kind of simple now but damn getting through it was... an experience haha No way I would have gotten through it without the help of some seriously talented people(Especially Joseph Burnette).

Also heres an update. Turns out the normals were funky in a few places causing the silhouetting.

Again Vimeo is working its way through the processing thing so I'll update with a new video later.

[olegwer]

this img looks better.

thanks a lot for explanation.

i gonna make something like yr plant - a branch with leaves in four periods of the year.

keep posting.

[Guest ZThirtyTwo]

Updated video with a lighting breakdown is at the end of my reel.

http://studentpages.scad.edu/~jokent20/html/reel.html

Next steps are to add glass and reflections for the window, and then animate either a small bug or maybe some water dropping from a leaf.

[Guest ZThirtyTwo]

And... Done.