A Coconut Falls

First ever Animation on Maya, using Mental Ray and the Batch Rendering setting:

OK enough is enough

Right I think I have learnt as much as I can, my head hurts from all the learning. Basically gave myself a crash course of Maya, and I've accomplished quite a bit in a week, ALL modelled in Maya, everything in Maya. Its taken longer only because Maya kept crashing, I mean I'm seeing at least one crash an hour, which is extremely annoying if you dont save in time. Anyway here is a still of the scene. I've noticed a lot of others have done it at night, so I took on the challenge of light which turned out really easy with Mental Ray. Anyway back to the still:

So the particle breakdown goes like this, the clouds are a 3d container which I created three of just to give it a more dimensional feel. The flag obvioulsy a nCloth, really simple very easy, I like how I got the tattered effects to flap in the wind too though really happy with that. The fire could be better but I've run out of time and it does flicker. The ocean is basically a steady ocean with slight foam, didn't want to much. Which leads me to my waves on the shore, very simple design but that is a particle system being emitted from a curve with a gravity and radial field applied. There is also an Ik chain in the Palm tree so I can get the wind to blow it too. The models are made mostly from a NURBS Circle and then lofted, the awkward one was the fishing line, had to figure out how to make rope, used a paint brush effect and coverted it to a poly. I can't even begin to describe how much I've learnt.

I started this Tuesday, and I've mostly just spent the time understanding the dynamics and learning it, that to me is soooo much more important, and its obvious too, the fire was the first thing to be created (followed a step by step tutorial) and its not great but the clouds sea and waves were to follow, and the waves maybe simple but I dont think anyone realises how hard it was, especially as I could only create it once I had the knowlegde of Maya, as there is NO TUTORIAL TO COPY. This is why I'm so happy with what I've created, I did it without copying a tutorial, I did it myself, figured it out for myself, no cheating.

Quick Update

Update 2 the basics:

I've just been playing round with materials, finding the best effect for my palm trees, thought I'd share. Anyway back to the more heavey stuff like trying to make nParticles into a shore line. Might be a bit a head of myself.

The nCloth Dynamic

Just a quick update on another Dynamic I now understand. Also understand how useful expressions are, been tweaking that too. Did look into other things but think they were getting to advance for me, so scaled it back and stuck with what I knew and created this:

I may have went overboard with the holes, but with the theme I'm going with it would be torn to shreds, I've also included the Black Spot, just to hail the great book and film Treasure Island. This is also the 1st time using materials, did a quick crash course just to get the basics down.

Sorry...

Hey sorry its been over a week since my last posting, I had to take some time out for a few days, I basically just worked myself into the ground. Anyway back on it now, and with the Maya deadline looming I've been researching and studying Proceedural Animation, I don't want to just create a scene from a tutorial I want to understand it. Its an awesome thing, with some really awesome effects. The more I learn and understand it the more I can utilise it, and add it to my own Pirate scene, when the time comes to building it. I want to grasp the process 1st before building anything. I've an idea in mind, well two, one easy the other a more advance version which I could do over summer. The fancy advance one is a space Pirate scene, but to do it justice I want to practice a little more 1st, the other is a deserted island, with the remenant of a single pirate. Oh and a flag with the black spot, which used to mean death, remember that from the old Treasure Island film as a kid. Loved that film!! Anyway I'm going to make it into a small animation like the beginning of a film, I've been looking at fluid effects for the past few days, creating a stormy sea. Well I'm not gonna give too much away yet, just incase I change my mind again. Here is a shot of my stormy waters:

Pretty good huh?