Category: Professional Practice

Fabric Asset

To create the fabric blowing in the wind asset I used n-cloth in Maya. I initially imagined this asset to be delicate and the fabric would be affected by the wind gently.

I was in a state of deliberation over the location of the of the point constraints. Not only that, but that location changes the visual style and movement of the material. Therefore, I spend time experimenting with this to fit my imagination and find the best outcome possible.

My previous comment may have been my initial thought, yet in some of my tests, no matter what I did or what preset I set the n-cloth to, I still ended up with a stretching effect. Sometimes, the mesh would stretch only the faces at the point constraint indefinitely, and sometimes only a little.

Here I created a cylinder mesh for the fabric to both attach via ‘nconstraint- point to surface’ and collide with. I was unsure it this would look good but experimented anyway with a new technique. This technique was something I picked up in a YouTube video, when trying to find alternative effects of different constraints: Quickly Create Realistic Curtains using nCloth in Maya 2020 – YouTube

Once the fabric falls, as you can see in this image, the fabric should blow to the -X axis. However, in the render the fabric in the +X axis always blows above the object instead of below. So, duplicated the constraint object so that there was one as the constraint and one object to collide with. I also decreased the side of the cylinder object and hid it. This created the perfect effect. The place of the constraint was visually present but not as obstructive and protruding as before. It created the best render so I continued with these tests.

Lighting. For this attempt I set up the lighting in a three-point. plus one above. The back one is lightly dimmer in order to have a subtle backlight.

Settings for fabric asset

WS: 10 D: 0_0.1_-1.0 WN: 7

Col:

H: 214.61 S: 0.397 V: 0.957

Ambient:

H: 186.92 S: 0.487 V: 0.470

I found that these material setting created a really nice visual effect for the fabric. You can see it in the more developed fabric tests in the video below.

With the way this asset looks at the end: go back to the gentle wind or keep this violent one which looks good with the shapes it makes.

All depends on the type of ‘ocean’ we want to create. And how the visual movement of the fabric will mesh with /contribute to the aesthetic to the other assets and the whole animation in general. Best thing would be to try out both and be prepared with two assets to find the best one.

Line Asset

I used a colour gradient by adding a ‘ramp’ to the material colour (as you can see above).

This the colour gradient I aimed to create this effect. Half of the object disappearing into the background with an apparent faded gradient. Only if this asset would be overplayed with others would you see all of the object. At that point it should be no problem as it will simply create diversity with colour. The outcome was exactly as I had hoped for, however after I rendered the asset without a background ( so that later we can overlay multiple assets together in premiere) and imported it into premiere to export the test I found another problem. I used the colour picker to apply the exact same colour, however, no matter what I did, it looked different. I suspect this may be due to lighting that I applied to the meshes in Maya. For now it isn’t a huge problem, I will see how this asset looks with the others and decide if it needs further adjustment.

Tunnel Asset

Here you can see the full tunnel asset. The camera moves throughout the middle (right to left in the image above), and the objects don’t move. The reason the objects don’t move is since I wanted to create the feeling of ‘motion from the different angles created from objects with different rotational orientation. Such as the square outlines or the zagged rotations in the tunnel.

I initially created a whole tunnel which I planned on having light rays shine through holes within it. Nevertheless, I was forced to adjust to problems that occurred with the render outcome. Although the lighting I used and the material colour was the same throughout, some objects seemed to be lighter or darker than others.

Rotating Shapes Asset no. 2

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After I tried the coloured tests, I think it is best to stay with the sample ‘white’ colour for now and add colour to only certain parts to exaggerate the music. Here I experimented with the camera angle. I also added bevels to the edges of most of the outer edges to make it look a bit better.

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Assignment of Assets to the Teammates

Here we discussed and decided on the assets we each wished to make, as well as the assets that would best fit together. We limited the number to begin with, and then decide later after review of the made assets (at that point) where we wish to go from there. Six for each team member was this number. The rest are less significant and not entirely necessary to the animation.

This will be paired up with the audio reactive light from Aftereffects as a silhouette. That is why this asset is the colour of the background chosen colour. I tried, first to create multiple, however only the original single circle experiment worked for some reason. So, I will try again later if I have time.

More Refined Assets

Here I made rough, experimental and observational drawings to aid the development of the design process and help my visual style merge well with the chosen audio track. I took many inspirations from any naturally moving objects, anything and everything I found. Mostly, subjects that presented a fluid movement were focussed on to provide appropriate consistency with the theme.

RAM Notes – Translating Music into Visuals 

Things to think about when creating visuals for the audio 

• Size 
• Shape 

• Style 
• Position 
• Composition 
• What is in focus- or not? 
• Foreground/BG 

• Colour/boldness 
• What are you translating= emotion? 
• Form- overall appearance 
• Movement- speed and time 
• Beat and tempo 

^Do any of these change and why?^ 

Four main types of movement in physics 

1. Linear 

2. Rotary 

3. Reciprocating 

4. Oscillating 

Music translation into visual movement- which of these does the music sound like to you? (Match both these sections together) 

• Swing 
• Slide 
• Push 

• Pull 
• Drop/ fall/ land 
• Flow/blow (like an object moving around another- wind or a rock in a stream) 
• Flexion (bending of a joint) 
• Rotation- pivot point 

• Extension 
• Speed 
• Tension- relaxed/ stiff 

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While I really like some of these designs I made, I had to choose the most practice ideas to move forwards with. The ones with a large collection of shapes, lines or objects would have taken much longer to animate. Therefore, I will choose a selection to simplify and exaggerate witht he movement.

Jared’s Test images of progress: