Interior lighting in Mental Ray

Before starting to light an interior scene, I decided to go through some artists and painters who examined the concept of shadow and light. I checked Michalangelo Caravaggio's work (while he was exploring chiaroscuro), where he highly contrasted areas of light and shadows. 

How the work was done:

I started by overriding the material with a white one then started the lighting process. My light source was the sun coming from the window. I used Skyportal (mr. Sun and mr. Sky. mySkyportal put on the window).

To test the lighting , I saved the final gather map and loaded each time so that the render takes less time. Photometric lights (with added .ies files) are located at the roof. I used an average of 3000 Kelvin intensity (warm), to indicate that’s the scene is captured during almost an afternoon. When the sun’s down. 

For the materials, I textured most of the models with Arch & Design.

Some snapshots of the work:

Test renders:

Imitating the 20th Century Fox intro

Imitating the 20th Century Fox intro, using only Autodesk 3ds Max.

Click here to watch the animation.

Some Screenshots of the work:

Render Ouput:

Short study on "Finding Nemo"

Humans respond to facial expressions and have the ability to create and decode anthropomorphic characters as a mean of communication (the smiley face for example). To serve the storytelling function of the characters in "Finding Nemo", the designers modified the position and shape of the eyes and gave the characters flexible lips.

The animators at Pixar were committed to achieve realism in their animations, research played a crucial part: studies were done on various dissected fish and whales, to better understand the anatomy of aquatic creatures, help from underwater life experts was provided and software tools were created for water simulations.

One of the issues that were faced, the realism of the environment made the animated character appear out of context in the test footage, which forced the technical team to recreate the environment so it wouldn't look so photorealistic. This brings to mind, the "Uncanny Valley", which is a hypothesis state (first proposed by Masahiro Mori, 1970) in robotics and was later applied in 3D animations, it states that realism (characters and animations) will be more appealing to viewer but within a certain limit that if exceeded will cause the viewers to reject what is presented.

Also it is important to note that characters function properly if presented in a certain context where every element must be part of a unified design that serve the story otherwise it would seem out of place (Withrow S. 2009) , like placing animated talking fish in a photorealistic environment. 

Interior Architecture Project (3ds Max and Mental Ray)

Designed and modelled by my friend, interior architect Esther Younan.

I worked on texturing, lighting and rendering.
The lighting in the scene was done using 2 mrSky lights and 3 spotlights. The main source of light is the sun, coming from the glass walls (from which we can see the sea). The inside of the shop was lighten very dimly, on purpose.

Old Digital Paintings

Examining some principles of animation in "The Adventures of Andre and Wally B."

After watching “The Adventures of Andre and Wally B.” many times, I decided to study how John Lasseter applied the principles of animation to make it successful.

Anticipation:
In one of the short film’s shots, Wally B. goes quickly to the right. The actual action is only about 4 frames long, but he anticipates his move for a certain time - enough for the audience to know exactly what he is going to do next.

Staging:
When Andre wakes up, he scratches his side. Lasseter made sure that Andre doesn’t scratch his stomach - for example, because if he did, the action that happens in front of his body would be unclear to the audience.

Follow through and overlapping action:
This principle was widely used on Wally’s feet, stinger and antennae. They all continued to move even after his body stopped. Those three have different sizes and masses; therefore the follow through for each one of them was different: the antennae were light, so they slightly dragged behind. The stinger was heavier than the antennae, so it dragged behind the action more than the antennae. The feet were very heavy, so they always followed far behind the main action, with a lot of squash and stretch.

Secondary Action:
After the body’s main action, Wally B.’s feet drag. This is a secondary action because the movement of the feet is a straight consequence of the movement of the body.

Appeal:

When Andre wakes up and yawns, the yawn is very appealing: because the poses and actions are not duplicated on both sides of the body. His feet do not rotate similarly, the upper part of his body rotates to the right and slightly tilts, and that raises his right arm higher than his left. When he stretches his arms, the right arm translates first, then the left.

Drawing: Shading and light

Modeling a cartoon character

Based on the Digital Tutors tutorial for "Creating Cartoon Characters in 3ds Max", I modelled my own crazy scientist: "Arthur".


Here are some snapshots of the work:

Testing:

Renders:

Morphing Arthur:

Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation

For me, character animation doesn’t mean making an object look like a character or give it hands and a face. It is giving life to an object, make it look as if it was thinking and all of its movements are generated by its own thought process. It is the change of shape, facial expressions and body language that show that a character is thinking. It is giving the object a mind of its own to enable it to think, and thus create the illusion of life that comes from the ability to dictate your own movements and express emotions.  As Saint-Exupery once wrote, “It’s not the eyes, but the glance - not the lips, but the smile...”

“The eyes more than anything else give life to a toy” said Lasseter. “The angle of a blink, how far the pupils go off to the side when a character is trying to peek at something without being noticed, conveys a sense of presence better than any other element”. 

I realized that the ability to think and thus act accordingly gives life to objects. I was unaware that that was what I did in my projects to give life to the characters I created.


For example, in my last short-animation, even though the main characters were nothing but simple spheres, the audience would have the feel that the spheres are actually human. Even though they had no face, hands or feet, one could absolutely feel it when they are happy, sad, angry, etc. This was possible because the spheres were animated based on the principles of traditional animation.

Animation: Science or Art?

I've been reading in Stuart Mealing's book "Computers and art". I found the first chapter very appealing, especially for a person like me that has a science background.

Mealing states that computer animation is a remarkable combination of Science and Art. He declares that animation represents one of the leading progression areas in computing and is defined to be a sequence of images in continuous movement. Its purpose may be entertainment, education, commercial persuasion or other.

The author asserts that computers have been of great assistance to the animation industry. He makes a sustained analysis of some of the ways that explain how the computer helps create better animations. He clearly explains that hand-drawn animation requires a lot of patience and is time-consuming because each frame is separately created by the illustrator. He then gives an example: “a feature film containing the production of 250,000 individual drawings would take fifty years of labour if all were to be drawn by one person [Halas 1974]”.

Mealing explains that computers  have replaced  people in doing monotonous tasks, especially the  specific repetitive chores involved in traditional animation.

In his first chapter, Mealing argues that computers can aid animation in two ways: as tools to develop the application of traditional methods; and as  means of producing output that could not be produced traditionally. It is possible that, the use of computers requires a smaller budget, less time to do the animation and has better precision than the traditional animation techniques: projects that were previously impossible to do can now be easily completed with the use of computers.

Stuart Mealing concludes that there are many ways that computers can support, complement or modernize traditional animation. For instance, the computer offers animators a new set of tools that would encourage them to push the boundaries of the discipline far forward, and allow work of unimagined complication and complexity to become an everyday reality.

Photo-realistic product design (rended in V-Ray)

This is my first attempt in photo-realistic rendering and also, my first use for V-Ray.

I modelled a simple perfume bottle, textured it and tried to make it look real.

Modelling:

I drew the shape and added the Lathe and the turboSmooth modifiers.

Texturing:
Added a bump texture that I got from “3D Total Textures - Volume 15” and edited in Adobe Photoshop.

Here is the final result of the work:

This project was done using 3Ds Max 2011 and rendered in Vray adv 1.50 SP2.

Cultural Memory: Photo Colorings

I was raised in a Lebanese society that has survived many wars.  We have been taught that our independence was not delivered on a silver platter, but rather through hard work, perseverance, and hope in the face of total destruction.

I never knew what war was, until July 2006. I felt it was my duty to step up and serve the people of my country. For that reason, I joined the Lebanese Red Cross – First Aid Teams.

My volunteering services during the last four years have helped shape the person I am today: My commitment to my country became my mission in life. Regardless of the nationality or religion one belonged to, my soul duty was to save their life even if mine was on the line, for I believe the most important of human rights is their right to live.

The following three photos were taken during the 2006 war. The first two are my friends, the third one is myself.
I colored them using Adobe Lightroom 3.0 and Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Original Photo:

A Lebanese Red Cross volunteer carries an American child towards a U.S. Navy landing craft on a beach in Beirut to the USS Trenton, which will evacuate 2,000 Americans to Cyprus July 21, 2006. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis (LEBANON) REUTERS.

After coloring it:

Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki

Lasseter was inspired by a Japanese animator/director, Hayao Miyazaki, that was able to entertain the whole audience, both adults and children, not just younger viewers. Miyazaki’s films: Castle of Cagliostro, My Neighbour Totoro, Princesses Monomoke –among others-, were very popular in Japan, mostly driven by the vision of a director that believed that “adults should not impose their vision of the world on children".

Many animators from Disney and Pixar (such as Glen Keane and Pete Docter) also admit that Miyazaki's work and his ability to entertain adults and children had a huge influence on their work.

I was surprised to read that American/European animators were inspired by a Japanese animator. With such differences in culture and context, I expected to find barriers for ideas to be exchanged and for beliefs to be transferred from one part of the world to the other. But it appears that I was wrong.

Miyazaki’s core belief that adults can enjoy animated movies applies to all cultures because human beings are not that different after all. We all want to be entertained.

My neighbour Totoro:

Totoro appears in Toy Story 3 , as a proof of Miyazaki's influence on John Lasseter:

Drawing an arm

Studying the body's anatomy is very necessary for animators. Hence I started checking some anatomy books to help me draw, model and sculpt a human body. with the help of Digital Tutors, I started drawing an arm.

                                                                               

 Studying the Arm's anatomy

Arm's form

Sketch

Classic animation principles applied to convey emotion

John Lasseter explains that, if one needs to convey emotions, classical animation principles have to be applied. He demonstrates these principles in Pixar's first short-film Luxo Jr.- which he animated -. 

He did not focus on background, nor on the camera's animation. Instead, he was concerned about techniques based on classical animation.

His main concern was to add emotion to the characters that were faceless and wordless. The audience could feel when the child was joyful, and when he/she was sad. Both characters seemed to have a certain frame of mind at every moment of the scene.

Lasseter argues: "If the animator understood and applied the animation principles of Disney’s Nine Old Men, objects could engross audiences with their emotions, they could appear, indeed, more human than humans!"

                     

I also noted Edwin Catmull’s comment  on the film in his book Computer Animation: A Whole New World  : " Luxo Jr. sent shock waves through the entire industry – to all corners of computer and traditional animation. At that time, most traditional artists were afraid of the computer. They did not realize that the computer was merely a different tool in the artist's kit but instead perceived it as a type of automation that might endanger their jobs. Luckily, this attitude changed dramatically in the early '80s with the use of personal computers in the home. The release of our Luxo Jr. ... reinforced this opinion turnaround within the professional community.”

Pixar's influences

Lasseter believed that it is conventional to examine other artists’ work to find inspiration in them. This belief was present in the Pixar culture, and seeped into the films they created. The team behind “Toy Story”, for example, was influenced by previous creations; American movies that dealt with friendship, such as “Raggedy Ann and Andy” (1977).

 We have the movie Ratatouille, were –in a pivotal scene– a restaurant critic is taken aback by an unsophisticated meal that is considered peasant food. The scene echoed, albeit in a comedic fashion, an incident in the book Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. Inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Windows can also be seen in two different Pixar movies. First one is Toy Story 2, where a character uses the camera flash for a weapon, and second is Ratatouille where  in the apartment vignettes witnessed by the star of Ratatouille.

Ryan, the film

While reading the "Cyberarts 2004" book, I was inspired by Ryan Larkin's approach. Larkin was a  brilliant Canadian animator in the 1960s. Even though he was  addicted to drugs and alcohol and was mostly homeless, he was known for his unique ways of thinking and imagining,. In one of his interviews, he quotes Anais Nin :"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are".

His third short animated film "Walking" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xK0wua5XVM&feature=player_embedded#!)  attracted the audience and was nominated for Academy awards.  

One how-to book on animation, Timing for Animation, goes on to say how Larkin’s female nude in "Walking" “makes good use of perspective animation through the exaggeration of the character’s arm nearest to the camera”. 

Chris Landreth (an animator who was Larkin's friend) made an Oscar winning 14 minutes animated documentary "Ryan" about his friend. I was personally impressed by the evident creativity that involved in Chris' documentary. His work is very unique and visually very interesting. I think that "Ryan" is not just a 3D-animated documentary, it's a piece of art, and its medium is computer animation. 

Ryan, the film:

"Describe your discipline" - Media Discources

On 2 sheets of A3 paper you are asked to ‘map’ the territory of your particular practice discipline – its distinctive nature, its concerns, its practices, its limits, its relationship(s) with other neighboring or more distant disciplines.

19th of October, 2011

Sabine T.