Stonehenge Exercise
Put an image on top of the other to create darker sky fx using quick selection tool
EVOLUTION OF THE WHEEL
Homework to create collage /some historical event/ with couple of pictures, telling short story...My collage present the evolution of wheel from ancient times till far /or not so/ future/
GREEN SCREEN PROJECT
Removing green background of the image to put another one /clounds on the blue sky/. Basikly the idea is to do a shot in the studio and then adding a different background replacing green screen and create kind of visual fx. Using Select colour range tool to create mask /alfa chanel/ the using Hue/Saturation controls to do some smooth and clean green removing.
ABADONED BUILDING
Using a picture of building, stormy sky and rusty texture to create abandoned building effect. I do use the sky for background image. Put the building image on top and the rustic texture on top of both of them. I use a quick selection tool on to building image to select building and environment. Then I create a mask to remove shiny ski from building image and put the dark one /img 2/ to create stormy effect. Then I transfer the mask to rust image to be shure just the influence of the rust will be only in to the building not the sky. I used Burn Tool to do the building most darker /the effect I am looking for actually/ and put percent of opacity to rust layer so the rust be no so strong and "metal one" but organic for the stones of the building.
I import the brush. create a new Layer, seated it and start to do painting of the plants on the wall of the building
Thats the last "touch" to create abandoned building effect. Playing a bit withh settings and "voila" there is - Abandoned building...
Hard Light Blending mode
Using same technique to add some cracks and explosion fx
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE EVENT COLLAGE
We have а task to do collages about tree events from the world history – past, present and future event.
For the PAST I choose Crucifixion of Jesus. I use a quick selection, and pen tool to select objects for my collage from a different pictures /the ones down here/ I put two hands on two sides of the collage to create some illusion of a hug on the collage and a white dove like symbol of Christian salvation. I use a blending modes and eraser tool also, because of the soft dissolve effect of the images of one layer to another
PRESENT
for the PRESENT event i choose the “wave of terrorism” in France.I try to show peoples pain and suffering and will to say “NO” TO TERROSIM with flowers and candles, a "silent scream" of protest.
MAYA modeling
SPACESHIP MODELING
ROOM MODELING
BOND GADGET
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (5 December 1891 – December 3, 1956) was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design. Rodchenko was one of the most versatile Constructivist and Productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or down below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: "One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again."
John Grenville Stezaker (born 1948), is an English conceptual artist. Stezaker attended the Slade School of Art in London, graduating with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art in 1973. In the early 1970s, he was among the first wave of British conceptual artists to react against what was then the predominance of Pop art. His work is surreal in tone and is often made using collage and the appropriation of pre-existing images such as postcards, film stills, and publicity photographs.
MAYA modeling - Deform
New York Rooftops - MAYA
I never been in New York /but I wish to/ so that's why, when I start thinking of New York rooftops project, first of all, I collected some reference images from google. I found that there are a lot of water tanks on the New York rooftops and also vent systems. Buildings have a metal stairways in case of emergency and a lot of billboards on the top. Then I made few quick buildings models as you can see:
To look realistic I trying to do proper position of the camera. I /try to/ keep perspective - my buildings are in the same /1 point/ perspective line with this on the /photo/ background image, and they look natural /no matter they are only gray shapes for the moment/.
Then I said to myself - "I never been in Tokyo also, may be on the rooftops there, they have a water tanks and vent systems also. So how could I know that the rooftops I did are in New York but not in Tokyo. I can do a quick check in Google for Tokyo rooftops - yes, that's good idea. But...I never been in Toronto, Sydney, LA /poor me/ etc. So if I have to check all cities in whole over the world... exactly. So - how to show that this rooftops are exactly in New York?! I have to show somehow it is New York. Is there something specific in NY?! Uhh?! Yes, there is. Empire state building! Good! So i did a quick polygonal model of Empire state building. Here it is:
I said a "quick model" - exactly - the building is too complicated with all this windows , gardens, antennas etc. So its gonna take time to modeling all this details, and it's not exactly the New Your rooftops. May be metaphorically - but I have roofs to do, not metaphors. And I have to do it quickly. So Empire state building see you later... Or no. I can keep a low poly object and put it like the background on the scene and then everybody will knows that this is exactly New York city. Good. What else?! Let's see - I can put a label - This are New York rooftops. No! Bad idea! To do a graffiti texture on the wall somewhere in the scene - "this is New York". Hmm... - not bad but still silly. What about - "This is Brooklyn?" or "I love Brooklyn". Sounds good. Brooklyn is an area in New York and this graffiti will works for my project. Alright. I did a test with Layered texture - here it is:
Great! Cool! Good!! It works. Lets go then! Start modeling! I ll do a water tank, then stairs - this metal one, then vent system, may be few buildings, then i put the water tank on the top of the building, do some graffiti, put some billboards, etc....Yeah - that's it! Lets the show begin now! Ops! Alright I ll do modeling all this billboards and vents and so what, Where I ll put them - on the roof - yes, but which roof?! What I ll see on and from this roof - OK - I need a plan - I need to know what exactly i will do and how it will looks when I finish. And I need to know it before I start. So I did the plan:
Okay DaVinci - you re the man, go on! You have a plan now!
I decide to model the separate objects first and then to put them together in the scene. So I did a polygonal models using Modeling Tools like extrude, Insert age loop tool, Bevel, etc. In the water tank model when i did the metal construction i moved and attached the pivot point to one side of the diagonal beam because the main 4 beams are tilt and there is a diferense in the angle between middle parts and this one on the bottom. And to do and align a metal beam to link them i move the pivot point on one saide of the link beam to do the rotation and align easier. It s shown on the pictures below.
When I finished with modeling of the water tank and stairs I looked at them and I said to myself:
- Stairs are bigger then the water tank. Is it correct?! Actually, how big the water tank is and how big the stairs are?! So...proportions. How i can do the right proportions of stairs and water tank?! I how can I show them proper?! I need something measurable. Like,,,
a ...barrel.
I love this guy. Really! I even put him a texture. Barrel - men`s best friend. Now when i put this barrel near to water tank or stairs, I can show the exact size of water tank and stairs. Than everyone will have idea about the exact proportions and size of the objects. Make sense. Now all is clear - I have a plan, idea of proportions and I know how to show that this are exactly the New York rooftops, is time to stick all models together, doing textures, find right camera positions, and to follow the plan.
I chose to do a cloudy envoironment for the NY rooftops project. This give me a chance to play with textures, lights and shadows. I ve exported the UV coordinates from Maya to Photoshop to do a textures /you can see it below/.This is a process of water tank texturing. With the reference of UV coordinates I can do exactly texture, I needed. I ve used a rusty metal for the base and add put a graffiti pictures on top. Then back to Maya and add textures to the models.
All my project looks like that - I do work for rooftops so thats why I do not model entire buildings - I just use them for the background. I did a little trick here also - as can see on the shot - there are two Empire State buildings on the project. Thats because I did two different cameras for doing reflections of the background in to the windows. Cameras look trough different angle to windows so I could not see Empire State building in both of them - and thats why I did two of them just to have a shots without moving the object. I add them to a difrent layers - and anytime I decide I can "switch them on and of".
The one below is a wireframe view of my NewYork Rooftops project.
So after all planing, tests, texturing and lightings, and shadows, camera positions all is done. And here they are-the final images:
This is a long shot of the rooftops - just to got the idea of environment - we have a water tanks, this small "rooms" for the vent systems, and barrels - just like a reference for proportions. We can see also emergency stairways on the building at the bottom. Source of light is on the right hand side - sun, behind the clouds - as I mentioned before I choose to be cloudy wether - just to play with lights and shadows of the objects.
You can see on the next frame what I am talking about actually. When I add a texture to Sky Dome Light the direction of the clouds was not proper but i decide to keep it like that. because of my idea to create illusion of stormy clouds and sky. /Looks like fantasy world, hight in the sky, but it works for my idea for shadows and light/. I wanted one side of my shot to be in shadows and the other to be under the sun light. The sun`s rays pass trough the clouds and the water towers and barrels cast shadows on the roof. Also there are a reflections on the pipes on the right hand side but the pipes ad the building are in shadows mostly because of the clouds:
Another point of view on the same rooftop. As I said - I worked the light and shadows mostly - it was the main thing I ve been focused on, just to became more familiar with Arnold lights, textures and rendering.
The next one I call "Between the storm and sun light". Again - work with lights and shadows.
On this shot we can see I"I love Brooklyn" graffiti title on the roof on the other side. That was my test of layered texture - I did two different kind textures - one is the brick texture for the wall and then the second one I use alfa Chanel to do the graffiti and to be abble to put it on the top of the bricks. So for the water tank textures I use photoshop texturing - playing a bit with layers and blending options. But I used a layered textures also. Layered texture is better to be used in case you need to do some quick changes on the texture. I can do changes like scale or move texture in Maya. Whatever, I did practise both kind of texturing.
On the next one, which is the last one actually I did a shot of reflections of one building in the windows of the other:
