Notes from Workshop 2: February 1, 2007

1. General concepts:

CAD generates surfaces by bounding conditionsMAYA generates surfaces by bounding conditions but permit more inter-surface editing options with intuitive method of control comparable to tools used in modeling clayTHUS, Maya seems closer to actual process of working with physical materials2. SURFACE OF REVOLUTION

• Goto Front View
• Create/CP Curve tool
• Goto Perspective View
• Surfaces/Revolve  – select control box, pick “Y” axis, and # degrees.
• CV Curve-Tool (control vertex NURBS curve) – perhaps more replicable due to less idiosyncratic control points. (higher degree is smoother --- largest exponent in polynomial equation used to represent the curve)
• EP Curve Tool (free-hand pencil NURBS curve – 1 degree creates polygon straight lines)

3. LOFTING A SURFACE [Note: History option needs to be on]

• Go to plan view
• Create two CV Curve in plan
• Goto Perspective view
• Move one curve along Y axis.
•             Pre-select both curves
•             Surfaces/loft – select control box – increase section spans to 5 – apply to curves
•             De-select geometry
•             Select curve
•             Move curve (transforms surface associated with it)
•             Right-click on curve and select control vertex
•             Isolate control vertex with selection tool [note gravitational pull on curves]
•             Move curve vertex with mouse and surface automatically updates.

4. MODIFYING A PLANAR SURFACE [use make surface live technique]

• Create/Nurbs Primitives/Plane
• Stretch the plane.
• Change the number of divisions in the channels box (30 x 30)
• Right-click on plan and select control-vertex
• Use selection tool to select a control-vertex or several of them.
• Use the move tool to move them thereby reshaping surface
• [Optional: Key frame Control Vertices directly in two locations]

5. PROJECTING CURVE ON A SURFACE

• Create a plane surface and displace vertices (or use one from part 3 above)
• Create a straight edge (DP Curve from two points)
• Move the curve so that it follows the contours of the surface
• Goto Plan View
• Edit Nurbs/Project Curve on Surface (- select control box, use View direction –
• Edit Nurbs/Trim Tool  - select surface, select part to delete
• Select the last curve and move it to reset the edge of the surface

6. SCULPTING A SURFACE

• Create/NURBS PRIMITIVES/Plane
• Select Edit NURBS Sculpt tools with box.
• Hit “reset” button.
• Draw on Surface
• Hold “b” key to reset size
• Change maximum displacement option

7. LIGHTING SETUP

• Create NURBS sphere.
• Select #3 to increase density of mesh
• Add spot light
• Go into lighting mode by hitting #7 key (preceded by #5 & #6 key renderingmodes if necessary)
• Move spot light above and to the right of object
• Rotate spot light until it visibly impacts sphere
• In attributes dialog, Turn on ray-trace shadows for spot light.
• Add two point source lights without shadows for fill and back-fill light
• Use Show manipulator tool to reposition spot light (target and source)

8. INCREASE DENSITY OF SURFACETechnique 1.

• Select channels box for sphere.
• Increase “sections” and “spans” to increase number of CVs (under MakeNurbSphere1)

Technique 2

• Select Edit NURBS – Rebuild Surfaces []
•             Set number of spans u – 30
•             Set number of spans v – 30
• Click rebuild
• Do two panels side by side.
• Select blinn1 shader, change color to pink
• Apply pink color to sphere
• Set eccentricity to 0.1 to create strong highlight
• Space-bar on perspective window to revert back to single perspective view.

9. BEGIN SCULPTING SURFACE

• Select Edit NURBS Sculpt tools with box.
• Hit “reset” button.
• Under stamp profile: Set Radius(U) to 0.3
• Under Sculpt variables: Set  Max Displacement to 0.8
• Mouse over surface, arrow indicates magnitude of displacement
• Click and drag mouse on surface to begin sculpting it.
• CHANGE DISPLAY
• Click display tab on Tool Settings Window: turn off show wireframe option.
• Do a second stroke and note simplicity of seeing result.
• SCULPTING TOOLS
•  Select pull tool: pull on other side of ball
• Select smooth tool; chance Radius (U) to 0.6 : smooth areas of ball
• Select erase tool; erase some areas on ball
• Hit flood button: erases all changes
• Under stamp profile: Set Radius(U) to 0.5
• Under Sculpt variables: Set  Max Displacement to 0.5
• Make two strokes over one another: each enhances effect
• Under sculpt parameters: turn off Update on each stroke -> only
• Maximum displacement will be reached.

10. <<< CONTINUING WITH SCULPTING HERE IF TIME: NOT DONE IN WORKSHOP >

• MAKING EYES [OPTIONAL]
• Turn reference update back on.
• Click on Stroke tab
• Under “Stylus Pressure”, click on Radius
• Under “Sculpt” tab, change Radius(U) to 0.7
• Change Radius(L) to 0.3 { implies stroke radius is between 0.3 and 0.7
• Change Opacity to 0.2 {means each stroke will only have 0.2 effect
• Change stamp to second icon, more feathering at brush edge
• Turn Reflection on {default reflection around U axis
• Click on y-direct for reflection; strokes visible on top and below on sphere
• Move mouse over surface and see reflection in wrong direction
• Click on x-direct for reflecting; strokes visible on two sides of face.
• In Operation select “push”; create eyes
• In “Sculpt Parameters” section; set Ref. vector to Normal
• In Operation section, select “pull”; create eyebrows
• In Operation section, select “smooth”; select flood (medias eyebrows with eye sockets
• Save scene
• MAKING NOSE
• Press “b” key and click-drag to make upper radius smaller.
• (note the “m” key give you maximum displacement)
• (the z key undoes an action)
• Flood smooth the shape to mediate distance between nose and head, do it twice
• MAKE LIPS
• Set reflection on to y, make lips with “pull” tool
• Turn reflection off,  use “push” tool to push upper lip in.
• EYES
• Parent two primitive spheres to head.{use shading to help positon
• Rotate polar axis out from head
• Turm on hardware renderer, key #6.
• Use phone shader, ramp color, to make eyes, and appy to spheres
• [Use black to blue to white – u-ramp

11. CONSTRAINTS

• Make Nurbs sphere
• Right click on key, lock select {zscale
• Uniformly scale sphere – z-scale doesn’t change
• SKIP: Select “components” to on, and then “points” on and “lines” off

12.   I. INSTANTIATED MOVEMENT [DRAGON FLY, BASE ON ON-LINE TUTORIAL]

• Create dragon fly from curves and surfaces of revolution or load dragonfly1.mb from classes folder.
• Create movement up and down over 24 frames
• Use graphical animation editor, and do a curves post infinity cycle
• Use Dynamics/particles/particle tool to create particles for instantiation of dragon fly
• Select source geometry/shift select particle shape  Go to particles/instancer
• Establish wing movements keyframed at 1, 40,,  80, 120 frames (key frame wings only)
• Play and see instances mimic behavior.
• Move original dragon fly at different locations, key framed a 1,, 40, 80, 120 frames
• Move instances at different locations, key framed at 1, 40, 80, 120 frames
• Repeat for second set of particles, and move along different axis.
• Add large Nurbs plane
• Build blinn surface with water 2d texture map, with transparency and setting raytrace reflection to 2 bounces.
• add ambient, spot and directional lights.
• Setup project folder to render to images files
• Setup software options to render to numerical jpg sequence and with “Maya” rendering turn on raytrace at mid quality.
• Render
• Reset images directory to images2
• Render again
• Combine both renderings in quicktime pro.
• Camera creation (if time)

• For same scene, create a camera. Create/cameras/camera
• change panel view camera in one panel and manipulate it in perspective view of anther window.
• Key frame camera in two separate positions (getting camera movement)
• Record result. (images3)
• Link camara dragon fly (?)
• Record result. (images4)
• Combine results in quicktime pro