*Rough animatic for "I Am."*
Approach: This week I utilized my time attempting to convey my approach for this animation. I spent some time making decisions for myself about this animation and it's meanings behind the arbitrary imagery. I considered a different approach to the representation of animated cinema apparent in the animatic. I also considered changing my topic altogether, as a reading from the week prior mentioned finding relevance in our works between others, making the work feel more wholesome and represented in a more compelling light. My attempt fell short I believe, and have had some time for self-reflection about the animation as a whole. Choices Made: I don't believe that I conveyed my approach correctly, and that made me question even doing the animation at all. But, I came away with taking my findings from experimenting with having animated content in Maya rendered into a 3D scene. But also, having my content "fit" into the scene, and feel like it was also a piece that was necessary. It was ultimately a failure as I didn't get the 2D imagery to display in the rendered space in Arnold or in the Maya standard render. I tested separate composite background imagery utilizing Maya and Arnold rendering. The left image is the Maya standard shader on the bottom layer, and the ambient occlusion Arnold rendering with a Color Burn layer style on top. The opposite for the other, except with an overlay layer-style in Photoshop for the Maya layer. I tried to find the best compositing for both the layers that looked something towards my intended visual outcome. *Arnold (Top) Maya (Bottom)* *Maya (Top) Arnold (Bottom)* I fixed up my chuck rig as well and tried to fix some minor issues, but also attempted to get the TIF test video with transparency to show up transparent in front of a Maya standard shader. In the examples below, we see that I got some sort of transparency from the background going, but not the portion that I wanted to show.
*Video attempt at using TIF sequence* *Video showing minor tweaks and layering fixes to Chuck* I've since then found some help from a fellow classmate who says he knows how to make the background not interfere with the transparency or the shadows appearing as the shape of the plane. *Attempt 1 & 2 of using transparency in Maya to show the red square on top.* Relevant Sources: I happened to find an online forum where a person had solved the issue with the transparency rendering with Arnold in Maya: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-shading-lighting-and/transparency-renders-black-in-arnold/m-p/6790341?lightbox-message-images-6790341=308962i77F1FB6077CF012C#M18539 This link here is what I found that could help me for my next steps (If I happen to go through with the animation). As well as another link with people having the same issue: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-shading-lighting-and/maya-2016-how-to-hook-up-alpha-channel-in-psd-node-and-see-it-in/td-p/5750901 But, in the course of writing this, I had an epiphany of how to solve the issue using the node editor: *Image of worked out Arnold Transparency Shader* [Uses PNG] Shown above is the finalized texture output for Arnold to allow transparency in it's render software. I have not tried it in tiff sequence yet, but it appears that I have for the moment solved part of the issue I am having. I imagine I'll have to take my rendered tiff sequence files and make a version that also has the Black and White alpha channel map that fixes the issue. This should also mean that I can use a .PNG sequence (something I am more familiar with) as the final output for the 2D animated character. *Block (left) Transparent Map [White for visible]. Block (Right) Color Map [Background transparent].* *Using a PNG sequence with the node setup for moving 2D objects over top a sphere.* Questions Raised & Needs:
Now that I have figured out how to utilize the transparency map, this animation shouldn't take long to get going. If I have my animatic down to a point next week that I feel comfortable using it as the base, I'll immediately start trying to integrate a rendered PNG sequence of chuck into a Maya scene. This way I can make sure that it works (first off), and secondly test whether or not moving the camera will be an issue on the flat sequence area. I also want to test lighting on these 2D moving image planes in the Arnold render, just to make sure that it's not messing with the geometry in a weird way. I think I'll also play with the glass-shader in Arnold as well as how the transparency appears behind the glass, and to also see how it warps (if it works). -Taylor Olsen Comments are closed.
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May 2020
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