SHAIHEIM'S UCA YEAR 3 BLOG

 This tutorial series was really informative. Looking back at it, having more consistent blogs about it would be better. Branham taught about Nuke, Vray and more about Maya. I now feel more confident in my rendering abilities due to this tutorial.  

 This tutorial was about Maya rendering settings.  Branham uses Windows- preferences- rendering- render set up. Braham then uses Windows-rendering- render setup. To create a render layer, right-click and select create a collection. Middle click and drag and drop into (add to the collection) to make your meshes render files. With the expressions typing, the file name will add all groups, and the example sad_1 to sad_13 will be included if you just type sad in expressions under add to the collection. In Maya, the shape node helps scale down lighting intensity commonly seen as light_shape and can be hidden in display-shape.

 This tutorial used the knowledge from the underwater teapot with the knowledge of the rock cave. The aim of this video was to make the rock cave underwater. The underwater teapot steps were applied, such as air bubbles, water effects, and blue lighting. The main difference was that the underwater cave included floss and green mould, which was edited to make it visible in the water but simultaneously blended in terms of colour tones so that it did not appear as if it was glowing in the dark.

 This tutorial asked what more could be done to a scene. Branham made a cave by scanning real world rocks, lowering their vertex count by baking and then kitbashing. Kitbashing is using limited assets to make something grand (like Lego). In the original cave scene Branham worked on, there ware cave walls and rocks on the floor. Branham felt this scene did not feel complete so he replaced the floor rocks with sand tat had indents where the rocks were so that it actually reacted to the rocks.  A lighting trick is to use multicoloured lines and use the multiply layer so some light beams are stronger like ray lights.  Branham reminded us that mirroring/flipping an image makes mistakes more visible.

 Finishing the atmosphere underwater was the focus of this tutorial. This included adding fog and a light layer on top of the scene to show that the scene is not clear as if it were above water. Also mentioned were lens fares on the scene (generally seen on cameras) which are bright white and grey dots. To focus on an object undersea you can add a focal point which will blur the top and bottom of the scene so that only the middle is clear. Branham added water bubbles shooting up to bring the scene to life as a png made into a gif. Light scenes were placed at the top to show the sunlight reacting to the scene, which is realistic to actual water. Around the focal point, you can create a circle, invert, fill in black and then blur it to increase the contrast in the scene. Once this is done, adding a blue tint or any colour will indicate the healthiness of the water. Optionally, if the rocks get lost underwater, adding grain will help them stand out. 

 Underwater renders were the focus of this lesson. Focusing on a small scale of ocean water jpg, duplicating, flipping and blending made it accessible for the render scale. The water was then multiplied and layered (made see-through) to not only be placed on top of the render but to wrap around it so it feels connected to the 3D and not just a sticker placed on top of it. This included wrapping around pots and teapots that were placed undersea.

 This tutorial focused on removing grain from rendering elements. With grain, it is essential that the information changes per frame. This makes you aware of where the grain is travelling to, so you are less likely to assume and miss out on some areas. Removing grain it makes the textures clear and the overall image more able to be held for longer if it was in animation, for instance.