Week 10 (5/24/25)
Final storytelling through lighting assignment. I finalized materials, lit and comped the scene. I played around with some nuke gizmos as well and used the FlareFactory gizmo in the final nuke script. I think I would like to go back and re-do the uvs for the car so that the textures can be higher res. I also want to better populate the background.
Week 9 (5/20/25)
First pass textures on everything except the brief case and clothing. I want to go back and adjust the SSS on the plants and I want to adjust the dirt material.
Week 9 (5/18/25)
I've started doing first pass materials on the scene and am trying to figure out camera animation. I've also switched out the trees in the background for some more realistic ones.
Week 8 (5/11/25)
Started brainstorming an idea for the storytelling through lighting project. I think I've landed on something post-apocalyptic/ abandoned. I found a rundown car model that I'm going to use the headlights of to enhance the story. Primary inspiration from The Last of Us and Resident Evil 7.
Week 7 (5/5/25)
Finished up the fantastical plant project. I got some critique and I ended up changing the lighting and the placement of the terrarium so it would be closer to the window. Some things I want to adjust are the bump map to the sclera of the eyeball so that the veins actually line up with the color on the eyeball mesh, I want to add more wrinkle detail to the hero flower petals as well as the adjusting the materials to the leaf and stem of the flower. I want to also go back and touch up the compositing. The main issue I was having was with noise and with the render farm this weekend being full of jobs it was challenging having to go back, adjust the samples/shaders, and then wait almost a full day for my render to be done. Below are closeups, material quilt, breakdown video and the final video for the project but I will absolutely being going back and uploading a more fleshed out version with the critique I'll be getting.
Week 6 (4/28/25)
Finalizing my camera and started creating materials for the assets in my scene. I started using mari for my base plant asset that sits under my hero flower and I really liked it. It was a little hard getting used to at first but I fully textured one asset using it. Below is a first render pass of my in progress materials and lighting and some mari stills.
Week 5 (4/23/25)
I'm trying to figure out my render cam for this project, am unsure just how close to be to the terrarium at the start to make the reveal of the flower more impactful.
Week 5 (4/20/25)
I started previs on the fantastical plant project. I've figured out what assets and where to put them in the terrarium as well as how many eyeballs I wanted to place in the scene. The main eyeball I've decided is going to connect to the hero plant using the stem that comes out of the center of the petals as the cranial nerves. I had to constrain the eyeball geo that I was originally going to use to the flower stem as the flower is already rigged and animated. I think I am going to end up replacing the current eyeball geo with a more detailed or I may just model a sclera and attack it to the current geo. Below are images of the scene thus far and some uv grids.
Week 4 (4/16/25)
I started collecting assets for my fantastical plant project. I'm leaning more towards combining a blooming flower with an eyeball. I'm still deciding on where the terrarium should be as well as what else should be in there. I know I want to offset the creepiness of the plant eyeball with the other items I place in the terrarium whether that be moss or an animal/bug but I'll probably utilize chat gpt to help flesh out some ideas.
Week 3
I started fully delving into creating my materials this week. I've bee doing research and collecting a lot of references. I've been enjoying the process of making shaders though when I first started I was overthinking how to go about making each material. I had to step back and rethink about the bare bones of what each material is instead of focusing on the fine details. I ended up going back to my materials multiple times after looking away from the computer and tweaking them. Creating the organic materials was the hardest for me because of how they interact with the light and making sure the SSS and refraction for each was good. I would like to go back and polish up the organic materials a bit more now that I've spoken to peers and gotten critique. I've also started thinking about what to create for the "fantastical plant" assignment and I'm thinking about doing some type of plant blooming with a human aspect to it, like giving it teeth or eyes. Below are some of the material renders I've done and some inspo for the next project!
Before adding maps for stem shader
After maps for stem shader
Before adding maps for water shader
After maps for water shader
Material Quilt Turnaround!
I'm unsure if these are too creepy but I do think they're cool concepts!
Week 2
We started going over all things VRay this week! So far I'm really liking it and learning how to create shaders. As someone who has been using substance painter for textures for several years, it's definitely a learning curve but I'm starting to get the hang of it.
Week 1
This week we went over the basics of photography and how to properly maneuver our way around a DSLR camera as well as new ways of thinking about photography and story. Our first project was to go out and take pictures around the city and it was an awesome excuse to actually get outside and enjoy Savannah. Below are some of my favorite photos I took!
