Writing writing writing

Tutorial is a little less painful to write than I thought. It only took me a couple of days because I had it all written and just had to type it up. I also already had the images so they just slot into place.

I have proof read it and it seems quite straight forward to follow. there are lots of images as well so they help when looking for menus and settings. I didn't have to make that many changes. There were some bits that I wrote in a more straight forward way which cut down the amount of words slightly.

Overall, I think this tutorial has definitely improved my lighting skills. I have a much better of final gathering and global illumination (even though it was not used). I read up on a lot of things about lighting and learnt a lot about render settings and lighting settings. I think I can confidently create a good light set up for a scene and actually know how the change of settings is going to effect my scene where as before it was just guess work. My other project helped me with this tutorial too because when we were recording the green screen, we had to have a proper lighting system for the footage to be successful. These skills I could then transfer to a CG scene and it worked almost the same.

There were a lot of tutorials that I filtered through that I didn't understand before and, after writing this tutorial, helped me understand them. This has then improved my skills massively.

I will probably not use HDRI lighting very much but this project has helped me understand lighting overall which was one of the largest areas I had trouble with in Maya.

I look forward to other peoples' tutorials and learning more about my other troublesome areas in Maya.

Documenting

This was a much longer process than I thought. I decided to write it all by hand as well so that I wouldn't have to switch between word document and Maya but this was a bad move. It means that I now need to type it all up. It is good because I can cut out any bits that do not make sense and all the unnecessary rambling but it covered a lot more pages than I anticipated.

This is a typical page of documentation:

As you can see, all writing and no pictures. I have added little image notes but basically all the pages look like this. The problem I now have is that there are about nine pages of documentation like this just for my tutorial.

The worst part is that I've read through it all and there isn't really much I can cut out. It is all full of different settings and important thing you have to do in a particular order for it all to work.

I wish I had typed it now so that I could copy and paste it and then just add the images but also save myself a lot of wrist cramp.

One good thing that I did manage to do was to screen shot my work as I was recreating it. This means I have images for every stage so can easily add them when I need them. 

This documenting took me about a week. That was to get the image spot on and to get the values and settings correct in the tutorial so that it actually works.

The writing of it should only take me a couple more days.

Planning

I have now finished my HDR image on Maya. It took me a long time to get the settings right. I am now planning my tutorial. Im quite a disorganised person so I like to write a lot of notes and lists. 

On these particular notes, I have been describing how I am going to write my tutorial and who it is going to be for. I've decided not to film my tutorial because it is so much harder for me to plan. Also I realised whilst making my HDR image that I never get it right first time, I always have to go back and adjust or change settings. By doing a written tutorial, when I plan it out and recreate the scene I can make the settings exactly right the first time and make it look as though I haven't had to go back and adjust it.

This is my planning at the moment:

Like I said, I'm disorganised so the notes are not in any particular order but at least I have started planning the glossary part of the tutorial and made a start on the tutorial itself. I've had to plan exactly what I am going to say and in which part because I ramble quite a lot and end up repeating myself. This has made it straight to the point and easier for me to organise my thoughts. 

I am going to redo my scene and go through exactly the same progress but this time documenting it all down - every setting and value. This is going to form my tutorial. Let the documenting begin!

Progress

So I have been working on Shotgun and its actually not that bad when you get the hang of it.

It is mainly categorising tasks and then saying whether they are completed or not. I find it easy to do a gantt chart because it basically does it all for you. Type in a beginning date, type in and end date and its done.

Another thing I have been doing is developing my own tutorial. My HDR images are getting better and each time I go on Maya I improve a bit more.

I had a bit of trouble with the tutorial I was using as a base. Basically the tutorial just states to use the mental ray preset materials but I didnt want to do that. I think its cheating as you don't actually have to work out any settings. So basically this has been my next task - to create a material that looks like a Mental ray preset but isnt. Obviously Im using a blinn.

Another issue I'm having is creating a tutorial that is not exactly the same as the other tutorials. I have taken bits out of each one but I'm scared its going to be the same. I havent worded it the same but I have used the same method. Lily did assure me somewhat and she made a good point - if there is only a few ways to do things, then the tutorials are all going to be the same. Mine isnt exactly the same and its my own creation of the scene so some things are going to be different.

Anyway this is my creation so far. This is near enough the HDR image I will use and create in my tutorial.

Shotgun

We have been given our login information for shotgun and I have finally found the time to sit down and add stuff to it.

It looked quite daunting at first because there are so many parts to it. Then I discovered that it is all linked together so once you add a task then it all sort of fills in itself.

I added all the tasks that I had to do. The only thing that I had to figure out was what pipeline step it came under. I didn't really class most of my tasks under art, rig, surface or model so it was a challenge to decide what to put. In the end I just put anything because I didn't think it made a lot of difference.

I added the shot of the HDR image that I needed to do and made a gantt chart of the different tasks. Now I think that I have a good work structure but I honestly doubt I'll be able to stick to the timeline.

Tutorials

So I have found some tutorials and am in the process of doing them. It is a lot harder than I originally thought.

Here is an image from a tutorial I did.

This tutorial was more about studio lighting and reflections.

I have now completed and read through many tutorials about studio lighting and realise how important it actually is. Most of the lighting I have been using has been spot lights with area light enabled. I have also been rendering with mental ray.

The main thing I have realised is that it is all about the settings. Most of the time the settings will dictate how the final image will look. As long as the lights are in the correct places, the settings and values determine how the final picture will look. It can make the flattest image look amazing and HDR images have specific settings to make it look good.

I have been developing my own image using these tutorials and transferring what I have learnt to my own images.

Here is my own HDR image that I have been working on.

It still needs a bit of work and to be improved but it is heading towards the right direction. 

I chose pool balls because they are simple but give a really nice effect with the right settings and materials. They are also slightly reflective so are good to use in a HDR image. 

I need to continue with the tutorials to make it even better. The more I learn, the better I can improve my skills and help me learn lighting even better.

Terminology

I think the most important part of the research I have done so far, is the terminology. When I collected my research together, I realised that I didn't have a clue what most of them were going on about. I decided to use the Maya help website to look up some terms.

The terms that were most used were global illumination, final gathering, caustics. Some tutorials talked about depth map shadows and maps such as reflection maps and specular maps but even though I found out what they were, they are less likely to be used in the tutorials. Mainly because these are far more complicated to use and create than other methods.

The tutorials also talk about raytracing and refractions so explaining these will be critical. There is also a lot about the lighting attributes such as penumbra angle. These seem obvious once you start using the settings and experimenting but it may need explaining if someone has not used lighting before.

The next stage will be to use what I have learnt and start the tutorials. Now that I have a better understanding it will be easier to accomplish.

Collecting

So over the past week I have been collecting as much research as possible.

I subscribe to 3D Artist magazine which has lots of tutorials inside. I have literally ripped out all the tutorials to do with lighting with lighting in Maya and 3DS Max and filed and archived them (after reading them of course). Even though some of it is not relevant, it has given me a good insight into lighting and a better understanding.

The next thing I am going to do is to do some of these tutorials to get some desired effects because HDRI lighting begins with good lighting setups.

I have also managed to find a book called the HDRI Handbook. There is a new version coming out in August which is obviously too late so the first version will have to do. It is still a very good starting point. From the reviews, I have discovered that it is for photographers and CG artist so thought it would be a good idea to get hold of it and have a read. I have actually bought the book because I have not been able to find anyone that has it or a library with it in. It will be useful to have anyway as I am interested in photography so can only improve that as well.

Talking of libraries, I went to the library at Ravensbourne but had no clue where to start. There are lots of books about lighting but almost none that were relative to CG. I had a good root around but then decided to go elsewhere. All the books I found were far too big to rifle through, especially as not even a chapter would help.

I have also looked at some photography magazines. This was mainly to get a better understanding of HDR. The CG tutorials and magazines tend to not explain what it is as they assume you know. I looked into articles about HDR images just to get a good basic understanding of HDR. I did not really learn much as I knew what it was already but it helped me understand how to explain it better.

I have looked on the internet for existing tutorials. I have found several but they are very hard to understand. This is purely due to the technical language. I have no idea what most of them are saying most of the time so I soon realised that the first port of call was to look up some of the vocabulary.

This is my main focus for the next week. That and getting a simple scene setup so I can play around with some basic lighting tutorials to then build up to creating a HDRI lit scene.

New Project, New Ideas

I have just been given a new project. The project has three components. The first is to create a tutorial, the second to create a production plan using Shotgun software and the final thing is to create a blog to accompany it all.

The first thing that I had to do was to think of an idea. This is the hard bit. I want to do something that will help me with Alex's work but also in my future career.

The first thing that came to mind was rigging. It is something that I really want to learn. I have basic tutorials already but I really want to explore this further.

Another idea I had was lighting. I recently did some freelance work but I had massive trouble with lighting. I managed to get it as the client wanted it but with great difficulty. I thought this would be a chance to get me up to standard.

I know that I want to push myself and there are loads of tutorials online about rigging. This has lead me to the conclusion that I am going to do a tutorial about lighting. This is also going to benefit me more when doing Alex's work too.

I have now chosen to do HDRI lighting because I think this will push me further and get me to really research well and hopefully improve my skills.

The first thing I am going to do is research, research and research.