Thursday 28 October 2010

Maya - Assigning material to selection?

I can't get the Poker Chip Tiffs to assign to the objects. I tried all three but when I clicked on assign material to selection nothing happened. Any ideas where i'm going wrong?

Maya Refresh- so far

Thanks for your help Simon.

Tuesday 26 October 2010

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920- Review (re-write)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
(Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari)
Director: Robert Wiene, 1920
Werner Krauss as Dr. Caligari
Conrad Veidt as Cesare
Friedrich Feher as Francis
Lil Dagover as Jane
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski as Alan
Rudolf Lettinger as Dr. Olsen
I hadn’t read anything about this film before I viewed it so I wasn’t sure what to expect apart from 1hour 11minutes of a 1920 silent movie. The first thought that came to mind after watching it was how much it reminded my of a film I had recently watched called Shutter Island (2010). They both had the same twist at the end.
The basic storyline consists of Francis (Friedrich Feher) sitting on a bench and telling the story of his fiancĂ© Jane (Lil Dagover) and his friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) and how they had once gone to a fair. There was an amusement there of Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) and his amazing somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt) who could predict the future of anybody. Alan’s prophecy was his death before morning.




 This was for-filled. The rest of this flashback spoke of 'Murderous mayhem and pursuit ensued in a cock-eyed artificial landscape of over-sized furniture and ill-formed spiky trees where everything tends towards spirals and spider webs' (Nick Hilditch, http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/03/01/cabinet_of_dr_caligari_1920_review.shtml, 1/3/2001). They resolved the killer to be Cesare under the trance of Dr. Caligari filling out his murderous fantasies. 



However, the ending had a twist, it turned out to be Francis having his own fantasy about himself, Jane and Cesare who were all patients in a mental hospital and Dr. Caligari was the chief Dr of the asylum. 




The sets and art design of this film I thought were amazing. I loved the distortion of everything in the image, e.g. the chairs, tables, doors, walls, floors, everything except the actors. My favorite fine artist is Salvador Dali and although this was before Dali it gave me the same mystical satisfaction as looking at one of his paintings. 
I think these distorted sets were a very classy look to emphasis a film about mental illness and flashbacks and a twist in the storyline.




There was a lot of average camera shot use such as long and medium shots, but also to emphasis a particular expression or emotion at a critical moment in the film there was use of the close up. This particular shot was used a lot when Dr. Caligari (in the fantasy) would show people his somnambulist and this would give the feeling of a greasy twisted man obviously doing something evil.





'surrealist cinema begins right here' (James Sanford, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003361-cabinet_of_dr_caligari/, 26.7/2002)

This movie has been described as 'a film of delusions and deceptive appearances, about madmen and murder' (Roger Ebert, http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090603/REVIEWS08/906039987/1023, 3/6/2009)


Monday 25 October 2010

Maya- note to Alan

Here is a link to the dice which took me a while to learn but I got there in the end:
http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2010/09/maya-starting-to-grasp-it-now.html

Unfortunately, the rest is not markable as I have been struggling a bit and have now run out of time but here are some problems I came across while trying to do some other  tasks:
Here I couldn't figure out how to select rows to change the shape of the nip section...

Here I couldn't find a button that matched the logo on the old version of maya to split this into pieces.....

I tried this a few times but still haven't figured out where i've gone wrong and have left it too late to post for help....


Also..
 I attempted the magnifying glass, I asked for advice on the group blog and I hadn't turned the raytracing on, so I did that and it worked, but I had forgotten to save a picture of this as I still had more to do on it. I saved it and turned my mac off at this point and the next time I opened it the below picture is what appeared so I again don't know where I went wrong but I need to have a lot more practice on the basics.


Sorry Alan

Friday 22 October 2010

Final pose- update 5- And finished :)

Final Portrait.

This is where I went back to the eyes, one of my favourite things to draw are eyes as to me they hold the most emotion of anything. 
anyway, I built up several layers of different shades of blue/green and grey.


Then got a very fine brush and painted on hairs for the eyebrows.
And of course, taking a step back every now and then to see the bigger picture.

I added detail to the toe/ finger nails.



The black spots of the dart frog.




Some gloss to the eyeballs.
and to the skin (as it is slimy skin)


And a step back to get perspective.
a new layer next, to represent the hair.
starting with a dark tone.
then lighter, and after, lighter again.



I took a cropped screen shot, I liked this because you can see the figure closer.
But this is my final piece.

final pose- update 4

Figure 1
 ok, so continued from last time, I added some shadow behind my character.
Figure 2

Figure 3
Here I noticed the light ran our before the cut off line so I added some more light. 
Figure 4
Then I trimmed it back to the cut off line. 
Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7
I started working into the teleportation pod to give it some depth. 
Figure 8
viewing it without the light source.... 
Figure 9
And with. 
Figure 10

Figure 11

Figure 12

Figure 13
Then I tidied the layers up a bit and put all the colour samples into one layer. After this I turned the visibility of these off so I could see how the painting looked so far without blobs of colour in the way. 
Figure 14

Figure 15
In this one I attempted to add some steam/ mist coming out of the pod to give that 'eery something has just happened' feel. 
Figure 16
And then viewed it with the light source on. 
Figure 17

Figure 18

Figure 19
I merged some more layers to tidy things up. 
Figure 20

Figure 21

Figure 22

Figure 23

Figure 24

Figure 25
 Now some more colour editing.
Figure 26

Figure 27

Figure 28

Figure 29

Figure 30

Figure 31

Figure 32
 Highlights on the close up areas near to the desk lamp.
Figure 33

Figure 34

Figure 35

Figure 36

Figure 37

Figure 38
Adding some higher contrast for the 'strong light' effect. 
Figure 39

Figure 40

Figure 41

Figure 42

Figure 43

Figure 44
Some vivid blue to liven things up a little. 
Figure 45

Figure 46

Figure 47

Figure 48
Ok, and again.... so far