Jed has been without a finalised texture for his afro for quite some time. Now it had come to the point where shots of Jed within the environment had to be rendered, so Dan Edgley asked me to create something that didn't look painted (without the dappled patches of hair in the previous texture I created)


And now applied to Jed - in all his textured glory.

Lost is undoubtedly one of my favourite TV shows. It has been consistent since the beginning in keeping me gripped to my seat. Much of this has been due to its mysterious quality, and vast exploration of ideas and themes. At times it may be overly complicated to follow, with several stories entwined at once, but it is a rewarding experience if you persist with it.

Titles

A floating white logo emerges from darkness, out of focus. It is only when it draws closer to us, that the letters become crisper, but only for a split second until it flies past the camera, disappearing once again into the void.


The opening title sequence for Lost is a visual metaphor for the entire show. It informs the audience of everything it needs to know - a mystery that is seemingly transparent will be quickly replaced by the next unanswerable question. The simplicity of the lettering and the contrast of the black and white are particularly striking, also reminding the audience of the show's prominent theme of good and evil.

I quickly modelled this mop and bucket for the hospital room in Polished Off, and textured it using basic Maya blinn and lambert shaders. This has also been imported into the entire lit room scene file.

The light set up which I created for the entire hospital room hasalso been applied to shot 28, when Jed walks past the mirror, completely oblivious to Ed's frantic reflection in the background. This was a fairly simple process, as everything required for this shot had already been textured and imported into the scene file. The area lights have provided most of the fill here, yet I have have had to incorporate two more point lights in order to provide some bounce on the sink and under the shelf as there was too much shadowing. I also slightly amended Simon's original textures of the sink and mirror to blend in more with the environment. The colours are softer and this will make Jed stand out even more when he walks past:


Im particularly pleased with how the finger marks look on the mirror's surface. More colour adjustment to textures for the wall and the props with the scene:


The final still (apart from the character as Simon will be responsible for lighting this.) As this will only be a close up shot, I also amended the texture of the wall as before it was too pixilated and blurry in areas.


The light set up itself:

I have been continuing to work on Polished Off these past few weeks, but not to the same degree as term 1 and 2. My main responsibility this term for Polished Off, has been to create a light set up for the entire hospital room. Being only one environment, it was even more important that I get the lighting correct, as it would be seen in a mulititude of shots throughout the film. Ideally, this should have been done during term 2, but we had no completed scene file of the room, and there was still a way to go until textures were finalised and the rigs of the characters were completed and scaled correctly in proportion to the environment.

Dan Edgley had put together a scene file with all objects imported. I recreated the the floor and wall tiles - giving them more definition, as well as adding details such as pipework on the walls.

Light setup:


I cannot justify having such an immense number of lights (18 in total) yet this doesn't affect render time drastically, as we will not be rendering using Global Illumination or have every light casting shadows. This is probably not the correct workflow, yet it has given the right results.

Initial render


Update

Final

In order to achieve the 'soft' look which Dan Edgley was aiming for, it was necessary to increase the number of lights which cast shadows, and also alter attributes on textures (such as diffuse, specular etc.) and the textures themselves. I should also add that I textured most of the environment (apart from the props) as shown below:


The light set up will apply to many shots in Polished Off, and Simon Harvey will be responsible for making tweaks with the lighting for each individual shot.

I had made an entry in my journal last September after seeing Pixar Studios latest feature UP at the cinema. I described how much it had inspired me to push the quality of my work in this final year.

In the following weeks, I found myself going back through the list of Pixar's other films, each with their own different qualities. Watching these films with a fresh pair of eyes only greatened my appreciation for the animation medium.

Animation has the ability to affect people in ways in which a live action film necessarily could not. I cannot recall ever seeing a film that has made me laugh in one instance and then in the next struggle to hold back a tear or two. UP opens to the mishaps and adventures of the young Carl Fredrickson, not long after leading into a montage sequence of his entire life over a matter of minutes. These films are created for a family audience, yet deal with universal themes, which makes it accessible to anyone.

Visually speaking, Pixar films are simply incredible to look at. They have once more raised the threshold in the realism of their imagery. Aspects such as texturing and lighting in particular are far more photorealistic, yet this does not impede on the animated visual style. As I have been heavily involved in the lighting and texturing stages of production on Polished Off and SPLAY, it has become a routine for me to look back at stills from the film as inspiration. Especially the following images (for both night and day light setups)






I would be a fool to even think I could reach that level of quality, but I think it has been important to set myself a target, even if it may be an unrealistic one. This has definitely been a large driving force this year to get the look of the lighting and the texturing on the films as good as we possibly can.

MK12 is a graphic design company who is best known for creating movie title sequences. When I was browsing through their work I came across a short video of theirs, called 'Embryo':



There is no apparent meaning to this video, but the combination of intrusive razor sharp breathing and disjointed camera movements is interesting. I liked the video for the purposes of style and sound. Also, when you see the mouse close up, you can see dust flying around, as it's being caught by the light - you get a sense that the air is filthy.