Film Stills

From Garth's Blog

From Garth's Blog

From Garth's Blog

From Garth's Blog

From Garth's Blog

From Garth's Blog

From Garth's Blog

Just some film stills in no particular order.  All rendered through mental ray in Maya - approximate render time: 8 minutes/frame.

Each scene was lit individually and adjusted to push the mood, drama, and storytelling of the scene.  Final gather helped a lot with light bouncing in the scene to make it feel more real.  Many materials used throughout the film, mostly manually adjusted Blinns and some mental ray shaders here and there for specific effects.  I found global illumination too unpredictable and didn't find it worth it, especially considering the additional render times.  You can fake this effect pretty easily too, so I really just didn't find it suited my film. Textures were almost all hand-painted in Photoshop, with occasional photos used for certain effects.

Many people have asked what I would do differently if I were to do this whole process again.  Since I now now that I'm very interested in 3D modelling and texturing, I would have pushed this element significantly further.  None of my models were too complex and not many advanced techniques were used.  Early on, I also wished I done more pre-production, choosing specific shapes and angels to have throughout to preserve a consistent, clear style.  Stylization is one aspect that good design-oriented artists will always have an advantage of over specifically technical artists.  It allows for a caricatured approach which can be applied to literally ever object in the film, and will really set it apart from many 3D films that just strive to mimic reality.  In a medium where there is so much more potential,  it feels like we're working backwards when we try to just replicate what already exists in our world.  I went towards this idea in a small way, but it could have been pushed much more.

Now for the technical changes I'd make.  This is a biggie, since there was so much learning throughout this whole process.  For fellow 3D artists out there, know that EVERYTHING matters.  Don't overlook a single concept of film making, and this even includes file structure organization.  It will save you tons of time to use the project folder that Maya provides you, and stick to it.  As for texturing, I would have rather have painted most objects in a polypainting program, such as Mudbox.  I've always felt a disconnect when painting 3D objects in a paint app such as Photoshop.  It's hard to envision how the flat 2D painting will wrap around a 3D object.  Programs such as Mudbox, 3DCoat, Mari, etc are just getting better in terms of how closely they resemble the design structure of photoshop.  I think it helps to unify the objects more and gives you a more accurate eye of exactly how the camera will see colours.  It also allows for easy adjustments since you can just render right away, instead of having to keep replacing files and updating them in Maya.

Another difficult thing about trying to learn 3D and make a film at the same time are the more technical parts, especially from a mainly fine arts-related background.  Learning things like rigging and rendering feel less artistic and more like pure problem solving.  Luckily, I really appreciated each step equally and tried to learn each part a significant amount.  For future 3D filmmakers, rigs are always a problem.  I've found that students (including myself) want to try to replicate feature production style rigs and this just isn't an adequate solution in this short 8 month time span.  You may feel confident in your rigging skills, or you may just want your rig to be unbreakable, despite what angle you move your joints in.  From what I've learned of rigging, this requires a careful consideration of these factors - time vs. knowledge.  By this I mean, if you don't have much rigging knowledge, this is going to take a lot of time.  For such a short student production, your goal should just be to get your character moving somewhat convincingly, and also able to do most of the actions that you need per shot.  There's no point in tweaking a rig forever if you're character hardly needs much movement to convey the story.  The interesting point about all of these technical headaches is that storytelling is always at the heart of it all, and if you can portray the story the way you sought out in the beginning with the rig you have, then a perfect rig won't be necessary.

As for lighting and rendering, you don't need to utilize all of the most advanced techniques to achieve a really desirable result.  Some of my scenes I rendered on a single render layer with no passes.  Things are only worth separating if the scene calls for it.  There's no point in making things complicated if a simple approach will give you a great result.  I found myself always thinking: well what if the lighting or colours aren't convincing, or they stick out too much and draw unwanted attention?  In the end, I really made the decision that simplicity was key, and I was getting results way better with simpler render options and basic lighting, and for a fraction of the render time.  This is also important because you can do test renders significantly faster, which allows for quicker tweaks and easier problem solving.

These are just some of what I learned from my experiences through making a 3D film, if you have any questions about the process feel free to contact me through e-mail.